Streaming culture and a new wave of institutionalisation of audience measurement in China

Dados Bibliográficos

ID11267606
AutoresElaine Jing Zhao (0000-0003-2739-2625, The University of New South Wales, Australia, autor correspondente)
Ano2023
Volume45
Fascículo8
Páginas1631-1647
Data de publicação2023-11-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoMedia Culture & Society (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0163-4437 • E-ISSN: 1460-3675
EditoraSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/01634437231182017
OpenAlexW4382681416
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas5
Referências citadas37

This article examines the unfolding re-institutionalisation of audience measurement as the streaming culture reshapes the television industry in China. Following a brief introduction of the institutionalisation of the ratings culture, I examine how streaming platforms are reconfiguring audience measurement by tracing how various metrics are defined, used and valued by different platforms, in different contexts and across time. The analysis reveals continuing and new forms of informalities despite signs of convergence towards the use of algorithmic metrics, which are closely connected to streaming service providers’ self-serving interest in a multi-sided market. Next, I discuss how the disruption of the state’s near-monopoly in audience measurement in the traditional television industry breaks the regulatory inertia. I explain the dual-approach to institutional intervention by the state – the regulation of metric commodities through mandated calibration, and the launch of an official system as market alternative and policy instrument. I argue that the state intervention – through governance of and with algorithms – constitutes adaptive cultural governance serving ‘mass’ audience construction, and the regulation doubles up as a market response to serve the state’s intention to reclaim power in and over the market

Business · Corporate governance · Economics · Hierarchy · Institutionalisation · Intervention (counseling · Management · Market economy · Monopolization · Monopoly · Political science · Public relations · Sociology · State (computer science · China's Socioeconomic Reforms and Governance · Cinema and Media Studies · Computer Science · Law · Media Studies and Communication