Syfte: Studien syftar till att få en djupare förståelse i hur användarens tittarvanor påverkas av Netflix design och teknik, och huruvida dessa uppmuntrar användaren till Binge Watching. Teori: Studien använder sig främst av Sidneyeve Matrix (2014) teori och forskning om det tekniska fenomenet Binge Watching från artikeln “The Netflix Effect: Teens, Binge Watching and on Demand Media Trends” samt Jonas Löwgrens (2002) teori om kvalitet på användning från artikeln “The use qualities of digital designs, draft 1.0”. Även Gunnar Nygren och Ingela Wadbrings (2013) forskning om den tekniska utvecklingen från publikationen “På väg mot medievärlden 2020” används i undersökningen. Metod: Studien utgår från en kvalitativ forskningsmetod baserad på enskilda djupgående intervjuer. Resultat: Resultatanalysen indikerar att Netflix teknik och funktioner har en stor påverkan på användaren och dess tittarvanor. Informanterna upplever att de utan dessa funktioner inte hade använt tjänsten i lika stor utsträckning och att en lojalitet och känslomässig hängivenhet upprättats efter Netflix många taktiker att förbättra den personliga användarupplevelsen. De tekniska funktionerna har även resulterat i att samtliga informanter kontinuerligt Binge Watchar och inte sällan ser fler avsnitt av en serie än från början tänkt. / Purpose: The study aims to gain a deeper understanding of how the users viewing habits are influenced by Netflix design and technology, and whether they encourage the user to Binge Watching. Theory: The study mainly uses the theory and research by Sidneyeve Matrix (2014) on the technical phenomenon Binge Watching from the article “The Netflix Effect: Teens, Binge Watching and on Demand Media Trends” and the theory about the use qualities by Jonas Löwgren (2002) from the article “The use qualities of digital designs, draft 1.0”. The research on technological developments by Gunnar Nygren and Ingela Wadbring (2013) from the publication “På väg mot medievärlden 2020” is also used in this study. Method: The study is based on a qualitative research method based on individual in-depth interviews. Results: The result analysis indicates that Netflix technologies and features have a transparent impact on users and their viewing habits. The informants felt that they without these features would not have used the service to the same extent and that loyalty and emotional commitment was established due to the many tactics Netflix used to improve the personal user experience. The technical features have also resulted in an increased Binge Watching for all of the informants who also often view more episodes of a series than originally thought. It also became clear that it was the technology, features and wider range that made Netflix the most preferred VoD service among the informants.

The streaming market has gained momentum and many services are now staples in our everyday life. We have investigated the consumer satisfaction of the video streaming industry, to see if consumers were happy with the currently available services and if not, what drives them away? There are many illegal alternatives to the legal video streaming services and this paper explains some of the decision making that the ordinary consumer goes through when choosing between legal and illegal alternatives. Using established theoretical concepts from marketing, service innovation and digital service innovation we draw the conclusion that the market may be saturated. The qualitative data suggests that an ever-increasing amount of services (as of now) will lead to a decentralization of the content available to consumers. With the assumption that every service monopolizes their own content, each service will have a smaller amount of content than before since the available amount of media is finite. Since the average person cannot justify or afford to pay for more than one to three video streaming services, any expansion beyond that will put content behind a seemingly unreasonable paywall, leaving them with piracy as their best choice.

In the last decade Video on Demand (VOD) services are becoming the centre of audiovisual entertainment consumption. American company Netflix is currently the biggest player on the market. Thanks to growing base of viewers it has become big competitor even for big hollywood studios. Those studios don't want to lose the track in this new, popular segment of on-line entertainment, therefore they are also coming out with their own platforms. Viewer's habits on VOD services has many specifics, for example in ways of consumption or in choosing the content. The subject of this thesis is to capture allround behaviour of czech user on VOD platforms.

