Data-Driven Hollywood: The New Data Professionals in the Age of Streaming (Princeton Studies in Cultural Sociology)

The rise of Hollywood’s data and algorithm specialists and their growing influence on creative decisionsIn Hollywood today, thousands of data specialists work for streaming video platforms, playing a role not just in distribution and marketing but also in decisions about content and production.In Data-Driven Hollywood, Violaine Roussel examines the emergence of this new category of professionals at the heart of the Hollywood dream factory.Roussel shows how the rise of data and algorithm specialists has transformed organizations and rearranged power relationships within them.Drawing on extensive interviews and in situ observations, she describes the ways that technical “data work” carried out by professionals at streaming platforms including Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney+ has had a significant effect on creative decisions. Rather than fetishizing data and algorithmic models, Roussel explores the practices of the professionals who shape them, manipulate them, and give them powe