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3 - Digital Crypt Keepers: Informal Digital Dissemination and Consumption of Post-TV Horror

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 February 2024

James Rendell
Affiliation:
University of South Wales
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Summary

Abstract

The chapter focuses on informal circulation and consumption as a fundamental component of post-TV horror, offering the original concept ‘Only-Click TV’. Exploring Only-Click TV's transcultural and temporal dynamics, the chapter analyses global audiences downloading The Walking Dead during broadcast as just-in-time fandom. The chapter then considers how Only-Click TV is important for mining horror television from yesteryear, looking at Japanese horror series Rasen and Mexican horror anthology Hora Marcada. Accounting for what Only-Click TV lacks as a format, the chapter argues DVD/Blu-ray's symbolic value can elevate horror television. Finally, the chapter explores industry's incorporation of Only-Click TV discourse: BBC3 adopted Only-Click TV functionality when becoming online-only whilst Masters of Horror uses discourses of censorship in paratextual marketing of ‘Imprint’.

Keywords: piracy, transnational, digital media, DVD, Blu-ray, paratext

The book has thus far looked at textual content and its distribution through channels, services, and portals as part of the formal post-TV horror media ecology. However, access through such official means is not readily available to all. Whilst the global COVID-19 pandemic has seen subscriptions to subscription video on demand (SVoD) services such as Netflix drastically increase (Hazelton, 2020), others are unable to consume twenty-first century TV horror through official routes for a host of reasons. Unsurprisingly, then, during the same period the pirating of media has also greatly increased (Cuthbertson, 2020). Questioning and revising the TVIII ‘TV everywhere’ doctrine (Faltesek, 2011), this chapter addresses how and why some audiences cannot or will not use legitimate official distribution channels for media consumption and how this is remedied by delving into the shadows of informal media circulation that also form part of the post-TV landscape.

TVIII and DVD/Blu-ray formats have aided in the transnational flow of content moving beyond national borders (Shimpach, 2010, pp. 51–52; Gillan, 2011, p. 87). However, informal digital distribution routes evidence nuanced cross-border media flows (Lobato and Thomas, 2015, p. 4), fitting within the milieu of convergence culture (Hjort, 2010, pp. 13–14).

Type
Chapter
Information
Transmedia Terrors in Post-TV Horror
Digital Distribution, Abject Spectrums and Participatory Culture
, pp. 157 - 188
Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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