Watching Battlestar Galactica in Australia and the Tyranny of Digital Distance

Abstract

In an era where communication technologies can move digital media at close to the speed of light, this paper explores the rupture between this technical potential and the actual model by which international television screening dates are determined in Australia. As the delays between overseas and Australian airdates can be as long two years, and average over six months, the rapid rise in both official and fan-produced online material and interaction relating to television series has given rise to a massive but largely unfulfilled demand for simultaneous access to episodes across the globe. Using the case study of the critically acclaimed fan favourite Battlestar Galactica, this paper outlines some of the strategies by which producers build global fan loyalty — from official websites, blogs, commentary podcasts and online deleted scenes to exclusive webisodes and official participation in fan forums. The paper argues that these trends, combined with the time delay between release dates, are the largest factors contributing to the unlawful downloading of television via peer-to-peer file-sharing platforms such as BitTorrent. In attempting to maintain distribution models that began as geographic necessities, but have become exclusively political and economic decisions in an era of digital communication technologies, this paper argues that media corporations are perpetuating a ‘tyranny of digital distance’ and alienating their own audiences.

The Era of Fake News: Digital Storytelling as a Promotion of Critical Reading

“…Um dos primeiros exemplos da interiorização destas adaptações e da sua aplicabilidade foi a televisão que, através da denominada estratégia 360 (ou multiplataforma), aplicou uma mudança que vai desde o momento da conceção até à decisão de conteúdo sempre moldados pelo potencial valor de retorno dos consumidores através das várias plataformas que estes têm à sua disposição e nas quais a televisão convencional é apenas mais uma (Doyle, 2010). Esta distribuição em multiplataforma tem várias opções possíveis que vão desde a distribuição linear do conteúdo produzido para os meios tradicionais (também definido como transposição) nos meios digitais, à modificação de conteúdo para a adaptação aos diferentes outputs, até à criação de conteúdo específico para cada uma das plataformas a que se destina o conteúdo (Leaver, 2008). No entanto, o denominador comum advém da emergência de conteúdo da tradição do storytelling televisivo (Keinonen, 2016).…”

Torrenting Game of Thrones

“…With much of the research in this area focused on the United States, it is possible that there are additional factors influencing behaviour in Australia that might inform future quantitative analysis. Few studies have dealt with the behaviour of non-paying downloaders in Australia (Dootson and Suzor, 2015; Leaver, 2008; Phau et al, 2014), which is surprising given the prominence of Australians in the statistics relating to specific instances of downloading.…”

Joss Whedon,Dr. Horrible, and the Future of Web Media

“…Fans were also upset that they could not even buy it on iTunes, since distribution rights had only been negotiated for the US iTunes store (each national store has its own agreements, something Whedon's team had not initially accounted for). It appeared to international fans that they were on the wrong side of the tyranny of digital distance (Leaver, 2008), where arbitrary, traditional geographic zones of commercial media distribution were being applied to ostensibly global web media. To their credit, the various official sites replied immediately, stating they were working on the unforseen problem.…”