Series in Digital Media: A Study with Young Brazilians on Habits of Transnational Consumption

The research project “Youth Cosmopolitanisms in Brazil” adopts the concept of aesthetic cosmopolitanism to analyze the relationship between young people and the phenomenon of globalization, as a transnational cultural process that does not erase local cultures and that transmutes the feeling of national cultural singularity. In this perspective, youngsters have an aesthetic predisposition that, thanks to cultural hybridization, was emancipated from a previous locally oriented and rigidly shaped scenario. One of the spheres of transnational consumption of young Brazilians today is the consumption of TV series, especially from digital access. In this digital relationship with the series, young Brazilians present different forms of consumption, both in relation to time, without the need to wait between episodes, as well as in relation to frequency/quantity, in the multiplication of hours and in the number of episodes assisted. Their repertoire is primarily North American, but they also embrace series produced in a similar transnational format in other countries. Based on these perspectives, we present a study carried out with young Brazilians between the ages of 13 and 18, students of Sesc High School, which is a boarding school. Their campus in Rio de Janeiro gathers 465 youngsters from all 27 federal units in Brazil. The research sought to understand their consumption of series, both quantities and frequencies, as well as the diversity of genre and nationality of production, through the application of a questionnaire (N=450), a focus group (N=8) and interactive game technique developed by the research team (N=30). Faced with the possibility of series’ consumption in devices and digital platforms, these youngsters present consumption habits involving high quantity and frequency, as well as genre and nationality diversity,which allows contact with different cultures and countries represented in the narratives.