Expanding production value: The culture and scale of television and new media

Abstract

Web, or networked, distribution technologies have challenged the power of US media corporations, which set high technical standards for production value, a measure of content quality. Legacy TV companies privilege complex, seamless technical execution supported by large crews of workers – lighting, sound, design, visual effects – but exclude as producers culturally marginalised creators perceived as too risky for the big investment necessary to execute it. The internet disrupts these dynamics by allowing for the distribution of smaller scale TV and video productions that are independently or inexpensively made. In smaller scale work, cultural production value asserts more importance, as producers create with and for their community.