New Media and Freedom of Expression: Empowering Cinema and Television


Presenting my paper on "New Media and Freedom of Expression: Empowering Cinema and Television" at the 14th international conference of the Global Communication Association at Jaipur (11-12 October 2018). Below is a text of the paper.

#GCAJaipur #newmedia #masscommunication #GCA #digitalinbound #digitalmedia #Jaipur #India

Introduction
The way movies and television content are produced has changed drastically in the last few years. The explosion in information technology and the internet has not just given rise to a platform and voice to talk about arts and culture, it has given rise to new avenues to produce, promote and distribute them.  Information technology is now being used to produce content for cinema and television, and the internet and new media are being used to promote and distribute the content.
The way consumers access audio-visual content, that is, cinema and television content, is also changing in a major way. The television and broadcasting sectors have been undergoing significant technological and structural changes, which have given consumers access to a great variety of communications and media services. Convergence is changing the way in which consumers use communication services and consume content, as it is available on new platforms and on various wireless portable devices. The penetration of new technologies and the dynamic effects of convergence are changing the way that consumers access and view audio-visual content (OECD, 2013).  Nowadays, it can be provided via multiple platforms: analogue or digital terrestrial broadcasts, satellite, cable or internet protocol (IP), over-the-top (OTT) or video-on-demand (VoD) services, video streaming services, and apps.
More and more audio-visual (AV) content – both in cinema and television – is being provided through non-conventional channels like OTT services and apps. Big-budget cinema has witnessed the advance of digital cinematography and the ever-increasing emergence of 3D in the past few years, but equally fundamental changes have taken place on a smaller scale (Mooney, 2010). There is even an annual “New media film festival” that is held in Los Angeles; significantly, its tenth edition will be held in June 2019.  The festival features 20 different categories, right from new media, streaming and web series to virtual reality, drone, documentary, made on mobile/tablet, animation, apps and digital comics (Submit now, 2018). The growth in various video platforms on the web has spawned a new category of AV content – web series. The growth in various video platforms on the web has spawned a new category of AV content – web series. A web series is a series of scripted videos, generally in episodic form, released on the Internet or also by mobile or cellular phone, and part of the newly emerging medium called web television. A single instance of a web series programme is called an episode or webisode. Broadly speaking, the three kinds of recurring video content delivered on the web are vloggers/personalities, commentaries and tutorials, and narrative web series. Narrative web series are providing an unparalleled opportunity for young, aspiring film makers. There has never been a time when it was this easy for talented young film makers to get their work out there (Schwartz, What the F&$k is a Web Series, Anyway?, 2015).
Thus, new technologies have empowered and enabled creators outside of a studio or network system to make their own movies and develop cutting-edge entertainment. Affordable cameras and editing software allow artistes to create and express their skills for a multitude of new distribution platforms. Storytelling is being redefined in the 21st century (Modine, 2017).
Growth
Historically, most major film and television technology has been introduced in the production sector; for example, synchronized sound production. We now have technologies like shooting on digital media, which obviates the need for the presence of a “physical” film (celluloid) or tape – the shots are all stored as soft copy on the hard disk of a computer. Now, technology is also changing the way AV content is promoted and distributed.
The distribution part of the movie business could not have remained untouched with the advent of digital technology, especially since it has long been the most powerful and profitable sector of the film industry (Bordwell & Thompson, 2007).
A quick look at the figures will tell its story – in 2000, the world had about 1,64,000 cinema screens, and only 30 of them were digital. In 2005, 848 were digital. At the end of 2010, however, 36,103 screens were digital, which was about 30 percent of the total, and by 2013, nearly half of them. The new multiplexes opening in Chinado not contain reels, “splicers,” or a scrap of photographic film (Bordwell & Thompson, 2007).
There was a major leap in 2011, when in the United Kingdom alone, nearly 80 percent of the titles released were in digital format.  A lot of movies in digital format were screened at the Cannes Film Festival that year, even of films shot in 35mm (Bordwell & Thompson, 2007).
Film prints are now a thing of the past; it’s all in digital format now.  Major Hollywood studios like 20th Century Fox have already done away with film prints, and the Indian film industry, popularly also known as Bollywood (Gulzar, Nihalani, & Chatterjee, 2003), has also gone digital.  Even digital “prints” now don’t need to be distributed so as to reach the theatres physically; movies are now increasingly being distributed over satellite, as UFO Moviez does.  This is also called “e-cinema” (UFO Moviez India Ltd., 2014).
