The viewer in motion : the impact of digital diffusion on audiences in film festivals
This research, conducted in partnership with the Cannes Film Market, seeks tounderstand the impact exerted by digital diffusion technologies on the movie goers in the collective context of festivals.Unlike theories associating the practices of individuals to the idea of a positivist break, particularly in a context where a large number of medias describe digital evolutions as"revolutionary", we have tried to grasp the complexity of the practices and representations of spectators, both in the irevolutionary and continuity aspects, in the context of what we have called the digitalera.Our two main studyfields,the Cannes Film Market and the Kinotayo Festival, have allowed ustotackle our questions from two perspectives : that of the direct impact of digital tools on the practices and representations of spectators in a collective situation,but also that of the impact of digital diffusion technologies on the festival entity itself. The question of the spectators ’movement allowed by the uses of digital diffusion tools leads us, in the context of the highlys edentary cinematographic activity, to several issues of importance : questioning the potential individualization of a collective practice, questioning the renewed possibilities of interaction between the spectators and the cinematographicchain,but also questioning the evolving limits of what is known as "festivals". Thus appears, in this research, a multidimensional dynamic of reconfiguration of the collective festival and cinema expériences. Between the collective and private spheres, between "traditional" representations and evolving practices, this study shows us that the evolution of practices and représentations in a digital context is not about the idea of a break, but about the idea of continuity.