The Of"Cial Report by Twitter, That Does Not Take Note of the Drop in Viewer Ratings
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The Paradox of Liveness FROM THE BROADCAST MEDIA ERA TO THE SOCIAL MEDIA ERA Karin van Es 1 by Karin van Es This text is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial- No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License. You are free to share, copy, distribute, transmit the work. <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0> Design: Asher Boersma Cover printed by Martijn van de Griendt, Boekdrukatelier het Y, Amsterdam ISBN 978-94-6103-039-9 2 The Paradox of Liveness From the Broadcast Media Era to the Social Media Era Van het televisietijdperk naar het socialemediatijdperk (met een samenvatting in het Nederlands) Proefschrift ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Universiteit Utrecht op gezag van de rector magni!cus, prof. dr. G.J. van der Zwaan, ingevolge het besluit van het college voor promoties in het openbaar te verdedigen op vrijdag 16 mei 2014 des middags te 12.45 uur door Karin Florentien van Es geboren op 2 september 1985 te Tunis, Tunesië 3 Promotoren: Prof. dr. E. Müller Prof. dr. J.S. de Leeuw Copromotor: Dr. J. Keilbach 4 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements 8 Introduction 11 1 Liveness as Concept in Media Studies 2 Constellations of Liveness in the Social Media Era 3 Analyzing "ese Constellations 4 Structure 1 !e Paradox of Liveness: !e Case of Livestream 49 Introduction 1.1 "e Mogulus/Livestream Constellation 1.1.1 "e Mogulus/Livestream Metatext: Remediating Traditional TV 1.1.2 "e Space of Participation 1.1.3 User Responses 1.2 From Users to Event Owners: "e New Constellation 1.2.1 "e Metatext: Being "ere 1.2.2 "e Volvo Ocean Race: "e Metatext and Space of Participation 1.3 "e Institutionalization of the Livestream Platform Conclusions 2 ‘Live’ as Evaluative Category: !e Case of eJamming 83 Introduction 2.1 "e Metatext: Empowering Musicians 2.1.1 Real-Time 2.1.2 Sociality 2.2 "e Space of Participation 2.2.1 Techno-Cultural Forces 2.2.2 Economic Forces 2.2.3 Legal Forces 2.3 User Responses 2.3.1 Real-Time 2.3.2 Sociality 2.4 Opening the ‘Black Box’ of Liveness Conclusions 6 3 !e Liveness of Social TV: !e Case of !e Voice (2011) 109 Introduction 3.1 Social TV 3.1.1 "e Death of Broadcast TV 3.1.2 In Television Practice 3.2 Season One of !e Voice 3.2.1 "e Format Metatext: From Authenticity to Participation 3.2.2 "e Live Shows’ Space of Participation 3.3 User Responses 3.3.1 "e Live Constructs 3.3.2 Some Conditions of Liveness 3.4 Tension Surrounding Liveness: "e Rhythms and Temporalities of Broadcast Television 3.5 Tension Surrounding Liveness: Audience Participation Conclusions 4 Rede"ning Relations to Live: !e Case of Facebook 161 Introduction 4.1 About Facebook 4.1.1 "e Platform Metatext: Me and My Friends 4.1.2 "e Main Space of Participation 4.2 "e News Feed 4.2.1 "e Incarnations of Liveness 4.2.2 "e Algorithms 4.2.3 "e Liveness of the News Feed 4.3 User Responses 4.4 Tension Surrounding Liveness: Producer-Relation to Liveness Conclusions Conclusion: Considering Liveness 195 Resources 207 References 209 Samenvatting 229 Curriculum Vitae 235 7 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS And if you’re glad when you hit somebody’s marble [when you aim], then you sort of secretly didn’t expect too much to do it. So there’d have to be some luck in it, there’d have to be slightly quite a lot of accident in it. - J.D. Salinger in Seymour: An Introduction (1959) Completing my dissertation certainly included luck, but in the form of a lot of encouraging colleagues, friends and family rather than a lot of accident. First and foremost I would like to thank my promotors Sonja de Leeuw and Eggo Müller for their wisdom, in o#ering me a job in Television Studies I didn’t even think to apply for, and for their continued support throughout the years. I particularly owe a deep debt of gratitude to Eggo for master- minding an encouraging and stimulating ‘space of participation’ for this project. Furthermore, I am grateful to my co-promotor Judith Keilbach for sparking my interest in the topic of the dissertation and for being a great latte macchiato sparring partner ever since. My gratitude extends also to Nick Couldry, who not only wrote the book that inspired my thinking on liveness, but who was willing to meet and dis- cuss the ideas that ensued from this engagement. And to William Uricchio and Nanna Verhoe#, two of the sharpest minds I know, who generously took the time to discuss my !rst draft. "ey were instrumental in helping me thicken my arguments. Furthermore I couldn’t have done without my frolleagues Bram Hendrawan and Klaas