| dc.description.abstract | To cut or not to cut? This is the question that many viewers are asking themselves nowadays. The cord-cutting phenomenon concerns those newfound watching behaviours that induce certain viewers to snip their cable cord, dropping pay-TV services, and seeking for alternative ways of accessing television content such as over-the-top television providers, free over-the-air television, and more or less legal online platforms for streaming and downloading a personalized television menu. These viewers attempt to circumvent the established television system and its calcified institutional and legal norms that are constraining their televisual experience, whereas the television industry tries to stop this leakage and contain its possible disruptive effects. Marginal but worrisome, this phenomenon is emerging in the midst of our digital convergent culture, and it can actually be considered as symptomatic of today’s larger redefinition of television and the relative shifts in audience practices. Within this scenario, my work culturally and theoretically frames this current and fast-developing trend, conceptualizing it as a burgeoning counterpublic whose symbolic power is affecting both the notion of television, as well as, the political-economic dynamics of the television industry. Indeed, on the one hand the symbolic power of the cord-cutting counterpublic is re-shaping the cultural and social construction of television, and legitimating newfound viewing behaviours that revolutionize the classical idea of ‘TV.’ On the other hand, the cutters are entering and altering the power interplay of the television distribution industry. In particular, from a critical analysis of the dynamics of resistance and resilience between cutters and the television distribution platforms, a mutually transforming effect is emerging that is fundamental for the future developments of our ‘post-television world.’ | |
