Online streaming
With the rise in technology and the availability of internet connectivity in the modern world, the accessibility to a lot of information has been made easier. The youth, fondly termed as the millennials have benefited greatly from the developments that have disrupted the archaic mode of doing things. They no longer have to rely on cable television sets to access their favourite programs, regardless of the genre. The internet now offers a plethora of watching options that a single person can’t be able to consume all the programs uploaded on the various platforms.
Investors in the entertainment and content production sector have not taken a backseat and watch as things happen. Online streaming websites and applications have been developed. They include the applications for the leading media houses such as CNN, DW, BBC, Al-Jazeera and even the Euronews. This development was necessitated by the massive exodus from the usual watching on cable TVs and in a bid to catch up with the trends, billions of dollars have been poured to curtail the digital disruption that is currently being witnessed around the globe.
Of all the online streaming services, one name features strongly: Netflix. Netflix is a streaming service that offers a massive array of top-rated TV shows, animations, movies, documentaries and other necessarily entertaining content on mobile as well as computer devices connected to the internet. It has no limit of watching hours as it keeps its subscribers on their toes battling sleep as they stream the exhilarating content. According to the Netflix annual reports in 2017, the company was streaming at least 250 million hours of video per day to around 100 million subscribers to countries around the globe.
The internet service provider has made it possible for its users to experience the sheer ecstasy and joy of pure entertainment through its platform. Netflix uses high tech components that control each of its many parts that make it as one whole. There is a component that stores all the shows that an individual subscriber has watched and there is another that checks the payment plans of its users. The latter component is also responsible for making the necessary deductions on the user’s credit cards depending on the selected bouquet.
By using algorithms, Netflix engineers can predict the kind of movies, series and show that a user enjoys and makes predictions. Once the user logs on to Netflix, the application presents the predictions at the user’s screen and often, the user is hooked to the service provider.
Representation of the Youth in Digital Programming
According to research conducted by the Pew Research Centre in 2017, an overwhelming 61 % of young adults in the U.S use online streaming to watch TV. The main online streaming services were Netflix and HBO. This realization directs the mind to find out about the representation of the youth in this digitally programmed arrangements. As witnessed by a majority of the Netflix users, the content offered by the service provider includes a lot of information, regardless of the user’s age.
A paltry 31% of youth conducted in the August 2017 study admitted to getting their content from cable or satellite subscription services. As it is in the current world, many young people possess a gadget that can connect them to online services at the click of a button. (Pew Research Centre, 2017)
While it is agreeable that content shared via digital platforms should, by all means, engage the children and the youth, it is empirical to ensure that they consume the right content. The achievement of assuring safety is, however, a shaky affair. Top-rated series, movies and shows uploaded on the online streaming platforms are often besmirched with heavy graphical content. Violence and at times heavy pornographic content that may require censoring.
In the old formats, such segments would be removed from the mainstreaming channels such as cable. In many instances, since the TV was the only way of accessing such content, adults would closely monitor their children and young adults as they consumed content. This made their policing easier. With almost every teenager and young adult possessing a mobile phone or a personal computer, accessing the content with unedited versions of what is considered harmful has become the headache of many parents. Parents are having it rough, but they are not alone in this. The content providers also suffer, often, they promise their subscribers to share content as original as it comes from the production chambers.
In as much there is ground for making a leeway by online streaming services to disregard the ethics regarding the airing of uncensored content, much has been done to ensure safe inclusivity. Brief explanations are given on what is expected in the shows to be aired. Often, an age recommendation bit is added to warn the subscriber of what kind of content he/she will consume.
The discussion has been rife amongst stakeholders in the digital programming industry, governments, young adult experts and even researchers on what “sensitive’ topics are. Though no consensus was established, this study established that many topics are considered as “sensitive’ by the youth. They include early pregnancy, sexuality, misuse and abuse of drugs, crime, strained parental relationships, and mental illnesses. Some also said that they considered their academics as sensitive.
The content aired by the online streaming services covers and show at least two or three of the sensitive issue to the youth. According to the official Netflix final quarter reports to its shareholders in 2019, millions of households watched their newly launched series during that period. The movie “La Casa de Papal’ also known as ‘Money Heist” was watched by 44 million households in the first four weeks of the release of its fourth season in late 2019.
