Spoiler definitions and behaviors in the post-network era

Abstract

Analysis of survey responses gathered from 92 television time shifters reveals varying attitudes and behaviors toward spoilers. Throughout this essay, we argue that spoiler avoiders embrace post-network era reception practices but use network era norms to evaluate their own experience and regulate the television conversations around them. We see, however, an erosion of those network era norms in people who either use spoilers to enhance their narrative pleasure or who do not actively police television conversations around them. These findings suggest that television conversation norms and individual evaluations of narrative pleasures are slower to evolve than reception patterns. Our study brings convergence culture questions of narrative pleasure, discursive patterns, active audience behaviors, and contested grounds of power to the surface.