Some error occured while loading the Quick View. Please close the Quick View and try reloading the page.
Streaming Across Media examines the rise of streaming as the dominant means through which cultural content is distributed, accessed, and consumed. Extending across music, film, television, video games, audiobooks, ebooks, and social media, streaming has become a defining feature of contemporary media culture. As different forms of content increasingly appear on the same platforms, traditional boundaries between media industries are becoming less distinct. The book explores streaming as a broader technological, economic, and cultural phenomenon that is reshaping media industries, audience practices, and patterns of cultural consumption.
The book develops a comparative framework for understanding streaming across multiple media sectors. It examines the technologies, business models, and user practices that underpin streaming services, drawing on examples from cultural industries around the world. Particular attention is given to the ways streaming platforms organise access to content and create conditions of abundance, two characteristics that have become central to contemporary media consumption.
A central theme is the shift from ownership to access as the organising principle of cultural participation. The book considers how audiences increasingly engage with media through ongoing relationships with platforms rather than through ownership of physical or digital objects, and explores the implications of this transition for cultural value, memory, creative labour, and industry organisation.
Combining insights from media studies, platform studies, and media industries research, the book situates streaming within longer histories of media distribution, infrastructure, and technological change. It also examines the new genres, markets, and industries enabled by streaming platforms and considers emerging developments, including generative artificial intelligence, that are shaping the future of streaming.
International in scope, the book addresses both global platforms and regional services, highlighting the different ways streaming is adopted, adapted, and regulated across cultural contexts. It will be of interest to students, researchers, librarians, and professionals working in media, communication, digital culture, publishing, and the creative industries. Suitable for advanced undergraduate, postgraduate, and specialist academic collections, it provides an accessible overview of streaming's role in contemporary cultural life.
Terje Colbjørnsen is associate professor in creative industries management at BI Norwegian Business School, Norway. With a background in media and communication and library and information science, Colbjørnsen's research interests revolve around issues of media industries, media digitalization, media economics, media policy and cultural policy.
Preface
Chapter 1. Introduction: Access and Abundance
What is streaming?
Access and abundance
Streaming and media generations
Explaining streaming
Streaming, culture and society at large
The plurality of streaming
Why streaming across media?
Chapter conclusion
Further Reading
Chapter 2. The Etymology and History of Streaming
Gently down the stream: The etymology of streaming
Early and proto-streaming
Thanks for playing
Chapter conclusion
Further reading
Chapter 3. Defining, Conceptualizing and Theorizing Streaming
Going with the flow: Definitions and typologies of streaming
Approaching digital media inside out and outside in
Streaming services as intermediaries and platforms
Streaming as a network
Where is streaming? Local, regional and global perspectives
Chapter conclusion
Further reading
Chapter 4. The Technologies of Streaming
Beneath the surface: The technological infrastructures of streaming
In the pocket: The importance of smartphones and mobile applications on streaming
Chapter conclusion
Further reading
Chapter 5. The Uses, Practices and Making Sense of Streaming
Everyday ubiquity: Using streaming services
Making sense of streamin
The data flows of streaming
Chapter conclusion
Further reading
Chapter 6. The Value Propositions and Business Models of Streaming
All you can eat: The value proposition of streaming
Not for the dough. Streaming in/as public service
Chapter conclusion
Further reading
Chapter 7. The Industries and Markets Enabled by Streaming
It’s not TV, it’s ... Audiovisual streaming
In your ears. Audio streaming
Twitching and turning: Video game streaming
A beast of its own. YouTube streaming
Prime powerplay: Amazon streaming
A niche of one’s own. Streaming in the cultural margins
Short and sweet: TikTok and short form video streaming
Chapter conclusion
Further reading
Chapter 8. Slop Shops and Doppelgängers: AI and Streaming
Who makes content? Humans and machines in the streaming production loops
Training data and streaming services
Industry, legal and policy responses to AI
Chapter conclusion
Further reading
Conclusion: Beyond the Buffet Table
References