Recommender systems are used on many different websites today and are mechanisms that are supposed to accurately give personalized recommendations of items to a set of different users. An item can for example be movies on Netflix. The purpose of this paper is to implement an algorithm that fulfills five stated goals of the implementation. The goals are as followed: the algorithm should be easy to implement, be effective on query time, accurate on recommendations, put little expectations on users and alternations of algorithm should not have to be changed comprehensively. Slope One is a simplified version of linear regression and can be used to recommend items. By using the Netflix Prize data set from 2009 and the Root-Mean-Square-Error (RMSE) as an evaluator, Slope One generates an accuracy of 1.007 units. The Weighted Slope One, which takes the relevancy of items into the calculation, generates an accuracy of 0.990 units.  Adding Weighted Slope One to the Slope One implementation can be done without changing the fundamentals of the Slope One algorithm. It is nearly instantaneous to generate a recommendation of a movie with regular Slope One and Weighted Slope One. However, a precomputing stage is needed for the mechanism. In order to receive a recommendation of the implementation in this paper, the user must at least have rated two items. / Rekommendationssystem används idag på många olika hemsidor, och är en mekanism som har syftet att, med noggrannhet, ge en personlig rekommendation av objekt till en mängd olika användare. Ett objekt kan exempelvis vara en film från Netflix. Syftet med denna rapport är att implementera en algoritm som uppfyller fem olika implementationsmål. Målen är enligt följande: algoritmen ska vara enkel att implementera, ha en effektiv tid på dataförfrågan, ge noggranna rekommendationer, sätta låga förväntningar hos användaren samt ska algoritmen inte behöva omfattande förändring vid alternering.  Slope One är en förenklad version av linjär regression, och kan även användas till att rekommendera objekt. Genom att använda datamängden från Netflix Prize från 2009 och måttet Root-Mean-Square-Error (RMSE) som en utvärderare, kan Slope One generera en precision på 1.007 enheter. Den viktade Slope One, som tar hänsyn till varje föremåls relevans, genererar en precision på 0.990 enheter. När dessa två algoritmer kombineras, behövs inte större fundamentala ändringar i implementationen av Slope One. En rekommendation av något objekt kan genereras omedelbart med någon av de två algoritmerna, dock krävs det en förberäkningsfas i mekanismen. För att få en rekommendation av implementationen i denna rapport, måste användaren åtminstone ha värderat två objekt.

Orientalism was a term developed by post-colonial theorist Edward Said to describe the ways in which Europeans, or the West, portrayed the Orient as inferior, uncivilized, and wholly anti-Western. Netflix Inc., the world’s largest subscription-based streaming service, which as of 2018, expanded its streaming venue to over 190 countries globally, is the wellspring of knowledge for many people. Through the multimodal critical discourse analysis of 6 Netflix films and television programmes (Stateless, Gods of Egypt, Messiah, Al Hayba, Sand Castle, and Fauda) the study examines the extent to which the streaming giant is culpable in the reproduction of Orientalist discourses of power, i.e., discourses which facilitate the construction of the stereotyped Other. The results have shown that Netflix strengthens, through the dissemination and distribution of symbols and messages to the general population, the domination and authority over society and its political, economic, cultural, and ideological domains. Using Norman Fairclough’s approach to critical discourse analysis combined with a social semiotic perspective, this study endeavours to design a comprehensive methodological and theoretical framework which can be utilized by future researchers to analyse and critique particular power dynamics within society by exposing the dominant ideological world-view distortions which reinforce oppressive structures and institutional practices.