As David Bordwell, Professor of Film Studies, Department of Communication Arts, University of Wisconsin, says: “The change isn’t simply a matter of new technology, or hardware turning into software. It isn’t simply a matter of fancy gear or even the look and sound of images. It involves social processes, the way institutions like filmmaking and film exhibition work. Technology affects relations of power, along with the choices that moviemakers and filmgoers are offered. As films become files, cinema changes in subtle, far-reaching ways. People may not have noticed the difference between a 35-mm image and a digital one, but as movie-going becomes different, so does our sense of what films are, and have been (Bordwell & Thompson, 2007).
Streaming television is the digital distribution of television content, such as television shows, as streaming video delivered over the internet. Television programmes began to be available on the internet in the mid-2000s. ITunes began offering select television programs and series in 2005, available for download after direct payment. The video-sharing site YouTube was launched in 2005, allowing users to share illegally posted television programmes (Waterman, Sherman, & Ji, 2013). A few years later, television networks and other independent services began creating sites where shows and programmes could be streamed online. Amazon Video began in the United States as Amazon Unbox in 2006, but did not launch worldwide until 2016 (Amazon, 2016). Netflix, a website originally created for DVD rentals and sales, began providing streaming content in 2007 (Netflix, 2017). In 2008, Hulu, owned by NBC and Fox, was launched, followed by tv.com in 2009 and owned by CBS. Digital media players also began to become available to the public during this time. The first generation Apple TV was released in 2007, and in 2008, the first generation Roku streaming device was announced (HH Editor, 2008). Amazon’s version of a digital media player, Amazon Fire TV, was offered to the public in 2014 (Horn, 2014). These digital media players have continued to be updated and new generations released. Access to television programming has evolved from computer and television access, to also include mobile devices such as smart-phones and tablet computers. Apps for mobile devices started to become available via app stores in 2008. These mobile apps allow users to view content on mobile devices that support the apps. In 2017, YouTube launched YouTube TV, a streaming service that allows users to watch live television programmes from popular cable or network channels, and record shows to stream anywhere, anytime. After 2010, traditional cable and satellite television providers began to offer services such as Sling TV, owned by Dish Network of the US, which was unveiled in January 2015 (Brustein, 2015). DirecTV, another satellite television provider based in the US and owned by AT&T, launched their own streaming service, DirecTV Now, in 2016 (Spangler, 2016). Netflix is now the world’s largest streaming TV network and also the world’s largest internet media and entertainment company with 117 million paid subscribers, and by revenue and market cap (Balakrishnan A. , 2018).
The OTT market in India is expected to grow in leaps and bounds. Consultancy firm PwC expects India’s OTT market to grow from the current Rupees 2000 crore to Rupees 5000 crore by 2022. The number of mobile broadband subscribers is expected to shoot up from 270 million at present to 500 million in the next five years (Balakrishnan P. , 2018).
Technology
There is no doubt that content-creators are starting to realise that films can be well made using digital technology, including smart-phones. Sean Baker’s “Tangerine” was shot on an iPhone ... even though they have big limitations when it comes to cinema-level filmmaking, smart-phones are incredibly powerful tools now, and ... film-makers are working with them (Renee, 2015).
Smart-phones have taken over our lives so it should come as no surprise that there are actually movies being filmed on these devices. These are not just short videos, but real movies with actors, plots, directors and musical scores. Some are promotional tools for the phone-maker, but others are true films. The internet now has a number of sites that provide information on making movies with just a smart-phone. Smartphone manufacturers are taking note and so are app developers. Special movie-making apps are now being released for smart-phones on the market (Lings, 2012).
The web site www.techattitude.com lists several movies as the top movies that have been filmed on smart-phones.  These are Olive, Pearls, The Swarm, Night Fishing, Apple of My Eye, Dragonfly Love, Arrival, and Splitscreen: A Love Story (Lings, 2012).
Internet release is still new when it comes to the film distribution platform. The volume of downloaded movies is difficult to find but none compares to the even more problematical discovery of their origin (McDonald & Wasko, 2008).
