Abstract
Interviews with industry workers and decision-makers are a critical method in television studies. Yet, one group of informants proves particularly hard to access – representatives from global media platforms. Why is it so hard to get interviews with global platform representatives, and what does the lack of access do to our research and scholarly debate?
Highlights
During the past 5 years, I have been lucky enough to participate in three large-scale research projects on media industry change
In one of the projects, studies included lengthy periods of ethnographic research during which an even more profound level of access was granted: in 2015, I followed the production of an online youth series for close to a year, analysing how a newspaperturning-online-television-provider translated ‘television’ in their new production and publishing routines (Sundet, 2016)
Interviews even function as door openers for long-standing professional relationships between industry workers and scholars, inspiring collaboration – and new research
Summary
During the past 5 years, I have been lucky enough to participate in three large-scale research projects on media industry change. Critical questions have been how streaming is changing the cultural industries, how a disrupted media industry calls for new policy solutions and how television makers produce and distribute drama in an increasingly globalised television market. Interviews with industry elites (Hertz and Imber, 1995) and so-called exclusive informants (Bruun, 2016) have been a critical method in all three projects.
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