With the rapid pace of technological development, the way we consume media has changed drastically. Not too long ago, the very idea of never watching TV in the sense of broadcasted TV channels was absurd. Nowadays more and more people spend most if not all their media consumption time on streaming services like Netflix and Viaplay. We conducted a study on the reasons behind this change in media consumption, to find out why more and more people choose to spend their days watching Netflix instead of TV6 like they used to. We chose to perform our study through the lens of two different consumer behavior models: The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and the Uses and Gratification Model (UGT). With the concepts of perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use from TAM, and information seeking, affinity and accessibility from UGT. A quantitative study was conducted with 72 respondents. Our choice of method was a questionnaire which we designed to gather data on the respondents’ thoughts towards streaming services and towards the different behavior models. The survey, which was web-based, was distributed on different Facebook groups to reach potential respondents. The data gathered was then analyzed using Cronbach’s alpha and linear regression. From the results, we could gather that perceived usefulness was the most important factor of TAM, and the largest explanation behind a consumer’s usage of streaming services. Information seeking, affinity and accessibility were the largest contributing factors in the UGT model, although our results showed that UGT was not as significant as TAM in usage of streaming services. We were able to conclude that streaming services are an innovation that offers usefulness to the respondents that broadcast TV cannot compete with. We also found that TV broadcasts have a potential niche audience which they can reach with the right priorities. There were some aspects of information seeking which our respondents felt streaming services lacked, meaning if broadcast TV capitalizes on this type of informative content that streaming services lack, they can hopefully maintain a significant enough audience.

A well rounded representation of identities in media has proven essential for the development of peoples identities in general but certainly in the case of young LGBTQ-adults since the media often act as their first source of information and identification. The popular culture found in media today is said to strive for universal appeal and plays an important role for the identities in subordinate groups, as the LGBTQ-community. Earlier studies of the representation of LGBTQ-people in the media has discovered not only a lack of representation but also a miseducated one, revolving around one dimensional stereotypes leading to discrimination, heterosexism, homo- and transphobia. The proven results could be deemed as alarming in general but especially with the undertaking of The Sustainable Development Goal of Reduced Inequalities in mind.With the recognition of the troublesome results of previous investigations of the representation of LGBTQ-identities aswell as the comprehended importance of well rounded LGBTQ-representation, this study aims to conduct a study of the prevailing representation of LGBTQ-characters in one of the most expanded platforms for streaming services online, Netflix. With the assistance of a qualitative content analysis and the perspectives of queer theory and representation theory this study examines four LGBTQ-characters in four seperate series for teenagers on Netflix.The results presented in the completed study show that tendencies according to the earlier critics still remain, but also register potential cases of more modern and well formed LGBTQ-representations. This implies that in a considerable number of instances a representation of the different LGBTQ-identities is defined by restricted stereotypes which leaves them with a restricted character development focused on their LGBTQ-identity. There are also signs of underrepresentation as well as the making invisible of LGBTQ-subgroups and overall upkeep of the heteronorm. In few cases characters can be registered to break free from the former established representations and evolve beyond them, offering a broader complexity and over all more well rounded representation of LGBTQ-identities.

Streaming services such as Netflix have changed how television is produced and consumed. In 2019, the online video on demand market was topical, with big launches such as Disney+ and Apple TV+. This period in the streaming market was popularized in the press as the “streaming war(s).” Previous research on the streaming market has aimed at understanding the industry, often with a focus on innovative features. Some studies have articulated a need to look beyond the current narrative used to describe the market. This study examines this very discourse, as no studies have concentrated on the discourse surrounding the streaming market or the relationship between the streaming industry and television trade press. Such a study object may illustrate how market discourse is currently formed and understood under neoliberalism, as well as create an understanding of how the streaming industry is understood and functions. This study aims to examine the reporting on the streaming market in television trade press in 2019, with special interest to ideological biases and the portrayed power geometry between actors within the industry. It approaches the subject with a political economy perspective and conducts a critical discourse analysis on articles from The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, Deadline Hollywood, Indiewire, and Financial Times. The sample contains only articles using the phrase “streaming war(s)”. The data is approached by asking questions about how the phrase is used, how the power relations of the streaming market are portrayed, and what ideological implications can be found in the texts. The results find that the phrase “streaming war(s)” is widely used, although no agreed meaning exists. The phrase works as a conceptual metaphor, shaping a discourse where the streaming market is viewed as a war. This portrayal of the market as harsh conflict and competition is motivated by economic interests, which the television trade press helps reproduce. The “streaming war(s)” fetishizes the streaming market and conceals the responsibility held by large media conglomerates. The actors on the streaming market are found to be positioned against each other, further portraying the market as a war. Netflix and Disney are represented as the most powerful participants because of their relations to flows of capital, content, and users. The streaming service audiences are given no agency, while the market is portrayed as having an agency of its own.

