Open TV: Innovation beyond Hollywood and the Rise of Web Television: 20 (Postmillennial Pop) - Hardcover

Christian, Aymar Jean

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1479874221 ISBN 13: 9781479874224

Publisher: NYU Press, 2018

Synopsis

How the internet transformed television
Before HBO’s hit show Insecure, Issa Rae’s comedy about being a nerdy black woman debuted as a YouTube web series The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl, her response to the absence of diverse black characters on the small screen. Broad City, a feminist sitcom now on Comedy Central, originated as a web series on YouTube, developed directly out of funny women Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson’s real-life friendship. These unconventional stories took advantage of the freedom afforded outside the traditional television system: online.
Open TV shows how we have left “the network era” far behind and entered the networked era, with the web opening up new possibilities for independent producers, entrepreneurs, and media audiences. Based on interviews with writers, producers, show-runners, and network executives, visits to festivals and award shows, and the experience of producing his own series, Aymar Jean Christian argues that the web brought innovation to television by opening up series development to new producers, fans, and sponsors that had previously been excluded. Online access to distribution provides creative freedom for indie producers, allows for more diverse storytelling from marginalized communities, and introduces new ways of releasing and awarding shows.
Open TV is essential reading for anyone interested in the changing environment of television and how the internet can inspire alternatives to what’s on TV tonight.

About this title

About the Author

Aymar Jean "AJ" Christian is Associate Professor of Communication Studies and Director of the Media and Data Equity Lab at Northwestern University. His research focuses on the political economy of legacy and new media, cultural studies and community-based research. He is the author of Open TV: Innovation Beyond Hollywood and the Rise of Web Television (2018), and has been published in numerous academic journals, including the International Journal of Communication, Television & New Media, Social Media & Society, Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, among other journals and edited collections.

Edition details

• Publisher: NYU Press
• Publication date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1479874221
• ISBN 13: 9781479874224
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 320