This famous movie contained at least 5 of all the listed sensitive topics by the youth. It had scenes of violence and heavy gunfire fights. Its entire plot is banked on crime. A team of sophisticated robbers attack the central bank of Spain and carry out their heist under the tutelage of their master planner, fondly referred to as the Professor.
Scenes of same-sex lovemaking were part of the movie as well as mental illness. All these topics were all left to be binge-watched by the millions of youth who excitedly accessed it by the click of a button. Story-lines supporting countless and meaningless romantic relationships are also depicted in the majority of the movies aired by the online service providers. This is usually done in a trivialized manner than in many instances, the young person watching the movie ends up thinking it is perfect to be engaged in many relationships concurrently. Casual sex, at times unprotected, is also aired frequently. Two characters, who have never met, meet in a club for the first thing, have a little talk and are together in bed in the next scene. In the morning, they dramatically shout expletives at each other as they part. They will then surprisingly meet by chance a few days later and repeat the same cycle until they finally decide to settle and work out a relationship. Such an oversimplified, dramatic and trivialized view of sensitive topics often leaves the young minds with a dented view of reality.
Who is to be charged for not doing his/her homework and letting all these sensitive issues at the mercies of the young watchers? The effect of the movie to the young adults has to be profound. The glorification of using violence and dubious schemes to get money from a federal bank is a social anathema. This, however, was the hook of the much-watched movie.
To ensure that the young minds are protected from such content, the streaming services ensure that the subscriber is at least 18 years of age. This is a good step that helps in ensuring that whatever content is aired, their mind should be able to decipher the situation and sieve the bad from the good.
This is a step in the right direction. In reserved home settings, parents and guardians to young adults prefer to set aside the sensitive topics as taboos. In such a background, the online services provide solace to the uninformed youth. Thus, the programming surrounding sensitive topics of younger persons is very essential.
Subscribers watching content showing these topics get his/her mind opened to the numerous gaping holes in their conceptual frameworks.
Whereas governments are busy in the race to ensure strong economies and parents in an eternal rat race to meet their financial obligations, the youth are left on their own. To assuage themselves of the guilt of neglecting their younger generations, both parties resort to providing avenues of entertainment to engage the youth. In this way, policies regarding the entertainment industries are made favourable for the provision of more content. Subscription rates are dropped, and as expected, the youth turn to the services for relaxation and entertainment.
In this dangerous cycle, there grows a necessity for digital programmers to include moral lessons to young adults. They achieve this by including the sensitive topics in their content. It is a good move, it inculcates in the psyche of the youth on how to go about such events.
According to William G. Tierney, digital programmers need to bear in their minds the correct social backgrounds in which their content are consumed. In his study with three high school students in 2004, the researcher established that it is very important to offer a clearly outlined and systematic support to young adults. This goes a long way in fostering compliance to their school’s intervention programs.
During his interaction with his research sources, three young adults, in a pre-college outreach program, he got to understand their educational as well as emotional needs. To pull the heartstrings of the youth, it is crucial to give continued support and coordinated and effective communication across high schools and institutes of higher learning.
This finding thus challenges the service providers to be able to carefully analyze the demographics of their users, especially the bulwark-the youth. Their needs in watching the movies, shows and series must be met. Different young adults turn to online streaming service to satiate their unique and different needs. According to the uses and gratification theory, media users resort to the media platforms to satiate their particular want. For the youth to turn to the online streaming service and sidelining the cable and satellite platforms, it must be because their need is being met more by the internet services.
Every individual youth’s digital footprint on their service provider’s profile clearly shows their likes and dislikes of the kind of content they consume. As explained earlier, there is a component that stores the specific genre that each subscriber uses. This goes a long way to help the service providers to use their algorithms and find out the exact genre every single user wants. It could be that a user likes drama, epic, historical, romance, action or thriller movies. It is the online service providers job to ensure that such needs are noted and freely given to the user.
