Distribution Evolution

Digital Displacement explores the digital landscape of on-demand content, countering the dominant narrative of digital disruption to paint a more complex narrative where past patterns and practices resurface online.

The advent of video-on-demand (VoD) has inspired a utopian narrative of change and disruption. According to this narrative, we have entered a new dawn of cultural democracy as on-demand technology fosters newfound levels of choice, access and autonomy, bringing greater parity to a hierarchal market and nurturing a more discerning breed of cultural consumer. This is deemed to have a particularly favourable impact on the fortunes of specialised and niche film as the restrictions that have long hindered the wider circulation of - and public interest in - specialised film are supposedy subverted with the move online.

However, this utopian narrative greatly distorts the reality of VoD. Despite its disruptive potential to transform and democratise the cultural landscape, Digital Displacement argues that VoD is profoundly marked by a strong sense of historical continuation, rather than radical disruption. Taking into account the social, cultural and economic factors behind VoD, along with the insight of leading industry professionals, Digital Displacement demonstrates that the restrictions of the 'past' are not simply abolished with the move online, but remain present in slightly new and interesting ways. The resulting work paints a complex portrait of the on-demand landscape, one that challenges our perceptions of online distribution and questions how much control we really have in this supposed age of cultural democracy.