de Zwaan, two talented chefs, who I have had the good fortune of having around to exchange silly ambitions, PhD frustra- tions, co#ee and food. A big thank-you to my colleagues in the New Media Studies team: Ann-Sophie Lehmann, Joost Raessens, Mirko Tobias Schäfer, Imar de Vries, Marianne van den Boomen, Sybille Lammes, René Glas, Koen Leurs, Tom van de Wetering, Indira Reynaert, Sanne Koevoets, Isabella van Elferen and Michiel de Lange, who have been collegial and stimulating to work with. A special shout-out to Ann-Sophie, for all her support and guidance. And to Mirko, who has greatly inspired my thinking about and passion for new media studies. It has been an honor co-teaching ‘GTNM’ with him and I am happy to be able to continue our collaboration at Utrecht Data School. "anks also to all the teaching assistants working for GTNM these past 8 years, and Rob van Grinsven in particular, for making my teaching obligations so much easier and much more fun. Moreover, I am very grateful to all the members of the Centre for Television in Transition (TViT) who have o#ered a safe space to exchange and test new ideas throughout my struggles at various stages of the disserta- tion. Over these past four years I have had the fortune of having some great friends for encouragement and to help overcome setbacks. For this I express gratitude to Martin Zebracki, Anna Sonnemans, Loes Meys, Debbie Marbus, Laura Sie, Nienke de Groot, Tamara Zijtsel, Pepita Hesselberth and Claudy Op den Kamp. A special thanks to Elke Boogert for her friendship and willingness to proofread the !nal draft of this dissertation, and to Asher Boersma, who was kind enough to use his talent to make this dissertation look good. Above all I want to thank my family: Bart, Ika, Annemiek, Sophie, Alberto and Lara. For they have never failed in providing safe and warm homes from which to explore the world and in o#ering the much-needed sense of relativism. And !nally, much a#ection to my wife Eef, who not only keenly re$ected on my work along the way, but who on a daily basis pro- vides me with strength, faith and love. Hilversum, February 2014. 9 10 Introduction And we really messed up. And we’re all very sorry. That didn’t belong on TV. We took every precaution we knew how to take to keep that from being on TV. And I personally apologize to you that that happened. – Shepard Smith (Fox news anchor, 2012) JoDon Romero, an alleged carjacker, led police on an 80-mile high-speed chase on 28 September 2012. Fox network was broadcasting the chase ‘live’ during Studio B with Shepard Smith. Romero, who had been shooting at the squad cars and news helicopter that pursued him, suddenly stopped his vehicle, got out, and started running. He stumbled down a dirt road and, after he got up, pulled out a gun and shot himself in the head. News anchor Shepard Smith, who had been narrating the event, was heard shouting at the control room to get o# the air. Smith immediately apologized to the viewers, with the words quoted above (an excerpt from his full apology). After the broadcast, Michael Clemente, Executive Vice President of news editorial for Fox News, issued a public apology as well. Nonetheless, the three sons of Romero !led suit against Fox, claiming to have su#ered post-traumatic stress disorder from watching the footage of their father’s shooting online. Leaving the tragedy of the incident aside, I would like to draw attention to the interesting dynamic surrounding liveness that it reveals. On the one hand, the program’s claim to broadcasting ‘live’ entails the promise of an en direct feed of events as they unfold. But on the other hand, this incident also demonstrates a need to manage what is broadcast over the air. "is managing involves, amongst other things, narration (making sense out of these im- ages), but also monitoring and editing what is shown. "e dynamic that presents itself here has been well captured by John T. Caldwell (2000). In the article “Live Slippages: Performing and Programming Televisual Liveness”, he looks at what he calls ‘live slippages’. "ese slippages occur when liveness “slip[s] from the technical conditions of simultaneous transmission and viewership” (2000:22). Caldwell explores the hypothesis that programmers use liveness tactically (meaning textually and aesthetically), rather than simply as a strategy (meaning as displays of trans- mission and superior connection). Analyzing how Wescam’s Air-to-Ground 11 Surveillance System was being sold to station executives in a demo tape, he concluded: The threat of the live may test the limits of the news division and journal- ists, yet Wescam’s hi-technology offers to seek, tame, and package the vola- tile live-!ow in manageable ways.