Streaming is the digital distribution of AV content over the internet, as in contrast to terrestrial transmission, cable transmission and satellite transmission. VoD is a programming system that allows users to select and watch/listen to AV content such as movies and TV shows whenever they choose, rather than at a scheduled broadcast time, the method with the conventional systems of broadcast. VoD commonly uses IPTC technology to deliver content to television sets, desktop computers, laptop computers and portable devices. The content is offered either as streaming, in which a user selects a video programme and it begins to play on the device, or as downloading, in which a user downloads the content to a computer or a portable device, for viewing in the future. Internet television, which uses the internet, is an increasingly popular form of VoD. An online video platform (OVP), provided by a video hosting service, enables users to upload, convert, store and play back video content over the internet.  Users generally upload video content via the hosting service’s website, mobile or desktop application, or other interface. The content may range from shorts to full-length television shows (Drier, 2013). OTT is a term used to refer to content providers that distribute streaming media as a stand-alone product directly to viewers over the internet, bypassing conventional telecommunication, multi-channel television and broadcast television channels, which traditionally act as the controller or distribution of such content (Jarvey, 2017). The term is most synonymous with subscription-based VoD services that offer access to film and television content (including existing series acquired from other producers, as well as original content produced specifically for the service), like Netflix and Amazon Prime, as well ‘skinny’ television services that offer access to live streams of linear channels similar to a traditional satellite or cable television provider, but streamed over the public internet instead of over a closed, private network with proprietary equipment such as set-top boxes. OTT services are typically accessed via websites on desktop computers, apps on portable devices such as smart-phones and tablets, digital media players, and smart television sets. In 2011, the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) stated that it ‘considers that internet access to programming independent of a facility or network dedicated to its delivery (via, for example, cable or satellite) is the defining feature of what have been termed OTT services.’  Some OTT services require that a video be downloaded first and then played, while other OTT players offer content that starts playing before the download completes, which is streaming (CRTC, 2011).
Content
AV content on new media varies from full-length feature films produced by major studios to short videos and very short videos produced by individuals and amateurs. Feature films are usually released over existing content platforms. Video content can either be linear content, which is content released over a conventional television channel first and then becomes available over a new media platform like a VoD platform or an app on a portable device, or content specifically produced for and distributed over new media platforms. Most major television channels have new media platforms. Some legacy channels have experimented with stand-alone content, or web series, which is available exclusively over their new media outlets. One example is the sitcom ‘Sarabhai vs Sarabhai.’ The first season of the sitcom had an extremely successful and popular run of 70 episodes on Star One. Season 2 was released as a web series on the Star network’s digital platform Hotstar in May 2017 (Hingorani, 2017).
‘Sacred Games’ was the first Netflix original from India. Its first season had 8 episodes, and was released in July 2018. Inside Edge was the first Amazon Prime original from India. Its first season had 10 episodes, and was released in July 2017. The second season of this series has been confirmed (PTI, 2018). Even Shabana Azmi, known for her powerful roles in parallel cinema, is set to do a web series titled ‘Moghuls,’ based on the life of Babur.
Then there are independent artistes who produce their own content. Actor Gaurav Gera created and played the characters of Chutki and Shopkeeper in his ‘Chutki and Shopkeeper,’ which first appeared on conventional television channels as fillers, but has since been released on new media as short videos. Gera later created the series ‘Billi Maasi,’ for which he has created and plays characters like Billi Maasi, Aadu, Barsat, Dadi and Mausaji. Snapchat has given him exclusive ‘filters’ for the characters in the show. There are plans to convert the series into an animation series to be released on new media platforms.
Several other artistes have made a mark through new media with their independently produced short videos on a variety of genres, including music, comedy, cookery, health advice and short tales. YouTube stardom is a new phenomenon in India. The sharp growth in internet connections, a surge in smart-phone sales and the emergence of YouTube role models like AIB and The Viral Factory (TVF) worked as catalysts. The active internet user base in India nearly trebled from 120 million in 2012 to 343 million in 2015. India’s top YouTube superstars include Tanmay Goyal, who co-founded All India Bakchod (AIB), Sahil Khattar, who features in Being Indian, Bhuvan Bam, who does music as well as short comedy videos, Sanjay Thumma and Nisha Madhulika, who do cookery shows,  Sanam Puri, who does music, Shruti Anand, who does a make-up show, Kanan Gill, who does comedy, Ranjit Kumar, who reviews gadgets, and Vikram Yadav, who does a health show (Goyal, 2016). The list is actually endless, and is not even the tip of the proverbial iceberg; and it is growing.
Marketing
New media is also important for marketing of AV content because a lot of people use new media, including YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.  Marketers can use these platforms to reach out to several types of audiences.  Instead of simply uploading a movie trailer to YouTube, a marketer can tweet about it, or post videos and pictures from the movie, the production and behind-the-scenes movements on the web site dedicated to the movie, and on Facebook and Instagram. Marketers can use these new media bases to reach out to several types of audiences.  New media provides many different avenues for movie marketing. Marketers can choose one specific platform or use several.
