Digital Film and Television Culture: From Hollywood to Social Media

Digital Film and Television Culture introduces a new framework for the aesthetic and cultural analysis of contemporary film and serial drama, stars on social media and movie awards shows. It examines contemporary digital media culture with four specific case studies, their cultural contexts and how audiences engage with them online.

Drawing on two perspectives - the digital media circuit and the expanded cultural forum - as frameworks for the analysis, this book explores the complexity of film and television culture in the digital age. The analysis encompasses films with experimental storytelling techniques, from blockbusters to art films, coming-of-age serial drama as hybrid genre, the visual identity narratives of movie stars on social media and the broadcast movie awards as a cultural authority in the era of streaming. The book offers in-depth case studies of Everything Everywhere All at Once, Stranger Things, the performance of Zendaya and Timothée Chalamet on Instagram and the Academy Awards Ceremony as live media event genre. Each chapter includes a genre analysis, an examination of the cultural context and a micro-study of how audiences engage on Letterboxd, Reddit or other social media.

This timely, cross-disciplinary book is essential reading for students and scholars in film, media, cultural studies, celebrity and digital cultures and for anyone interested in contemporary film and television culture.

Helle Kannik Haastrup, PhD is an Associate Professor in Film and Media Studies at the University of Copenhagen. Her research focus on digital film and media culture and aesthetics, and celebrity culture on social media platforms.