Defining online TV

The appisation of television: TV apps, discoverability and the software, device and platform ecologies of the internet era

“…In relation to content apps, the app owner controls the design of the interface, the selection and organisation of content within that interface and the functionalities available to the user, through which it is possible to exert influence over what programmes and movies are watched. This control is exercised not just through interface design (see Johnson, 2019: 113–121) but also the monitoring and datafication of user behaviour (Johnson, 2019: 135–136; Van Dijck et al, 2018: 33). Apps create programmed environments in which every user interaction can be observed and converted into actionable data.…”

“…Issues of discoverability extend beyond control over the circulation and availability of apps, to the ability of people to identify and locate the television content they want to view. Content apps themselves can shape the discoverability of the content they offer through their interface design, search functionality and editorial and algorithmic recommendations (Johnson, 2019). Again, there is an economics of prominence at work with content owners engaging in commercial deals with apps for position within their interface, recommendations and/or search results.…”

“…2 Despite this, apps rarely feature in the growing body of academic literature on internet-connected and online TV. The term ‘app’ does not appear in the index of any of the major recent monographs on internet television (Evens and Donders, 2018; Jenner, 2018; Johnson, 2019; Landau, 2016; Lobato, 2019b; Lotz, 2017; Robinson, 2017; Smith and Telang, 2017; Strangelove, 2015). Apps get three brief indexed mentions in two articles in McDonald and Smith-Rowsey’s (2016) edited collection on Netflix (Lindsey, 2016; McDonald, 2016).…”

“…In focusing on the appisation of television, this article aims to contribute to a growing body of academic research concerned with the impact of the internet on the distribution of television (e.g. see Johnson, 2019; Lotz, 2014, 2017). At the heart of this transformation is the changing hardware and software through which television content and services are delivered to, and accessed by, viewers.…”

“…The increasingly central role of software to the television industry has been noted in some of the academic literature on internet television (Evens and Donders, 2018; Robinson, 2017; Wilken et al, 2011). There has also been valuable work examining the role of interfaces in shaping the experience of television in digital and online environments (Chamberlain, 2010, 2011; Johnson, 2017, 2019; Sanson and Strierer, 2019). However, this literature rarely interrogates the nature of internet-related software, failing to examine the differences between apps (for example) and other forms of internet-related software, such as HTML.…”