How has social media impacted upon the relationship between Television producers and spectators in a post-network digital era?

In this essay I propose to look at how new media

technologies have shifted our processes of home viewing.

Whilst audience engagement with television has always

involved elements of action, or reaction, on the viewer’s

part, it was not until the 1970s that audience reception

came into focus within the fields of academic study; it

was through Stuart Hall’s seminal essay ‘Encoding and

Decoding in the Television Discourse’ (1973), where he

positioned the spectator as being active, rather than

passive, that reception theory emerged. Influential works

examining audiences followed in the 1980s, most

predominantly with David Morley’s ‘Study of The

‘Nationwide’ Audience’ (1980) and Dorothy Hobson’s

studies on Soap Operas (Crossroads: Drama of a Soap

Opera’ (1982)), which brought with them a

reconceptualisation of the audience; Morley’s and

Hobson’s research, as stated by Hobson, ‘gave prominence

to the views of the audience and their opinions about

programmes’ (Hobson 2006: 123). Although methodologies

centred around examining the experience of the viewer

have gained momentum in film and television studies, the

growth of digital technology in the past decade has

drastically changed the ways in which audiences are able

to interact with, and consume the moving image;

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consequently, the ways in which audience reception can be

read has altered. In his book ‘Convergence Culture’

(2006), Henry Jenkins details the change of the media

landscape, describing how viewers are becoming

increasingly part of a ‘participatory culture’ (Jenkins

2006: Introduction), one which ‘contrasts with older

notions of passive media spectatorship’. Picking up on

the problematic nature of defining the audience in this

era of media convergence, he suggests that, ‘rather than

talking about media producers and consumers as occupying

separate roles, we might now see them as participants who

interact with each other according to a new set of rules

that none of us fully understands’ (Jenkins 2006:

Introduction).

In Jenkins’ latest book ‘Spreadable Media’, Jenkins,

Sam Ford and Joshua Green attempt to outline ‘the shift

from a culture shaped by the logics of broadcasting

toward one fostering greater grassroots participation’

(Jenkins, Ford and Green, 2013: xiv), arguing that, if

media content ‘doesn’t spread, it’s dead’ (Jenkins et al.

2013: 1). ‘Spreadability’, in their terms, ‘refers to the

potential – both technical and cultural- for audiences to

share content for their own purposes’ (Jenkins et al.

2013: 3). Whilst it is important to note that the above-

mentioned shifts do pose problems for media distribution

and content (for example, ‘spreadability’ now makes it

problematic for corporations to control content), I

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endeavour to look specifically at audience engagement

with the content that does exist in this ‘spreadable’

form.

As content becomes more dispersible, the nature of

the viewer’s engagement with it changes. The movement of

texts across multiple platforms enables the reader (or

viewer) to engage in dialogue with them, and to inform

how they are passed on, and re-interpreted. Through

active audience interaction, the original text is turned,

in this way, into a transmedia one. Jenkins describes

this process as ‘transmedia storytelling … where integral

elements of a fiction get dispersed systematically across

multiple delivery channels for the purpose of creating a

unified and coordinated entertainment experience

(Jenkins, ‘Transmedia 202’). In this essay, I will be

looking at what I will call ‘The Conversation’ (Figure

1), the cyclical transmedia communication that has

developed between on-screen content, and social media,

between producer and spectator, across these multiple

digital networks. Transtextual conversations have, of

course, been taking place for centuries, (for instance,

minstrels were telling stories in court as far back as

the thirteenth century), but, as Jenkins et al. highlight

in ‘Spreadable Media’, ‘these [social media] platforms

offer new capacities for people to pass along media

artifacts’ (Jenkins et al. 2013: 2). They point out,

‘perhaps nothing is more human than sharing stories’

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(Jenkins et al. 2013: 2), and social media platforms

(perhaps most predominantly Twitter, Facebook and

YouTube) undeniably invite (and indeed rely on) audiences

to play a role in the process of sharing and exchange of

media-

related content.