The intricate balance comes in by how the service providers maintain their consistency in providing the same high-quality content to its users. In doing this, the online services have a huge task in coming up with not only the content the user wants, but also check their innermost needs. As William G. Tierney observed, the emotional, educational and social contexts of the young adults heavily determine their participation in various activities.
Youth interested in academic prowess will issue the service provider a chance to air shows that glorify academia. Movies with genius characters as the stars will hook such a user. With a portion of youths believing that their academic world is a sensitive topic, a movie directed in this genre will go a long way to educate him to be great academically.
However, in as much as it is good in a movie of this kind, there is also the downside to it. In a classroom setting, the genius will most likely exhibit traits of high-handedness and slighting attitude to those struggling with academics. Should the youth watching such a movie inherit such an attitude, it will influence him/her to create terror amongst his classmates. Should he/she be challenged by academics, the genius in the film will influence his sense of self-worth and self-esteem negatively. With this illustration, it is evident that content aired by online services can either be beneficial or detrimental. This is because a youngster interacts with such content without supervision. A cable TV airing the same content would provide the chance for adult monitoring would help him/her decipher the good from evil. This is because most consumers of cable or satellite programs do so in a family setting.
In the past five years, binge-watching has become tantamount with Netflix Watching. This was not the situation in digital trends. It is also essential to note that not all young adults have express access to Netflix or other online streaming services. Unlike the old model of watching where the content was aired periodically, perhaps weekly or monthly, the digital platforms are different. They offer full content, the user does not have to wait for a week to enjoy the next episode of an entertaining program. Thus, the youth have had to experience a major culture shift in matters of TV watching and style. The disruptive model of subscription viewing has become popular because of its ability to grant them instant gratification. This has on the large scale promoted the binge-watching culture. A trait that produced potato-couches with adverse health conditions. It has also reduced social interactions and cognitive dissonance between the movie world and the real world.
According to Lesley Henderson (2007), the relationship between television fiction and the ‘material world” is a subject of considerable debate. With millions of the youth caught in the rush to be ahead of what’s going on in the entertainment world, they become accustomed to the fictitious world of the movies. Though television fiction often has exaggerated situations and condensed time scales, Henderson argues that this format offers a useful lens through which wider powers struggles can be used (Henderson 2007).
Matters such as sexual violence, health and illness are often addressed by a plethora of online service providers. They are substantive story topics that despite their sensitive nature, have to be added to the story plots watched by many across the globe.
It has not been an easy journey to include such explosive issues that many culturally reserved backgrounds often find offensive in movies aired digitally. Policymakers, the lay audiences and media commentators have on many occasions criticized and debated on how such issues are presented to viewers. Often, the discussion has resulted in the general assumption that television soap operas and serial drama, with the latter being the focus on Netflix, as a homogenous entity.
In the original ideology of television production, the content was made to be entertaining, but not just to suit an individual viewer’s needs, but the entire family’s needs. Generally, the aim for all such content is to pass critical social messages while entertaining their audiences at the same time. This, however, could ring true in the ancient mode of cable TV family subscription bouquets. Nowadays, the entertainment space has evolved and so has the content being produced also evolved with it. The focus has primarily shifted from family entertainment but rather to the production of content that will share a public issue. However, it will not just stop there but will go on to ensure that the content is dramatic, dealing at length with issues that spark controversy.
A list of the top ten most-watched serial movies in Netflix proves that the focus on controversy and surprising fetes is true. Topics such as violence and the practice of sex are no longer hidden. Explicit and lurid scenes are incorporated in the movies. Alcoholism and misuses of heavy drugs such as meth and cocaine are no longer hidden as movie characters use the outlawed drugs right at the centre of the camera. As expected, such movies not only get the eyeballs and viewers’ subscription fees but also get the society to talk. Often, the older generation comes out angrily and lash at the producers and term them evil. The providers are then blamed for the degenerating state of affairs in the societal moral fabric.
