Online cinemas as new media

Murzina Ol'ga Viktorovna PhD in Pedagogy Associate Professor, Department of Journalism and TV Technologies, Russian State University named after A. N. Kosygin 117997, Russia, Moscow, Sadovnicheskaya str., 33/1, office 214a 210978@list.ru Other publications by this author     Grabel'nikov Aleksandr Anatol'evich ORCID: 0000-0003-1415-8241 Doctor of History Professor, Department of Mass Communications, Faculty of Philology, Peoples' Friendship University of Russia named after V.I. Patrice Lumumba 117198, Russia, Moscow, Miklukho-Maklaya str., 6 grab@mail.ru

Tsitsinov Andrei Yur'evich PhD in Philology Associate Professor, Department of Journalism, Media Communications and Advertising, Moscow University named after A.S. Griboyedov 66a Zeleny Prospekt str., Moscow, 111396, Russia wanderer999@yandex.ru

The rapid development of technologies and various forms of information presentation in the modern world leads to the massive emergence of new media – in particular, new formats are emerging that rethink the advantages and disadvantages of traditional media. Since the late 2010s, online cinemas (streaming services) have appeared in the domestic media system, which, in our opinion, are being transformed into "neotelevision", functionally replacing and partially displacing the traditional version of television.

The history of television as a mass media in Russia has a little less than 100 years. In 1929, the first television capable of transmitting a moving image at a distance appeared, by the 1950s, black-and-white televisions appeared in a few Soviet families, and color television broadcasting began in the late 1960s. Initially, television included two TV channels called "programs", the broadcasting of which was limited in time ^{[10, 107]}.

For several decades from the late 1980s to the early 2020s, television has come a long way: hundreds of TV channels with diversified content have appeared. N.S. Gegelova introduces the concept of "format television": "Nowadays, television has become an integral part of many people's lives. Fulfilling its social functions, it informs, develops to some extent, but mostly entertains. A cursory glance at the weekly television program makes it clear that most of the TV programs of federal channels today are of an entertainment nature, and their creators prefer format television. The term "broadcasting format" has even been established on modern Russian television. This term should be understood as the dominant type of TV program on the air, chosen by the editorial board as a priority, its subject matter and style of presentation" ^{[1, 102]}. Format television with a focus on recreational content has become the predominant type of television in the modern world, but since 2020 it has been replaced by online cinemas - services such as Netflix, Ivi, Okko, Start, Kion and the like.

A.A. Pukhlyakov points to the growing popularity of online cinemas in connection with the Covid-19 pandemic ^[9]. Forced stay in isolation led to fatigue from the content of TV channels and the so-called "information noise". V.P. Poludina defines information noise as "redundancy of information in the communicative environment, which causes a functional disorder of its systems. Here we proceed from the fact that function and need are paired categories, which makes it possible to introduce a factor of consumer subjectivity into the definition" ^{[8, 387]}. During the quarantine period, contradictory information about the spread of infection, the need for vaccination, prospects for the future, etc. became the "information noise", which eventually formed a trend towards a kind of informational escapism: the consumption of content on streaming services – online cinemas.

According to Telecom Times ^[7], according to the data for the second half of 2022, 9 large online cinemas are represented on the Russian market (in descending order of popularity according to the number of subscriptions): KinoPoisk, Ivi, Wink, Okko, Amediateka, More.tv , Start, Kion, Premier. All of them provide the opportunity to watch movies, TV series, animated films without advertising, in good quality and with the ability to download content for further viewing in the absence of the Internet. Each service has its own exclusive films and series presented only on it (for example, in 2022, the TV series "Vertinsky", presented in the subscription Kion, "Manyunya", presented in the subscription Okko, etc., were widely advertised), there are also classic domestic and foreign films and series that allow viewing from any service, some – in the absence of a subscription. Thus, the user independently forms the viewed content: selects those movies and TV shows that are interesting to him, views them at a comfortable pace, stopping and continuing at will. User reviews, ratings of movies and TV series, as well as recommendations depending on the content viewed are available on the platforms: the cinema offers the user films that, according to algorithms, will interest him, based on what he has already watched.

Online cinemas are becoming an increasingly popular and widespread way of consuming media content: for example, a survey conducted by S.O. Lytkin and R.S. Cherkasov ^[4] of 126 respondents aged 18 to 35 years shows that streaming services are ahead of television, conventional cinemas, and unlicensed sites (pirated downloading and subsequent consumption of content). It seems that a relatively small monthly subscription fee is becoming a more attractive way for young people to search and view content than free downloading or viewing on services such as Youtube, with the inclusion of advertising. "The advantage of the Internet is not so much in its ability to offer us a conditional opportunity to view this or that "content" for free, but also in the fact that we are within walking distance to meet our need for "escapism". It is possible to view many films and TV series for free, but it is quite inconvenient, due to interfering advertising, questionable content and poor quality of recording films, which is why we, as viewers, turn to online cinemas, which in a fairly simple and easily accessible version, for not the biggest check, provide their customers the product they need" ^{[12, 334]}.

