| dc.description.abstract | This thesis analyses the implicit construction of television as a medium in a discourse on internet-distributed television, or ‘OTT TV’. Following Sonia Livingstone, who argues that assessments of new media will indivertibly revaluate television, this thesis interprets in what way references to OTT TV imply a conceptualisation of television. Twelve articles were selected to form a corpus, published between 2015 and 2016 in the United States. In these articles experts explain the intricacies of OTT TV to a larger, lay audience. As such, this corpus is taken as a popularised expert discourse, influencing popular understanding. The corpus was analysed using the analytical tools of critical discourse analysis as provided by Norman Fairclough. This thesis aims to formulate an answer to the research question: In what way does a popularized expert discourse on OTT TV implicitly construct television as a medium? The analysis shows that the discourse on OTT TV constructs the empowerment of the content consumer, which is premised upon and implies the powerless television viewer. The television audience is implicitly constructed as passive, not-conscious and powerless in relation to the OTT TV consumer. Furthermore, live programming is implied to have an increased value for television. Liveness is constructed as a marker for a valuable commodity, through the significance attributed to live television content for OTT platforms. Finally, OTT TV is constructed as the liberation of television by decoupling the medium from the industry. Cable providers are signified as ruling the industry, exploiting their monopolistic position and monetizing on the powerless audience, using valuable content forms to exert control by restricting access. This constructs both an inseparable connection between television and the industry, and implies television’s captivity. This thesis concludes that through a future perspective of the possibilities of internet-distributed television the view of the past is dominated by limitations. The analysed popularised expert discourse implicitly constructs television as a legacy configuration in relation to the medium’s potential form. As such, the findings highlight a retrospective dimension to the technological imaginary. | |