Studien ämnar belysa och undersöka hur homosexualitet, makt och stereotyper framställs i den svenska serien Young Royals på Netflix. Uppsatsen undersöker framställningen av homosexualitet och makt och även vilka stereotyper och/eller icke-stereotyper som förekommer. Serien kategoriseras som en tonårsserie och riktar sig till en ung publik som befinner sig i en identitetsskapande fas i livet. Medier kan ha en stor inverkan på ungas uppfattning av omvärlden. På grund av mediers betydelsefulla roll i ungas socialisation kan det vara viktigt att uppmärksamma hur framställningen av homosexualitet i samband med maktförhållanden och stereotyper ser ut. Studiens teoretiska ramverk har sin utgångspunkt i representationsteorin och stöds av centrala begrepp som stereotyp, identitet och heteronormativitet. Med hjälp av metoden multimodal kritisk diskursanalys och analysverktygen lexikala val, värdeladdade ord, attribut och scenmiljö har vi studerat tio utvalda scener från serien i dess framställning av homosexualitet, makt och stereotyper. Analysens resultat visar på tydliga normbrytande framställningar, främst när det kommer till homosexualitet. De förutfattade meningar som finns om homosexuella personer kommer inte till uttryck i serien, och den generella bilden kring homosexualitet skiljer sig inte från den som finns om heterosexualitet. Personers makt och maktpositioner baseras till stor del på deras förmögenhet, familjetillhörighet och sociala status. Typiska stereotyper i serien är få och det är snarare icke-stereotyper som utgör majoriteten. Karaktärerna i Young Royals framställs som normbrytande och icke-stereotypiska, vilket troligtvis är ett medvetet val från manusförfattarna. / The study intends to shed light on and examine how homosexuality, power and stereotypes are portrayed in the Swedish series Young Royals on Netflix. The essay examines the representation of homosexuality and power as well as which stereotypes and/or non- stereotypes occurs. The series is categorized as a teenage series and is aimed at a young audience that is in an identity-creating phase in life. The media can have a major impact on young people's perceptions of the world around them. Due to the important role of the media in the socialization of young people it may be important to pay attention to what the portrayal of homosexuality in connection with power relations and stereotypes looks like. The study's theoretical framework is based on the theory of representation and is supported by key concepts such as stereotype, identity, and heteronormativity. Using the method multimodal critical discourse analysis and the analysis tools lexical choices, emotionally charged words, attributes, and stage environment, we have studied ten selected scenes from the series in its presentation of homosexuality, power, and stereotypes. The results of the analysis show clear norm-breaking representations, especially when it comes to homosexuality. The preconceived notions that exist about homosexual people are not expressed in the series, and the general picture about homosexuality does not differ from the one that exists about heterosexuality. People's power and positions of power are largely based on their wealth, family affiliation and social status. Typical stereotypes in the series are few and it is rather non-stereotypes that make up the majority. The characters in Young Royals are portrayed as norm-breaking and non-stereotypical, which is probably a conscious choice by the scriptwriters.

The study strives to clarify and problematize the construction of love in a Swedish produced tv series for youths with homosexual main characters. It examines the six episodes of the Netflix show Young Royals, which premiered in 2021 and has been acknowledged for its depiction of homosexual characters. With help from multimodal discourse analysis and the analytical tools lexical choices, emotionally charged words, attributes and settings the study examines how homosexual love is constructed in the show and how norms about sexuality and masculinity are expressed in this depiction. The study uses the theories “Heteronormativity” and “Hegemonic masculinity” in order to help see the different discourses from the series. The results show four different thematic discourses connected to the construction of love between the main characters; inner conflict of sexuality, loneliness, power relationships as obstacles to romantic relationships and invincible love. The conclusions drawn are that love is not constructed in the stereotypic way which is common for homosexual relationships in media. The love is rather constructed like in typical romantic movies and shows in which the main characters are heterosexual.