The growing popularity of online cinemas allows us to talk about them as a new television - a hybrid version of the media, which combines the capabilities of traditional television, coupled with the elimination of some of its shortcomings. At the same time, most online cinemas also include links to watch TV channels in real time: by clicking on the corresponding link, the user gets the opportunity to watch the TV channel on a mobile device or computer (along with advertising inserts included in the broadcast grid of the TV channel). Some services also have a selection of programs, entertainment and educational shows that can be viewed like movies, stopping and continuing at the right moment.

Most streaming services support the versatility of users, allowing you to create an adult and a child profile on the same device (an adult profile can be protected from viewing by a child, for example, using a PIN code). The children's profile includes relevant content: animated films, educational and educational series, movies for children.

With the widespread phenomenon of online cinemas (streaming services) it is practically not studied in Russian science from the standpoint of journalism and media: few studies are devoted to the PR of the sites themselves and strategies for their promotion ^{[2; 3; 6; 11]}, as well as legal aspects of content placement ^{[5; 13]}. The issue of the dynamics of content consumption of streaming services under the conditions of sanctions is also being investigated ^[12]: the restriction of content consumption by foreign streaming services stimulated the development of domestic ones, but there was no explosive growth ^[7].

Streaming platforms are becoming a kind of replacement for traditional, "format" television for a young audience that actively consumes the Internet, due to overcoming two main disadvantages inherent in the TV format: the imposition of content and the lack of the ability to stop broadcasting and return to it at a convenient moment. The TV program in its classic version is not determined by the user, he can only connect at a certain moment to watch a movie or a program of interest to him (for example, a feature of the consumption of TV content in the 1980s - 1990s was the streets that were deserted during the screening of popular films or TV series). The online service overcomes this problem, at the same time, through reviews and reviews, forming a kind of user viewing trajectory, with which you can agree, but you can also refuse. This allows you to overcome the classic problem of "nothing to watch" - flipping through TV channels in search of something that can really be interesting. The presence of reviews, reviews, comments and a rating generated by user ratings allows the consumer to independently decide whether this content is interesting to him.

A feature of online cinemas in the modern era has also become the "batch" consumption of TV series: TV channels show one or two episodes a day, and only after a single or repeated show of the series in this mode, some TV channels fill the daytime broadcast non-stop watching a certain series (for example, "TVC", "REN TV", "NTV"). Online cinemas post popular TV series one episode a week, then after the end of the period of gradual placement of the series, the user can watch all the series in a row or form an individual composition of the series: skip certain episodes, go straight to the denouement, etc.

Being in fact a platform for integrating the capabilities of previously existing media (television and the Internet as a platform for viewing media content), and not new media as such, online cinemas, nevertheless, make a certain contribution to the practice of information consumption and change the balance of power in the media market. Television is perceived by a young audience as a kind of announcement: after seeing a fragment of an interesting movie or series on the TV screen and not being able to devote time to watching immediately, the consumer learns the name of the film and subsequently watches it in an online cinema. Integration with any mobile device allows you to consume content in transport, on a walk, during sports, etc. Some exclusive content is broadcast only on streaming services, and the financing of filming is carried out by cinemas themselves: for example, the widely advertised series "The King and the Fool", dedicated to the formation and history of the rock band of the same name and the life of its soloist, It was released on Kinopoisk and was not broadcast on television in the first half of 2023.

The features of new media experts include the following: "instantaneous and global dissemination of information; loss of media control over the tools of dissemination and processing of information; participation of everyone in the creation and dissemination of information (user content, citizen journalism, social media); miniaturization of media, digitization and growth of volumes of publicly available data (ease of leakage); the loss of privacy on the Web, the reduction of the boundaries of privacy; the improvement of technologies for manipulating news due to the availability of technological tools; the visual becomes dominant, and the means of manipulating the picture are becoming more and more perfect; the possibility of preserving the anonymity of authorship on the Web, the illusion of impunity" ^{[14, 13]}. Online cinemas are characterized by the miniaturization of media (mostly movies and TV shows are viewed by users from mobile devices), as well as the dominance of visual content. In another respect, they retain the features of traditional media: unidirectionality of content (there is no possibility to post user content, but there are options for influencing views through rating tools, ratings and reviews) and partial privacy. The viewer can not write reviews and not put ratings, thereby not showing his name and opinion to other users, on the other hand, the system remembers the algorithms of his viewing (whether he watched the content to the end, whether he reviewed it repeatedly, etc.) and offer him films and TV shows similar in content.

The above correlations with the signs of new media make it possible to classify streaming services as not quite new media, but rather a renovation of the traditional format, its "restart" for a youth audience. The analysis allows us to talk about them as neotelevision, a kind of "frame" for viewing both traditional television content and user content on an individual viewing trajectory that attracts a youth audience.

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