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Figure 1: The Conversation

In media theorist Rhiannon Bury’s recent project

‘Television 2.0’ (the title of which alludes to the

convergence of the internet and television), she sets out

‘to measure and analyze the shift in both audience

reception and production’ (www.Rhiannonbury.org) in

relation to television viewing in the participatory

culture we are now part of, collecting survey data which

highlights the significance of social media interaction

within processes of spectatorship. One particular strand

of her research focuses on the ways in which television

fans engage with Twitter, one of the most used social

networking sites in existence. With over 230 million

monthly active users (Twitter 2013), 32 million of which

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tweeted about TV in the US alone in 2012 (SocialGuide,

Inc. 2013), Twitter is a primary example of the scope of

transmedia social interaction; in fact, due to the

substantial volume of tweets relating to TV content, in

October 2013 ‘Nielsen, a global information and

measurement company, announced the commercial launch of

Nielsen Twitter TV Ratings’, whereby they aim to quantify

‘the total activity and reach of TV-related conversation

on Twitter’ (Nielsen 2013). The emotional response (or

the lack thereof) to the viewing process itself, and the

factors which drive audiences to engage with content in

this way cannot be understood in depth through the

analysis of such statistical data; however, it is

certainly helpful in providing an overview of the growth

of television viewers who are simultaneously identifiable

as social media interactors.

Whilst Twitter promotes itself as a platform free from

traditional commercial (and socio-political) constraints,

which ‘give[s] everyone the power to create and share

ideas and information instantly, without barriers’

(Twitter 2013), it is important to recognise its status

as a commercial venture, reliant on corporate businesses

to buy into the products it offers. The fact that users

can converse ‘without barriers’ inevitably influences the

types of debates that occur on Twitter, and Twitter is

able to analyse and utilise these trends to drive their

business; on their official ‘Twitter Media’ webpage, they

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promise ‘Best practices, success stories and resources to

help you bring the power of Twitter to TV… Don’t miss the

moment! Embrace the live conversations happening around

TV on Twitter and directly engage with, and grow, your

audience’ (‘Twitter Media’ 2013). What recent statistics

on Twitter confirm is that conversations are taking place

on the platform in response to television content, and at

a high rate, and the promise that Twitter makes, of

aiding audience growth, is something that is seemingly

being acknowledged more and more by television networks

and production companies who are creating Twitter

profiles and feeds related to their televisual content.

They are, in effect, repositioning themselves in order to

actively take part in ‘The Conversation’ that I have

previously mentioned. Rhiannon Bury notes this

development in her discussion with Henry Jenkins:

‘A second major shift that I would like to mention is

related to the production of television’s secondary

texts or paratexts. There was been a lot of “industry

creep” into the areas that were once exclusively the

domain of fans. Most networks host discussion boards

and produce a range of ancillary content for their

series websites, including quizzes, polls, games, as

well as facebook pages and twitter feeds. The reasons

for this move are obvious: fans are also consumers and

media content producers want to foster fan loyalties to

their brand. Combine easily accessible sites with the

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power of Google and YouTube, the latter which allows

for far wider distribution of fan vids than in the

past, and the result is a multiplicity of entry points

into fandom’ (Bury qtd in Jenkins, 2010)

What Bury describes here is something that I intend to

explore, and illustrate further through a discussion on

US Television crime drama series Breaking Bad (2008-2013),

whose success was a marker of the power that social media

interaction holds to transform a text’s reception. Breaking

Bad, and the multi-layered conversations taking place

surrounding the series, across digital platforms, by both

its producers and consumers (I use these terms in a

traditional sense, as the boundaries between ‘producers’

and ‘consumers’ are becoming ever more blurred) are, I

contend, demonstrative of how social media is remaking

the experiences of home viewing.

Reconceptualising the viewer in the post-network era

When Breaking Bad’s finale aired on September 29th 2013

on US TV cable channel AMC, it was seen by 10.3 million

viewers, yet during its first season, it averaged only

1.2 million viewers. This dramatic increase in

spectatorship over five years, and the groundbreaking

success of the series was ultimately a result of the

symbiotic relationship between AMC’s programming content

and online video-streaming platform Netflix (which

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allowed non-cable-subscribers easier access to catch up

on the programme), along with the social media

conversations surrounding the show which drastically

contributed to its growing reputation as the TV series to

watch. As mentioned previously, for the purposes of this

essay I will explore Breaking Bad in relation to the

conversation that develops between content, producer and

viewer as a result of the cyclical transmedia

communication across multiple digital platforms in the

post-network era.