A case study of the British Soap Opera industry has proven that the appeal to dramatize and trivialize social issues has taken the forefront. Social issues, including sexual violence, illnesses and health, are now dealt with openly. (Henderson, 40). This has enabled the industry to move the social problems from the personal plights of the movie characters to the public sphere. This act has therefore helped the British industry to raise awareness and make known to the viewers that some issues no longer need to be hidden but discussed. Another benefit to the producers of such content is that new audiences have been pulled in to watching their movies and serial drama. Young people and male viewers are now enjoying the soap operas. A thing that has greatly changed the traditional perspective that soap opera is a preserve of female housewives.
It is, therefore, true to say that through the digital platforms, society has been prodded to open up on sensitive topics and actively engage the youth in serious discussions. Without the ability to poke at the unspoken and hushed topics in the society as online streaming has done, many youths would still be in the dark on such crucial areas of their lives.
Despite the numerous benefits, there is always the other side of the coin to this matter. Casual sex behavior, the glorification of violence, irresponsible alcohol use and harmful internet use have been encouraged by such content. Content providers, in the race to be the most controversial and win the race of getting as many viewers as possible have thrown caution to the woods. It is common to find plenty of movies with a leading actor who leads a reckless life but ends up the victor due to his physical or mental prowess. In “Money Heist”, the leading character, Professor has received worldwide acclamation and praise. This is due to his ability to dupe the Spanish police and army and manages to mint money from the Spanish federal bank. A trait that if adopted by the numerous young minds who have watched the serial drama will result in anarchy. Disdain for maintaining and keeping the law will be promoted and the social vice of duping superiors and defying authority will be enforced by the viewers. The main reason for this would be to look cooler than or at least as cool as the main character in the fictitious movie.
The Spanish fiction television, however, maintains its consistent stand that the traditional family model needs to be maintained. According to Charo Lacalle (2015), the analysis of at least 700 characters in the leading roles of Spanish fiction television movies and serial drama showed that the family model is valued highly.
New concepts such as the evolving gender roles whereas many women are now engaged in providing for the family are still relatively new to the Spanish culture.
Lacalle focused her study on the roles assigned to female characters. In a conclusive report, she discovered that the women in the fiction television industry were given roles that exuded effeminacy. They were the typical homemakers and essential caregivers to their children, husbands and extended family. The women were also depicted are the overly-emotional and indecisive creatures in need of male approval.
It was also observed that despite the general bias orienting towards the traditional family setting, the Spanish television industry is slowly adapting more creative and unfamiliar family models.
The effect of such a view of the mind of the young viewers will go a long way in their shaping of the perceived gender roles. A young man exposed to such content via the numerous online platforms will have certain expectations from the women he interacts with. The female subscriber too will develop certain views regarding the men she interacts with. Such exposure will result in a salient yet unnoticeable pressure to be the best version of oneself while using the skewed knowledge obtained from the content they consume. Should a young couple existing in a different society try to live by the Spanish fiction standards, society will be harsh to them, In contrast to the ideology of women being majorly housewives, the American movie industry shows women as equal to their male counterparts in nearly all aspects. Be it financially, emotionally, mentally and at times even physically. A typical Hollywood movie will depict a strong single woman working up to three jobs to provide for her family. Should such a woman get in a relationship with a man who subscribes to the Spanish school of thought, the woman will be termed as manly. Effectively, the working lady will term the man as a male chauvinist and a weak man who cannot stand a “strong” woman. As such, their relationship will most likely end bitterly and if it persists, they will have massive power struggles that could ultimately lead to resentment.
The study of television fiction products, which accounts for the major content aired by online streaming services, targeted at young adult viewers provides insight on what the youth refer to consume. The kind of images and how the teenagers are portrayed in serial dram productions greatly determine whether or not the young people will turn to particular content. (Grace and Maddalena, 2011)
In the research conducted by Grace Munoz, it was concluded that teen series are often closely linked to the patterns observed in the general global content as well as cultural phenomena, such as teen culture, movies and television shows.
All these productions are not only being consumed through traditional channels such as television sets but also multi-media and cross-media formats. The growth in the online streaming services has therefore enabled the adaptation to various improved consumer formats which support multitasking amongst the youth.