New media has dramatically cut into the costs of promotion for movies, in an age where promotion and costs are everything.  Costs come down because social media does a lot of the early leg-work almost for free.  This is important because cinema budgets are growing with each passing day, and the financier would want to keep in check the money that he spends on promoting a movie even while he strives to reach out to as many people as possible.
Social media is lucrative for movie marketers for the same reasons it appeals to many: the ability to measure and interact with the audience on a two-way street of communication, and the lucrative allure of going viral. If the marketer can convince fans and movie-goers to talk about the movie on social media, the audience expands. This is the reason why film-makers and film marketers must take new media and social media into account when promoting a movie.
For example, the Hollywood movie The Hunger Games posted two versions of a popular song on YouTube, and these received over 20.00 crore views.  In 2013, producers of It’s a Disaster decided to publish the entire movie on a mobile app called Vine[1] in six-second segments.  They issued a press release, saying on a sarcastic note, “…six-second loops of video … posted in real time will be the future of film distribution.  While we still endeavour to release films via some other methods, we didn’t want to be left out in the cold and we are proud to be an early adopter of tomorrow.”  Similarly, An ARG was created for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by 42 Entertainment, a marketing and entertainment company. It was called “Mouth Taped Shut”.
In India, movies like Bajrangi Bhaijaan, Prem Ratan Dhan Payo and Bajrao Mastani used new media for promotions. Bajrangi Bhaijaan had a Facebook page, a Twitter account and an Instagram account.  The hero of the film, Salman Khan, even participated in a chat session on Facebook (Jha L. , Salman Khan Films goes all out to promote Bajrangi Bhaijaan, 2015). There was an official Bajrangi Bhaijaan game also, available on Google’s app store, where it got an average rating of 4.3 on a scale of 1 to 5.  The official trailer was uploaded on YouTube.  There was no official web site, though, and one web site was purportedly “designed by Salman Lovers.”Prem Ratan Dhan Payo used social media platforms like Twitter and apps like Dubsmash[2] to engage with the audience.  However, the focus remained on conventional marketing.  The star cast appeared on several television shows to promote the movie (Malvania, 2015).  Also, just like Bajrangi Bhaijaan, Prem Ratan Dhan Payo also had no official web site, but just an unofficial web site also put up by the same group as Bajrangi Bhaijaan– Salman Khan Lovers.
The trailer of the movie Bajirao Mastani was uploaded on YouTube, and it had a presence of Facebook.  Members of the cast had a series of chat sessions with influential figures, recounting their journey and memories of the difficult film. The distributor aired these on multiple television channels and online (Jha L. , Bajirao Mastani and Dilwale in 2015's biggest Bollywood marketing war, 2015).   The producers of Bajirao Mastani did dabble a little with social media.  A short while before its release, the distributors launched an animated web series on their web site in which the characters of Bajirao, Mastani and Kashibai were represented in an animated format. The producers later launched a video game in which players could defeat enemies, just as Bajirao does in the movie (IANS, 2015).
Distribution
Several new media distribution platforms are available for AV content. These platforms either offer content from their libraries, or content produced in-house, or a combination of the two. Netflix is an American OTT services provider, founded in 1997. The company’s primary business is its subscription-based streaming service, which offers online streaming of a library of films and television programmes, including those produced in-house (Pogue, 2007).  Netflix also plans to provide video adventure games over the service.
Amazon Video is a VoD service that was launched by Amazon.com in September 2006. It offers television shows and films for rent or purchase, as well as original content and licensed acquisitions included in its Prime subscription.
The other digital entertainment services available in India include Hotstar, Voot, Ozee and ALTBalaji.
Hotstar was launched by Star India on February 6, 2015. It is owned by Novi Digital Entertainment, a wholly owned subsidiary of Star India, and is available as an app and as a desktop website. Voot, launched in 2016, forms the digital arm of Viacom 18. It is Viacom’s advertising-led VoD platform, and is available as an app and as a desktop website (PTI, 2016).  OZEE is an Indian digital online platform that was launched in February 2016 by Zee Entertainment Enterprises (Pai, 2016). The service was integrated with Zee5 in February 2018.
ALTBalaji is a subscription-based VoD platform owned by Balaji Telefilms Ltd., which was launched in April 2017 (Jha & Gupta, Balaji launches online streaming platform ALTBalaji, 2017). It is available on multiple platforms, including as an app and as a desktop website. SonyLIV is a VoD service launched by Sony Pictures Networks India Pvt. Ltd. in January 2013. Eros Now is Eros International’s on-demand Bollywood and regional entertainment network that was launched in August 2004. It is available on multiple platforms, including as an app and as a desktop website (News Bureau, 2016). The video streaming space has been one of the most successful avenues in the Indian content market, and is poised for rapid development.