Whilst I will be using my case study to illustrate

how social media is influencing the television viewing

experience in our current climate, it is first important

to address the reconceptualisation of the television

medium itself that has occurred in this period. The post-

network era, according to theorist Amanda Lotz, dates

‘from the beginning of the present century’ (Lotz, 2009:

50), and lies in contrast to the domestic viewing

experience of the network era (1950s-1980s) where

televisual content was accessible on limited platforms,

namely through the television set itself; during this

time, ‘minimal choice and control characterized our

viewing experience’ (Lotz, 2009: 51). Domestic

consumption now, in juxtaposition, encompasses several

modes of viewing and through several types of devices

(tablets, smartphones, laptops, desktop computers, DVD

players, games consoles, streaming devices) (Figure 2),

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and, indeed, is not always strictly ‘domestic’ due to the

portability of these devices. The viewer is now in

control of what they watch, and can choose when, where,

and how to watch it. Digitisation, especially, has

heightened the degree to which the spectator can organise

and, in essence, curate their own viewing experience. No

longer is programming determined solely by broadcasting

networks now that the viewer has at their disposal the

technologies by which they can actively select content

according to personal preference, when and where they so

choose. As Lotz argues, ‘digitalization allowed

interoperability between television and the other

technologies that came to define the contemporary media

world. Convergence between television and computers was a

key outcome of interoperability… Digitalization was the

key that unlocked new portable, extradomestic uses of

television in the post-network era’ (Lotz, 2009: 53).

Whilst television spectatorship is becoming more

individualised for the reasons mentioned above, the

social experience commonly associated with ‘water-cooler’

TV of the network era is far from lost; it has simply

spread to different platforms, most noticeably online.

This is, as Spigel describes in the book of the same

name, ‘Television after TV’ (2004).

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Figure 2: New forms of domestic consumption in thepost-network

era, where online technologies are central to

viewing experiences

Televisual content may be spreading to different

platforms, where it can be viewed through different

devices, but it is nonetheless content that continues to

be viewed. Furthermore, it is content that continues to

be discussed. As Sharon Marie Ross argues in ‘Beyond the

Box: TV and the Internet’, it would appear that ‘viewers

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are responding to various kinds of calls to tele-

participation - invitations to interact with the TV shows

beyond the moment of viewing and “outside” of the TV show

itself’ (Ross, Sharon Marie (2008) Beyond the Box: TV and the

Internet. New York: Wiley-Blackwell). Breaking Bad’s

popularity is an example of this.

It is perhaps worthwhile to question what the

‘invitations’ are that Ross describes, before examining

examples of audience responses to them. It would appear

that this is what Rhiannon Bury makes reference to in her

description of the ‘’industry creep’’ into the areas that

were once exclusively the domain of fans’ (Bury qtd in

Jenkins, 2010), that is, the ways in which networks and

content producers offer viewers a ‘multiplicity of entry

points into fandom’ (Bury qtd in Jenkins, 2010) through

their own presence within social media platforms. As

technological advances and processes of digitisation have

opened up new ways of seeing and engaging with television

(both practically, and theoretically speaking), they have

also prompted a shift in the fabric of fan communities.

Fans in the network era have typically been regarded as

an organised subculture, but with the ubiquitous presence

of social media invitations, fannish engagement is

becoming increasingly normalised and fan practices

augmented; as a result, the question of what constitutes

a fan is harder to answer. In Rhiannon Bury’s study

‘Fandom 2.0’, she suggests that in order to understand

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differing levels of audience interaction better, it would

be beneficial to ‘move beyond this hierarchical binary

understanding of fans and move to a concept of the

participatory continuum, that includes [real life] as

well on online engagement and community’ (Bury, 2013).

On this participatory continuum spectators are both

viewers of content and users of technology, to varying

degrees. Producers are users of technology alongside

spectators, but also producers of content, and viewers of

users’ activities (in that they monitor viewer-user

engagement with their own content). As Bertha Chin

comments in her journal entitled ‘The fan-media producer

collaboration’ (2013), ‘The technological advancements of

Web 2.0 enabled media industry professionals – producers,

actors, crewmembers – and fans to co-exist within the

same symbolic space by using the same technological

platforms and software’ (Chin 2013: 88).

