OTT platforms as heterotopic media environments. Cultural implications of the disempowerment of audiences

This study aims to investigate the gradual erosion of the bottom-up nature of the Internet and its cultural and political outcomes by addressing OTT platforms through the notion of heterotopia. This approach is rooted in Foucault’s idea of a space connected to all other spaces in such a way as to suspend, neutralise, or invert the relationships they define. Moreover, it incorporates Burgin’s application of this concept to media studies, describing how displaced films or film fragments circulating within different media spaces bring their specific temporality therein. From this perspective, OTT platforms can be understood as heterotopic media environments for two main reasons. Firstly, they incorporate items from cinema and television, creating a space in which even platform-specific artefacts – the originals – are nonetheless derived from these media. Additionally, they reproduce dynamics typical of traditional media within the web, reinstating broadcasting habits and precluding explicit interaction with content and among users. When contrasted with alternative models, namely P2P architectures, this scenario reveals clear consequences for the audience’s cultural role. Indeed, within these heterotopias, users are relegated to passive consumers, excluded from processes that contribute to the construction of culture, as they are not part of a structure that allows them to determine what is worth spreading and preserving as cultural heritage.