Description:
'Binge-watching' has become an umbrella term for a number of analytical questions in contemporary television studies, serving to describe the structure, marketing and publication model of Netflix and other streaming platforms.
Because the term describes a range of different ideas linked to streaming television programming, research on binge-watching can bring together a number of different and related questions. This edited collection explores binge-watching and its role in contemporary television from the perspectives of fan studies, audience research, transnational television studies and narratology. This breadth of scope makes it possible to explore a broad variety of meanings and functions of the term and concept in contemporary television studies.
Brief description: Mareike Jenner is a researcher at Anglia Ruskin University. Her research focusses on Streaming, American Television, and Middlebrow Television. Her edited collection Binge-Watching and Contemporary Television Studies was published by Edinburgh University Press in 2021. Her previous work includes the monographs Netflix and the Re-Invention of Television and American TV Detective Dramas.
Review Quotes: There is much useful material in this collection, with detailed case studies of series such as J´ulia Havas and Tanya Horeck's feminist critique of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (2015-9) and Unbelievable (2019), Stevens's discussion of fan responses to Starsky and Hutch (1975-79) and Orcun Can's analysis of the narrative structure of Gilmore Girls (2000-7). The writing is clear and accessible; the evident hesitancy throughout in asserting boundaries and definitions helpfully symbolises the messiness of television and indicates understandable caution on the part of the authors, especially for concepts such as this that circulate outside of academia.--Brett Mills "Critical Studies on Television"