It is apparent then, from scholarly debate, that the

blurring of boundaries between producer and consumer is a

key characteristic of post-network television.

Henceforth, the transmedia conversation between the two

will be central to my focus in my discussion of Breaking

Bad.

Breaking Bad: The Conversation

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When Breaking Bad’s first season was broadcast on

American cable channel AMC in January 2008, its poor

audience numbers almost led to its demise. Yet five years

later, it is posited as being one of the most successful

drama series’ of the decade. What, might we ask, saved

it?

A key factor was undoubtedly the platforms upon

which it was available. First, piracy played a

significant part in Breaking Bad’s eventual success,

offering access to content otherwise only available

through a subscription-only cable channel. As the series

creator Vince Gilligan himself notes, “There was an

upside to the piracy, because it got the word out in

regards to Breaking Bad” (qtd in Dibdin, 2013). As a result

of the popularity of the show, according to illegal

download figures, on-demand streaming service Netflix

(who, according to Vice President of Content Acquisition,

Kelly Merryman, look at what does well on piracy sites”

(qtd in Ernesto, 2013)) decided to purchase it. In turn,

many of its online viewers flocked there. Netflix CEO

Reed Hastings describes how ‘there’s [certainly] some

torrenting that goes on … but some of that just creates

the demand,” (qtd in Ernesto, 2013); whilst it is

commonly assumed that piracy is a growing problem which

only impacts negatively on the industry, this and

Netflix’s Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos’ revelation

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that the company are ‘noticing a drop in BitTorrent

traffic every time they launch in a new territory’ does

indeed suggest that “the best way to combat piracy isn’t

legislatively or criminally but by giving good options,”

(Sarandos qtd in Ernesto, 2013). In this way, Netflix

positions itself as a competitor to pirate sites, and as

a platform which offers easy, affordable access to

content that is driven by consumer-demand. According to

Vince Gilligan, ‘it is very likely that Breaking Bad would

have been cancelled after season two’ (qtd in Dibdin,

2013) had Netflix not picked it up. In purchasing the

series, Netflix enabled Breaking Bad to find the audience

that it was failing to reach on AMC, and, as a result,

enabled the show to ‘[reach] the threshold of viewership

that was needed to stay on the air (Gilligan qtd in

Dibdin, 2013). Through Breaking Bad, Netflix showcased its

potential as a platform that can foster and grow

audiences for producers and networks, and has positioned

itself at the cutting edge of developments in online-

viewing in a post-network era.

In the lead up to the fifth and final season of

Breaking Bad, Netflix saw a surge in viewers signing up for

their service in order to catch up with the previous

seasons; this trend has been categorised as ‘binge-

watching’ and has emerged as a cultural phenomenon with

the advent of DVD box-sets in the 1990s, and on-demand,

online streaming in recent years. The acknowledgement of

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the term in the Oxford English Dictionary’s online blog,

where it cites it as a word in the running to be included

in the esteemed Oxford English Dictionary itself,

highlights the ubiquitous presence of online viewing

habits in contemporary society.

binge-watch, verb:to watch multiple episodes of a

television programme in rapid succession, typically

by means of DVDs or digital streaming […]

The word binge-watch has been used in the circles of

television fandom since the late 1990s, but it has

exploded into mainstream use in 2013. The original

context was watching programmes on full-season DVD

sets, but the word has come into its own with the

advent of on-demand viewing and online streaming. In

2013, binge-watching got a further boost when the

video-streaming company Netflix began releasing

episodes of its serial programming all at once

(Oxford University Press, 2013).

Whilst, as discussed, Netflix gave Breaking Bad a

second home, AMC honed in on the series’ cross-platform

audiences with the types of ‘calls to tele-participation’

and ‘invitations’ that Ross refers to (Ross 2008),

stepping up their marketing campaigns across the spectrum

of social media platforms during the year-long mid-season

break from September 2012 and leading up to its series

finale in September 2013. Official Breaking Bad pages on

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Twitter and Facebook (as well as on Instagram) saw a

proliferation of paratextual content explicitly inviting

users to become involved with it. Gaining access to this

content demands the simplest of actions for the social

media user, searching for the official page within the

platform and a click of the mouse (or touch of the

screen) to either ‘like’ it, ‘join the group’ (Facebook)

