The Value and Limits of Intersectional Networked TV Distribution

• In Event: The Color of Television Today: Racial Meanings in a Changing Industry

Abstract

In its bid to regulate the internet and deregulate cable, the federal government focuses on large-scale tech innovators like Netflix who purport to deliver to TV organizational and technological efficiencies for their bottom lines. Little-known and smaller scale TV networks, meanwhile, focus on creating cultural value to communities underserved by legacy industries, including those marginalized by their race, gender, and sexuality. Whereas companies like Netflix reproduce Hollywood's inequalities among its producers, this article argues small-scale networked TV distributors innovate in the organization and technological dissemination of intersectional identities, specifying cultural production in ways that more fully value their representation. Through interviews with founders of 10 currently running and defunct independent channels, I argue for the value of small-scale networked distribution despite persistent challenges to sustainability. The realities of the contemporary marketplace impose clear limits on these distributors, demonstrating the need for more engaged regulation of the post-cable television market.

Author

• Aymar Jean Christian, Northwestern U