Document Type
Article - Open Access
Publication Title
Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies
Publication Date
4-2018
Abstract/ Summary
Analysis of survey responses gathered from 92 television time shifters reveals varying attitudes and behaviors toward spoilers. Throughout this essay, we argue that spoiler avoiders embrace postnetwork era reception practices but use network era norms to evaluate their own experience and regulate the television conversations around them. We see, however, an erosion of those network era norms in people who either use spoilers to enhance their narrative pleasure or who do not actively police television conversations around them. These findings suggest that television conversation norms and individual evaluations of narrative pleasures are slower to evolve than reception patterns. Our study brings convergence culture questions of narrative pleasure, discursive patterns, active audience behaviors, and contested grounds of power to the surface.
Repository Citation
Perks, L.,
&
McElrath-Hart, N.
(2018). Spoiler Definitions and Behaviors in the Post-Network Era. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 24(2), 137-151.
Available at: https://scholarworks.merrimack.edu/com_facpub/21