or follow’ (Twitter and Instagram); once part of the

network, the user will then see their updates within

their news feeds. There is considerable interweaving

between social network accounts in Breaking Bad’s posts,

which serves to direct the user to notice its presence on

other social platforms. For example, the tweet by actor

Aaron Paul (who plays central character Jesse Pinkman)

from the 26th November 2012 was reposted on Facebook

(Figure 2), making visible his Twitter comment (‘I just

finished reading the first episode of the final season of

Breaking Bad and words can not express what I just

experienced. Holy Shit’), whilst simultaneously drawing

attention to the actor’s presence on another social

networking platform affiliated with AMC and Breaking Bad

(If a Facebook user was a fan of Paul, and not already

following him on

Twitter, this may

prompt them to do so).

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Figure 2

In all of their social networking pages, users are

able to keep up with regular updates. When on a season

break, AMC created talking points through their posts in

order to create a buzz, and even after the series’

conclusion, they continue to post material to hold their

users’ interest. The majority of links on AMC’s Facebook

and Twitter pages directs users to their official

website, where they are greeted by a wider range of

‘exclusive’ ancillary content (information on the show,

online shop, games, quizzes and webisodes to name a few).

Here, Talking Bad, the ‘weekly, half-hour live after-show

and companion piece for its Emmy Award-winning series …

[which] analyzes and examined every detail of Breaking

Bad’s final eight episodes’ (AMC.com 2013) can be

streamed (Talking Bad is also available on Netflix), and

the upcoming Breaking Bad spin-off series Better Call Saul

has an interactive page. In addition, AMC also offers

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visitors to the site use of its ‘Story Sync’ feature for

Breaking Bad, a ‘two-screen viewing’ experience’ where, ‘as

you’re watching the show… pieces of content pop up’

(McKean qtd in Edelsburg 2012).

Whilst AMC certainly posts content on social media

networks with the intention of directing users to their

official products, they also seek to keep their users and

fans communicating, and invite them to build their own

fan communities within official Breaking Bad online spaces.

Perhaps having learnt a lesson after their inquiry into

Twitter accounts imitating and posting as characters from

their show Mad Men (2007-present) in 2008 resulted in a

backlash from fans, AMC now not only embraces fan

practices such as this, but also promotes unofficial fan

practices and work; for example, on its Facebook post of

September 24th 2012 (Figure 3), it tells users to ‘Check

out the latest submissions to Breaking Bad’s fan art’, and

on its October 19th post, shares a link to a YouTube

parody of Breaking Bad (Figure 4).

By promoting fan activities, and providing social media

users with access to exclusive content in reward for

their engagement, AMC show a respectful appreciation of

their fans. AMCs marketing synergy across media platforms

is proof of their social networking prowess; they speak

the social media language with a fluency that makes it

easy for viewers to respond to, and this is evidenced in

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the user activity that occurs across their Breaking Bad

accounts.

The levels with which users do respond to posts is

dependent upon the platform, and the content posted. For

example, when a question is posed such as ‘Which Breaking

Bad poster is your favourite?’, there will inevitably be

more user comments than when a post simply asks the user

to ‘LIKE if you’re watching’ (such as on the 12th August

2013 on Facebook, to which it received 87846 likes).

Either way,

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Figure 3

Figure 4

users do respond. ‘Liking’ and ‘Sharing’ posts is the

most popular activity by users across these platforms.

Whilst by doing so the user may not be explicitly

expressing their opinion on related matter (although

Facebook does offer the option to comment on the shared

post) they are nonetheless, in some form, publicly

announcing their interest in the Breaking Bad series.

7,205,183 Facebook users like the Breaking Bad Page, with

466,182 of them ‘talking about this’, whilst 778,280

users follow @BreakingBad_AMC on Twitter, and over 70,000

follow Breaking Bad pages on Instagram.

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Breaking Bad’s recent Facebook and Twitter post of the

19th December 2013 is illustrative of the social media

conversation that develops as a result of the producer’s

(AMC) invitation to consumers to interact with their

online content. Revealing to users ‘Breaking Bad #1 TV show

of the year on iTunes’, they provide a link to the iTunes

page where it can be downloaded (another example of

directing users to interconnected platforms), and the

post is also accompanied by a recent photograph of Aaron

Paul with his thumbs up and smiling, presumably in

response to the news relayed. After only fourteen hours

of it being online, it received 104,289 Facebook likes

and was marked as a Twitter ‘favourite’ 1948 times. It

was shared 2448 times on Facebook, and ‘retweeted’

(shared with followers) 1090 times on Twitter (Figure 5).

