Smart TV
Devices, Platforms, Markets
Will be published approx. on 5. January 2027
Book
Paperback/Softback
248 pages
978-1-4798-3553-9 (ISBN)
Description
Charts the evolution of the TV from a broadcast-only receiver to the internet age
How did the television set, once a simple broadcast receiver, become a connected, app-enabled platform? In Smart TV: Devices, Platforms, Markets, Ramon Lobato provides a definitive account of this transformation, charting the evolution of television hardware and software in the internet age. As the TV evolves from a "lean-back" appliance to an algorithmically curated marketplace, Lobato traces the technologies, institutions, and cultural practices that have fundamentally reconfigured the medium.
Using a critical media-industries perspective, Lobato explains how the smart TV was conceived, designed, and marketed as a new kind of distribution technology. He shows how its software and platforms were engineered to nudge, monitor and quantify our viewing choices. This shift has reconfigured power relations among manufacturers, users, content providers, and platform operators, and has allowed consumer electronics giants like Samsung, LG and TCL to become powerful gatekeepers in television's new attention economy.
Unpacking the business arrangements of the platform age, Smart TV explains how new advertising formats and data-tracking practices have emerged in the wake of this digital transition. Weaving together trade sources, policy analysis, device testing and audience research, Lobato offers a multi-perspectival analysis of a key device reshaping the global digital ecosystem. Essential reading for scholars and industry professionals, this book illuminates the convergent future of television.
How did the television set, once a simple broadcast receiver, become a connected, app-enabled platform? In Smart TV: Devices, Platforms, Markets, Ramon Lobato provides a definitive account of this transformation, charting the evolution of television hardware and software in the internet age. As the TV evolves from a "lean-back" appliance to an algorithmically curated marketplace, Lobato traces the technologies, institutions, and cultural practices that have fundamentally reconfigured the medium.
Using a critical media-industries perspective, Lobato explains how the smart TV was conceived, designed, and marketed as a new kind of distribution technology. He shows how its software and platforms were engineered to nudge, monitor and quantify our viewing choices. This shift has reconfigured power relations among manufacturers, users, content providers, and platform operators, and has allowed consumer electronics giants like Samsung, LG and TCL to become powerful gatekeepers in television's new attention economy.
Unpacking the business arrangements of the platform age, Smart TV explains how new advertising formats and data-tracking practices have emerged in the wake of this digital transition. Weaving together trade sources, policy analysis, device testing and audience research, Lobato offers a multi-perspectival analysis of a key device reshaping the global digital ecosystem. Essential reading for scholars and industry professionals, this book illuminates the convergent future of television.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
25 b/w images; 6 tables
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-4798-3553-9 (9781479835539)
Copyright in bibliographic data is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or its licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Ramon Lobato is Associate Professor in the School of Media and Communication at RMIT University, Melbourne. He is the author of Netflix Nations: The Geography of Digital Distribution and Shadow Economies of Cinema: Mapping Informal Film Distribution.