The change of film viewing practices and viewing experience in digitalization process

Digitalization transformed spatial context of film viewing experience and audience practices. Cinemagoing became an important social practice, started with travelling screenings then into theatres. With video, film became distributable and movable for home. This emerged forms of viewing from collective experience reducing to individual level. Thus, this developed recordable, pausible, fast-forwardable, rewindable, fragmented, repeatable viewing experiences from single experience in theater. Films obtaining the digital infrastructure by computer technology, changed the quality of the bond that audience established with film. This made path where reality can be rebuilt, covering field of vision, immerse, even narratives which audience can determine its flow. With digitalization, film became lighter, compressed into discs and can be viewed from multiple screens. Broadband, provided rise of digital platforms. Thus, audiences can watch any film they want from any screen. Second-screening, forms of media consumption with the speed that social media brought, extended to film viewing. Within this plentiness and multiplication, audience can either divide film viewing time into days, watch in rows, even give up by choice fatigue. Audiences began watching more through digital platforms because the movie theaters were closed during pandemic. Positioning and viewing practices of audience were classified in terms of multiplication, despatialization of screens where experience occurs. Comprises cinemagoing frequency, its factors, theater preferences, relation with digital platforms, screen choices and viewing practices emerged with new media. Using mixed method, data collected from 632 participants in Turkey by snowball sampling, was analyzed through SPSS. Interviews with 22 audiences 13-74 ages, 6 industry representatives from exhibition, distribution, digital platforms were conducted to evaluate change of value chain and audience. It is seen that changable, liquid audience typologies and multiple viewing practices emerging, despite accelarated shift from theaters to digital platforms caused by pandemic rather than radical changes in multiplying viewing practices through digitalization.