1,090RETWEETS 1,948FAVORITES Figure 5

In addition to this, 1695 Facebook users had

commented on the post within this short amount of time.

One user’s comment, “my life is not the same without

Breaking Bad” (to which 56 people ‘like’ this comment, in

agreement), immediately opens up a dialogue with other

fans; six others respond to the comment, the first of

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whom makes a humorous reference to Breaking Bad’s spin-off

character when he replies, ‘Better Call Saul’. The

responses to the Facebook and Twitter post of the 17th

December similarly exemplifies the ways in which ‘The

Conversation’ takes place on Breaking Bad’s online pages,

and the immediacy with which they do so. Posing the

question, ‘Which Breaking Bad poster is your favourite?’,

the post also asks viewers to ‘vote now’ (directing them

to their official website where they can take a poll). In

three days, the post receives 57,245 ‘likes’, is shared

2554 times, and has 1200 comments on Facebook. On

Twitter, it is retweeted 432 times and marked as a

favourite 666 times. It also receives replies on the same

day that vary from direct responses to the question (one

user answers that “All Hail The King” is his favourite)

to fans using the post as an opportunity to voice how

they feel about the series (another user writes, “I miss

it so much”).

According to Nielsen’s Twitter TV Ratings, Breaking

Bad was the programme that generated the most buzz on

Twitter during the last quarter of 2013, averaging

521,000 tweets per screened episode (Nielsen, 2013).

These figures alone (which only account for viewer

responses from three hours before to three hours after

Breaking Bad’s live broadcast on AMC) would correlate

with Rhiannon Bury’s assertion that ‘users do not just

want to talk at each other but with each other in real

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time, in other words, moving beyond aggregation to

communication’ (Bury, 2012).

Television viewing in a domestic sphere has always

been interconnected with the idea of socialising, that is

nothing new, but what social media platforms do that is

new, is enable an extension of the social experience

around televisual viewing. As I have discussed

previously, the digitisation of the post-network era has

drastically changed the media landscape, allowing

audiences to interact with, and spread content in fresh

and exciting ways. The Internet has brought with it a new

visual language and online platforms that not only

enable, but encourage communication between its users.

Most significantly perhaps, digital technologies have

given rise to an increasingly influential public voice,

that of the consumer; as Jenkins et al. aptly describe in

‘Spreadable Media’, ‘the growth of networked

communication, especially when coupled with the practices

of participatory culture, provides a range of new

resources and facilitates new interventions for a variety

of groups who have long struggled to have their voices

heard’ (Jenkins et al., 2013: xiv).

The previously hierarchical separation between

producers and consumers has been broken down with the

advent of online technologies, which empower the everyday

user; consumers now hold the potential to interact with

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and transform original products and content, and become

‘prosumers’, ‘consumer[s] who [become] involved with

designing or customizing products for their own needs’

(Oxford English Dictionary online). Jenkins et al.

contend that, as a result of this, ‘brands and

entertainment properties cannot return to the one-

directional communication flows of the broadcast era,

when they had the perception of control, so companies

must listen to and learn from their audiences if they

want to enjoy long-term success’ (Jenkins et al., 2013:

24).

AMC (as I have highlighted in my discussion on

Breaking Bad) are a prime example of one of these companies

that have listened to and learnt from their audiences,

actively participating in ‘The Conversation’ with their

online users and achieving subsequent success. As noted

previously, Jenkins, Ford and Green propose that if media

content ‘doesn’t spread, it’s dead’ (Jenkins et al.,

2013: 1). Whilst television will continue to exist away

from social media, social media will continue to provide

both producers and viewers with an online arena where

discussions on televisual content can take place, where

content can and will ‘spread’, and where content can find

new audiences. This is where ‘The Conversation’, the

cyclical transmedia communication between on-screen

content, and social media, between producer and

spectator, across multiple digital networks, will

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continue to influence the media landscape and the ways in

which spectators and producers can interact with not only

content, but with each other.

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