Over the last few years, the ways in which society consumes television has drastically changed. It has gone from having only national and regional broadcasting, with news programs and a soap opera every now and again, to being majorly online, with streaming services available all over the world.
My pre-teen to young teenage years consisted of programs on ABC3, an Australian TV channel that broadcasted shows that were aimed at audiences between the ages of 8-14. I watches shows such as ‘H2O: Just Add Water’ and ‘Blue Water High’, both Australian TV shows that were produced and aired between the years of 2006 and 2010. I consumed this television as it was accessible to me and ABC3 was one of the only age-appropriate television channels available. I believe that I was drawn to these type of shows as a result of the cultural proximity theory, which suggests that ‘audiences tend to reject cultural products like television programs that are too distant from their own cultural realities… conversely, audiences are attracted to cultural similarity or proximity’ (Straubhaar, 2007) Both Blue Water High and H2O Just Add Water are set in Australia, featuring Australian culture and set in High Schools and communities that were similar to mine, and that i could easily relate to.
As I grew older, American TV shows became more accessible to me, as they began to be shown on Australian channels. Channels such as Disney channel and Nickelodeon were available to me through my home WiFi, so I consumed shows such as ‘Sam and Cat’ and ‘iCarly.’ The increased popularity of these type of shows was evident at the time, and was a big contributor to the westernisation of Australia and it’s culture, as it was gaining more and more American influence.
These days I, like many other people around the world, consume television through the internet. Even when I am watching a show that is broadcasted on live TV, I will usually wait until the next day to stream it. I also view content through platforms such as Netflix and Stan, which make TV shows and movies that were produced in different parts of the world readily accessible globally through the internet.
The world we live in is becoming more and more dependant on technology, especially for entertainment purposes. Most people in the Global North have access to the internet, making it as easy as ever to consume global television. This concept aligns with the themes discussed in BCM111, and the way that people of my age group are generally attracted to such as ‘Friends’ and ‘Shameless’ reflect the notion that “audiences are attracted to cultural similarity or proximity” (Straubhaar 2007.)
As evident in the screenshot of my Netflix account, Streaming websites are highly intelligent and cater the content that you can consume based on a quick survey when you first sign up to the site, and the shows and movies that you have viewed. Netflix recommends mostly American TV shows, and bases my ‘top picks’ on what I have viewed before or what I am currently watching.
I put this down to the fact that Australia is a westernised country, and very much part of the global north. We are in the era of ‘transnational TV’ enabled by proliferating ‘over the top’ streaming platforms.(Turnbull, 2019) Netflix has become increasingly popular, the growth from 2012 sitting on 26.5 million viewers to 2015 showing 69.1 million viewers (Statista, 2017).
References
Straubhaar, J.D. World Television: From Global to Local, Los Angeles: Sage (2007)
Ritcher, F (2017). “Statista” ‘Netflix on the Brink of a major milestone’, viewed 12th August 2019. https://www.statista.com/chart/7677/netflix-subscriber-growth/
Turnbull, S (2019). “Global Television”, Lecture, Week 2, Powerpoint Slides, viewed 12th August 2019.
Elly Moore 