《網飛國度: 數位流通地理學》 Netflix Nations [NYU紐約打學出版社新書推薦]

《網飛國度：數位流通地理學》

Netflix Nations: The Geography of Digital Distribution

Author：Ramon Lobato

ISBN: 9781479804948

January, 2019

240 pages

20 black and white illustrations and 5 tables

Subjects: Media Studies

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電視原來是廣播媒體，發展至今已能以電話線、光纖及無線網路傳播。它可以透過應用程式、螢幕及各種播放器播放。在這種新環境下，新的影視串流平台冒起，風靡全球，全球訂閱量最大的影視自選平台「網飛 」(Netflix)就是其中一例。

作者Lobato揉合了文化理論及媒體產業分析，探究在數位流通新趨勢下政治和政策之間的張力，並以我們對媒體全球化演進的認知，追溯數位流通的歷史。作者認為，這種影視平台的運作已徹底改變了媒體在全球流傳的形式，並大大影響其觀眾。

《網飛國度》指出在數位媒體市場上一個基本的緊張關係，就是互聯網可容納多少這種全球傳播的媒體，還有各地域自身的媒體、品味與法規之間的衝突。本書亦探討全球用戶在使用自選影視平台時遇到的問題。在使用這些平台時，用戶還是會不時感受到這些平台充滿地域限制，如某些地區的用戶無法觀看某些影片，不同國家的影片分類有所差異，價格以不同貨幣顯示，字幕和標題不能以本地語言顯示等。從這些問題中，我們可以了解到數位流通真正的地域面貌和主要的全球媒體如何傳播。

「網飛」從美國擴展至全世界，南至澳洲，北至歐洲，業務遍佈全球，影響了全球用戶使用媒體的習慣。對媒體研究而言，《網飛國度》可謂橫空出世，有助於普羅大眾和學界對複雜而千變萬化的串流媒體的理解。

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作者簡介：Ramon Lobato是澳洲皇家墨爾本理工大學媒體與傳播學的資深研究員。他的著作有Shadow Economies of Cinema (2012)、The Informal Media Economy (2015)和 Geoblocking and Global Video Culture (2016)。

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簡介原文：Television, once a broadcast medium, now travels through our telephone lines, fiber optic cables, and wireless networks. It is delivered to viewers via apps, screens large and small, and media players of all kinds. In this unfamiliar environment, new global giants of television distribution are emerging–including Netflix, the world’s largest subscription video-on-demand platform.

Combining media industry analysis with cultural theory, Ramon Lobato explores the political and policy tensions at the heart of the digital distribution revolution, tracing their longer history through our evolving understanding of media globalization. Netflix Nations considers the ways that subscription video-on-demand services, but most of all Netflix, have irrevocably changed the global circulation of media content and its impact on audiences and fans.

Netflix Nations unpacks a fundamental tension in the digital media landscape – the clash between the internet’s capacity for global distribution and the territorial nature of media trade, taste, and regulation. The book also explores the failures and frictions of video-on-demand as experienced by global audiences. The actual experience of using video platforms is full of subtle reminders of market boundaries and exclusions: platforms are geo-blocked for out-of-region users (“this video is not available in your region”); catalogs shrink and expand from country to country; prices appear in different currencies; and subtitles and captions are not available in local languages. These problems of market topographies offer rich insight for understanding the actual geographies of digital distribution and critical global media flows.

Contrary to popular belief, the story of Netflix is not just an American one. From Azerbaijan to Australia, Netflix’s ascension from national company to an international conglomerate has affected media consumption on a global scale. Netflix Nation is a crucial intervention in the field of media studies, helping scholars and everyday people alike make sense of a complex, ever-shifting streaming media environment.

Ramon Lobato is Senior Research Fellow in Media and Communication at RMIT University, Melbourne. His previous books include Shadow Economies of Cinema (2012), The Informal Media Economy (2015), and Geoblocking and Global Video Culture (2016).