The market size is estimated to be around almost Rupees 2,000 crore ($ 280 million), with more than 10 crore Indians streaming across content areas. Streaming does have a long way to go in India but with local and international players giving Indian consumers what they want, the space is poised for rapid development (Khera, 2018).
Discussion
New media has become is a major tool for content-creators and marketers. New media is being put to good use by producers, content-creators, marketers and distributors to reach out to a larger chunk of the audience, that too directly, without having to go through the hassles of the conventional channels.  This has given a very powerful tool in their hands to express themselves, which strengthens freedom of expression and, in turn, democracy itself, thereby empowering cinema and television.
The audiences now also have a wider range of platforms to watch AV content on, which are different from the conventional channels like theatres and television, and include mobile apps and online web sites like YouTube.  They also have a wider range of the kind of content that they want to watch, ranging from full-length features films to licensed content to custom-produced content to independent content to content produced by amateurs. This has not only improved access to content, including movies and television content, but also enhanced audience experience because of the variety of content available at a click of the mouse or a tap on the screen of a portable device.
A major fall-out of the advent of new media has been that content-creators can express themselves in a better, more powerful and a more penetrating way without having to bother about the nitty-gritty of distribution and the legal procedures that come with it. Their voice is heard by a greater number of people without the authorities watching over the shoulder, a big boost to freedom of expression and to democracy itself.  Content-creators need no longer be worried about the shackles and can work unfettered to take their message to the masses.  They have really benefitted from the new media milieu.
The concept of freedom of expression has acquired a new dimension with the advent of interactive storytelling, which has become possible only because of new media.  Interactive storytelling (also known as interactive drama) is a form of digital entertainment in which the storyline is not predetermined. The author creates the setting, characters and situation that the narrative must address, but the user (also reader or player) experiences a unique story based on their interactions with the story world. The architecture of an interactive storytelling programme includes a drama manager, user model, and agent model to control, respectively, aspects of narrative production, player uniqueness, and character knowledge and behaviour. Together, these systems generate characters that act ‘human,’ alter the world in real-time reactions to the player, and ensure that new narrative events unfold comprehensibly (Bostan & Marsh, 2012).
OTT is likely to evolve as a complimentary screen, given that more than 97 per cent of the TV market consists of single TV households, as per industry estimates. OTT feeds off of this latent demand and positions itself as an individual screen allowing viewers the flexibility of ‘anytime, anywhere’ media consumption over and above the traditional family appointment viewing on TV. The popularity of live and catch-up content on OTT bears testimony (Ramnath, 2018).
Conclusion
The biggest change that new media has brought for movie and television producers is the liberation from the restrains of censorship. Content-creators now don’t need to – if they choose – get their content approved by an institution created by the government. They can deliver the content directly to their audience, and let the audience decide what is good and what is bad for them. The internet records every view, and the numbers so generated will reveal whether the audience have accepted the content in question or not. The fact that content can now be delivered directly to the audience has enabled content-creators to be bolder and more realistic in their approach, and they are willing to explore newer horizons. Content-creators are also inclined to explore the possibilities of exploring new media as an additional channel of distribution beyond the conventional channels like theatres and television.
New media has given the audiences a wider range of content itself, and more options access this content. This has improved accessibility and variety of content available for the audience. Interactive storytelling now enables audience to be a participant rather than being a mere passive observer in the content that they access.
Content-creators are expressing in more powerful and a more penetrating ways without having to bother about the nitty-gritty, and their voice is being heard by a greater number of people without the authorities watching over the shoulder, which is a big boost to freedom of expression and to democracy itself.  This is the benefit of the new media milieu.
New media is helping content-creators to reach out to a larger chunk of the audience directly, giving them very powerful tool to express themselves, which strengthens freedom of expression and, in turn, democracy itself, thereby empowering cinema and television.


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[1]Vine is a short-form video sharing service where users can share six-second-long looping video clips.  Vine enables users to record short video clips up to around six seconds long while recording through its in-app camera. The camera records only while the screen is being touched, enabling users to edit on the fly or create stop motion effects. It has since been acquired by Twitter. Vine competes with other apps such as Viddy, Cineverse and Mobli.
[2]Dubsmash is a video messaging application for iOS and Android that allows users to choose an audio recording or sound-bite from movies, shows, music and Internet trends, and then record a video of themselves dubbing that piece of audio.