Recommendation Logics and Exposure Diversity: Researching the European VOD Experience

In order to make the content selection process manageable, video-on-demand (VOD) services deploy a logic and interface to present, hide and foreground content, and ultimately to recommend certain titles over others. Recommendation logics and styles affect content prominence and – theoretically at least – mould viewers’ engagement with film and media, which in turn stokes or stymies circulation of content. This chapter explores how different forms of VOD recommendation may (or may not) affect the diversity of film and media content that European audiences are exposed to – and thus affect their lived media experience. Overall, the chapter argues that the technological basis of recommender systems is a poor predictor of consumption outcomes. The larger stakes of this argument call for advancement to a more nuanced stage of research into VOD recommendation and its effects on ‘exposure diversity’ (i.e. the types of films that audiences actually watch). By focusing on research on the European VOD experience, this chapter suggests that methods such as longitudinal data collection and analysis, empirical audience research and experimental testing offer three ways forward for scholarship in VOD recommendation and exposure diversity.