Themes that reigned dominantly include love and friendships. These two themes are governed by different social constructs and do not exist independently. Most online streaming service nowadays take their time in going deeper and providing the teen character’s internal processes. These include their worries, deep thoughts, dreams, plans and their problems. As observed, many teens are often at crossroads when they edge towards completing their high school studies and are hit by the tough decision of choosing their careers. The expectations set by their parents, school teachers, society, relatives take a toll on them. There is also the aspect of job demands and expectations. Often than not, the study established that the more serious themes such as job expectations were given to characters playing more subservient roles, often the older characters, and not to the youth. The general plot themes were listed and the following percentages show how the themes were distributed across the teen movies.
The theme of friendship covered 17.1 %, love took 26.94 %, family problems took 9.84%. Sex accounted for 4.15%, personal acceptance 27.98%. Job expectations took up 10.88% while the theme of discrimination tailed the themes taking up 3.11%. (Grace and Maddalena, 2015)
In a bid to protect the young audience, sensitive topics such as drug abuse, alcoholism and violence were downplayed in teen movies. Alcohol consumption and drug-taking are usually related to processes of personal acceptance and character identity. No story plots could be directly linked to neither drugs nor violence in the teen series, Dawson’s Creek” that was analyzed in the study.
Conclusion
Service providers should, therefore, put such ethical considerations when producing content targeted at the youth. Focus on love and friendship themes mixed with the development of positive and constructive thoughts are greatly advised. Minimization of negative topics surrounding explicit sexual content, drug abuse, family conflict and alcohol consumption should be fostered. To avoid creating a gap between the young developing minds, it is highly recommended that the story plots should unfold so gently and not in a rushed manner. For the viewer to relate with the negative aspects associated with drug abuse, the character involved in the intake of the outlawed drugs should be involved in trouble and finally rehabilitated and reformed. This will go a long way to show the adverse effects of getting involved in such irresponsible behavior and therefore impose a positive behavioural modification.
The service providing industry admits that providing content for the young audience is an uphill task. In 2016, experienced TV executives brought to light the struggle in engaging the youth audience. (Cinema journal, 2016)
One of the executives was the CEO, Shane Smith of the US-based media company, Vice Media. He accused the traditional television companies of misunderstanding and therefore neglecting the youth’s needs and interests. The company offers a multifaceted approach to providing content through various platforms. Former BBC TV executive, Liz Warner on one occasion brazenly claimed that content aired on British television was very boring.
The launching of the BBCThree offered a new platform for the media giants BBC to bridge the gaps in reaching to its digital youth audience.
Companies providing online content should also embrace the use of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube platforms to increase their digital presence. These established platforms have well-defined restrictions on content that can be shared with their users. This effectively protects the youth from consuming harmful content that would enforce a negative behavioural impact on the young audience. Sex scenes, pornography, abuse of drugs and violence themes will suffer massive attrition once service providers resort to the aforementioned digital platforms to share content.
Parents and guardians should also take an active role in ensuring the safety of their children when watching such content. To curtail binge-watching, which renders most of the youth inactive, parents can cut off internet access to their homes at specifically agreed times at home. This simple act will not enforce a sense of responsibility among the youth. It will also imbue a deep appreciation of engaging in gainful activities among the youth and help them see entertainment a platform to relax the minds and not an end on its own.
Online streaming service providers should take their responsibility of digging deeper into the varying social constructs, upbringing and environments of their young audience. This will not only entertain and captivate their audience but also educate them appropriately by demystifying the mystery of sensitive topics. Stricter measures including editing out and censoring heavy sexual and violent content to be in line with the age of their viewers. A young woman aged 23, definitely has a more mature understanding of matters of sexuality compared to an 18-year-old. Though classified as young adults, their perceptual schemata should be factored in when allowing then access to movies and serial drama in online streaming services.
Community leaders, peer counsellors should also come out boldly and address the sensitive topics surrounding the lives of the youth. The young audience will no longer have the excuse of resorting to adult content aired on service providers such as Netflix to learn about these topics. On the occasion that they are counselled openly on these areas and watch the sensitive topics in the movies they consume, they will have a superior perspective and be able to distinguish right from wrong.
The application of the ratings assigned by the TV parental guidelines to television programs that are designed for mature audiences only should be greatly increased.