TALKS 2023
Learning from Audiences in Algorithmic VOD Recommender System Research
2023 February 8th, 5 pm (GMT / UTC)
Mattias Frey
City, University of London
Early-stage research (and indeed wider commentary) on recommender systems for video on demand (VOD) services such as Netflix tended to focus on the novelty of technology and suppositions about the technology’s effects. Real users, and the ways in which algorithmic recommender systems fit into users’ larger media repertoires, were often ignored. Based on a long-term research project and mixed-method empirical audience study, this talk seeks to put audiences at the centre of our understanding of algorithmic recommender systems and point ahead to further means of inquiry through which research on VOD recommender systems can productively progress into a middle stage.
WATCH FULL TALKAlgorithmic Decision-Making, Creativity, and the Movie-Making Machine
2023 May 10th , 11 AM (GMT / UTC)
Pei-Sze Chow
University of Amsterdam
Film studios both commercial and independent are becoming increasingly reliant on AI-powered tools to help make decisions about which screenplays to greenlight, which actors to cast, and what stories to tell on screen. Such algorithmic tools primarily aim at minimising risk while simultaneously positioning themselves as enhancing the creativity of screen practitioners. This talk considers how such AI 'decision-support' tools now being used in the film industry are perceived as creative co-creators and outlines key themes and a research agenda focusing on how to make sense of the impact that such tools will have on the art and business of filmmaking.
WATCH FULL TALKQueer film and tv in the age of streaming: reorienting audiences
2023 October 25th, 2PM (GMT / UTC)
Tyler Klatt
Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere, University of Florida
This talk foregrounds queer spectatorship in the age of streaming to investigate the multiplicity of ways viewers experience the Netflix platform. Streaming services, like Netflix, invite new ways of watching television that challenge the historical construction of the TV as a live, mass, and family-oriented medium from the broadcast period. Similarly, novel distribution technologies rooted in mobile media, platforms, AI, and big data upend the traditional space and place logics of cable era television, defined by the image of the television console as a stationary screen. This presentation analyzes images of television viewers that appear on the netflix.com website and its television commercials from the company's founding to the present, to trace the historical transformation of TV's audiences. By bringing queer viewing experiences into the spotlight, this talk investigates the intersections between gender, sexuality, and new media technologies to explore the impact of streaming on queer life and queer worldmaking.
REGISTERThe Algorithm Knows I'm Black
2023 September 27th, 3PM (GMT / UTC)
Daniel Meyerend
University of Michigan
In October of 2018, several Black Netflix users took to Twitter to air their grievances about images in movie thumbnails featuring Black actors with minor roles, even when the movie itself was a majority white cast. In response to these critiques, Netflix claimed that because users are not asked about their racial identity, it is impossible to personalize the individual Netflix experience using identity markers. This article explores the interplay between algorithmic cultures and representations of race, examining the identity and voices of users and how their agency is affected within algorithmic systems. Users are seeking agentic traction in these algorithmic spaces, and this research begins to address how Black users are positioning themselves to make sense of the digital constraints placed on them. Black subscribers of Netflix heavily critiqued the algorithms used to advertise content to them, and I examine how Netflix constructs Black users as Black subjects in order to keep them engaged with the platform.
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