BINGE-WATCHERS. BEHAVIOR PATTERNS AND EMOTIONS

Ionuţ Paul BOCA

doi:10.24193/subbeph.2017.2.01

Authors

Ionuţ Paul BOCA College of Political, Administrative and Communication Sciences, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Email: boca@fspac.ro. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3342-7102

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.24193/subbeph.2017.2.01

Keywords:

binge-watching, netflix, tv series, Facebook, online social networks, TV, streaming

Abstract

TV series’ consumption patterns drastically changed with the advent of online streaming services such as Netflix, Hulu or Amazon Prime Video, which give users unlimited access to a huge media archive on a monthly subscription basis. Changes in the distribution system of TV series entail the emergence of a binge-watching cultural phenomenon. Since 2013, when the term ‘binge-watch’ made it on the Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year shortlist, binge-watching has become the new norm of TV series’ consumption for many fans and casual watchers. This paper aims at analyzing how people relate to their own binge-watching consumption habits and what are the most common behaviours and affects related to binge-watching. For this purpose, the paper considers a corpus of 6951 Facebook comments mentioning the habit of binge-watching, which were extracted from the official Facebook pages of 108 popular TV shows. The content analysis shows clear correlations between different types of behaviours and emotions related to binge-watching, and it shows a connection between the type of distribution and the affects experienced by consumers. Consequences and implications of these outcomes are futher discussed.

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