Active TV Viewing
	TV is a medium that is hard to define because it is constantly evolving. As a viewer of TV, my personal viewing habits and modes of viewing have significantly changed through the years. In Lisa Parks’ essay, “Flexible Microcasting: Gender, Generation, and Television-Internet Convergence”, she argues that TV is converging with the Internet and how viewers of TV can personalize TV by recording shows on digital recorders such as TiVo. Being able to record shows gives the viewer the ability to control flow and changes the idea of the passive TV viewer to an active TV viewer. Shows that encourage viewers to go online and discover more about the show allow the viewer to become more involved with the show/story itself. In Jeffrey Sconce’s essay, “What If?: Charting Television’s New Textual Boundaries”, he argues that TV narrative has evolved to cumulative narrative which balances episodic modes with larger arcs that progress through the series. This type of narrative allows the viewer to become more involved with the characters and storyline and create worlds outside of the actual story. Both of these theorists are concerned with how TV is evolving and the involvement of the TV viewer – Parks through television’s expansion to other media sources and the use of DVRs and Sconce through the cumulative narrative style that allows viewers to create worlds beyond the show. The way people view television today is vastly different than the way people used to watch it twenty years ago. The various media devices available today as well as online television subscriptions have moved TV to a medium that is longer confined to a TV set. Using the show Pretty Little Liars I will demonstrate how TV embraces its expansion to other media platforms to promote and expand viewership, how the narrative encourages its viewers to become more involved with the story, and how the show is a perfect example of the status of TV today.
	I have been watching television since I was very young and the way I watch television today is vastly different from the way it was when I was younger. When I was young I never really watched anything that wasn’t a cartoon and they were mostly all re-runs on Nickelodeon. I never cared about commercials since the commercials were always in between the two 15 minute episodes within the show and they were always commercials for toys that I always felt I needed to have. By the time I was in high school my family had a DVR and my viewing experience changed completely. “Flexible microcasting involves the digitization of recording and timeshifting practices made possible by the VCR so that scheduling is no longer determined solely by networks, cable, or satellite operators because viewers have a range of options with respect to their content lineups and viewing times (Parks 136). This quote from Parks’ essay exemplifies what a DVR really does, the DVR allows me to record my shows and I am basically setting up my own television schedule. “Flexible microcasting generates the possibility of greater viewer control over television’s temporality, not only in terms of timeshifting content but also by enabling the viewer to determine the schedule and regulate its flow” (Parks 136-137). This quote illustrates that viewers of TV today are able to watch the things they want at any time they want. In Nick Browne’s essay, “The Political Economy of the Television (Super) Text,” he argues that TV is scheduled around who is at home at what time in order to fit seamlessly into the everyday work schedule. Today, with the use of DVRs, people are able to create their own schedule and watch the shows they want to watch when it is convenient for them.
	For the past four years I have been living away from home and therefore I watch TV “live” on a television set because I cannot afford to have a DVR/cable service. I personally have always enjoyed watching shows as they air, it is exciting knowing that I am in the know and current with all the happenings of my favorite television shows. I have been watching Pretty Little Liars since I was in high school and I continue to watch it because I feel so invested in the story and with the characters. The show is about a group of four friends, Aria, Spencer, Hanna, and Emily that have to cope with the death of their friend Alison. The four girls are stalked by someone named A that sends each of them texts of their secrets that only Alison would know and therefore they must obey what A tells them to do for fear their secrets could get out. “If a series is to succeed for hundreds of episodes, it must feature an appealingly familiar and yet ultimately repetitive foundation of premise and character relations (Sconce 100). The series uses what Sconce calls cumulative narrative in which the characters might do something different each episode but there is a large arc present throughout the series. The show is very repetitive in that in each episode they are always getting text messages from their stalker(s) A, but different things always happen to each individual character. I have invested so much time watching the show I feel that I must watch the show until the very end. The show unravels more and more secrets with each episode making it unclear as to when the show will actually end. The show is a mystery and therefore the viewers of the show are always speculating what will come next in the show and on many fan websites there are people’s ideas of what will happen and how the story may continue. The Pretty Little Liars section of the ABC Family website often promotes viewers to vote who they think will be a part of the A team that stalk the characters of the show. These types of polls encourage viewers to comment on their reasonings for why they believe a certain character is guilty. Viewers are so dedicated to the show they create stories as to what will ultimately be the end of the show – the reveal of A.
	“The convergence of television and computers is not just about technical mixing; it also activates gendered assumptions about ‘active’ users and ‘passive’ viewers, class-based discourses related to digital access and speed, and broader issues of cultural taste and social distinction” (Parks 134). TV has made its way onto the internet and is a way that many people watch “TV” today. The convergence of television and internet can be seen in things like Smart TVs that feature internet on the television set. I believe that internet-related television searchers are no longer gendered because the internet is so easily accessible to anyone today. What creates gender bias is the television program itself, the viewers of Pretty Little Liars are mainly female because they are centered around four high school girls. The commercials before, during, and after Pretty Little Liars encourage the viewer to go online to watch sneak peeks of upcoming episodes and interviews with characters about what has happened on the show. As a college student I sometimes am not able to watch the premiere showing of Pretty Little Liars because of school commitments but often I am able to watch the repeat showing later that evening. I have noticed that the commercials advertising the show for the coming week have changed from showing clips of the show for the next week to just general advertisements for the show itself. I believe that this is to give the illusion of liveness because while the show airs for the first time clips for the upcoming show won’t be shown because it could possible ruin the current show. This is similar to how Jane Feuer believes that Good Morning, America overcomes segmentation by repeating segments dependant on the times people leave for work. ABC Family wants to create the same experience for the viewers watching the second airing of the show that viewers of the original showing had. I believe they also do this to encourage people to go on the website and look at the sneak peeks for the new show. By going onto the show’s website the viewers are rewarded with information they could not get by simply watching the show on TV.
	“Whatever their genre or narrative logic, they all create worlds that viewers gradually feel they inhabit along with the characters” (Sconce 95). The show is based on a book series of the same name by Sara Shepherd and viewers that have read the books already feel an established connection with the characters and their story. The connection to the world of the characters is created by the way the narrative always repeats similar themes and shows different storylines with the characters each week. Viewers of the show also feel they inhabit the world the characters are in because every week on ABC Family’s website they post the fashion file for each character so the viewers can copy the fashions of the their favorite characters. In this way the viewers can become the character from the show. A big part of the show that promotes the convergence of television and the internet is the show’s use of Twitter hash tags that appear at the top of the screen at key moments of each episode. “Often, importing televisual elements within computer environments is constructed as a contamination or dumbing down of computer’s potential” (Parks 137). I do not agree with the idea that combining TV elements with the internet dumbs down the potential of the internet but in fact creates the feeling of community for both TV and the internet. By having different Twitter hash tags during the show viewers tweet their reactions while watching the show and this creates an illusion of community because one can search the hash tag on Twitter and see what other people have posted. The hash tags create what John Ellis calls co-presence.  The viewer feels what they are watching is live because they can see live tweets and they coincide with what is happening on the screen. While watching the episode, “Dead to Me” in the repeat showing I was still able to get the same experience as the viewers who watched the first airing because the Twitter hash tags are still incorporated into the show. The episode sticks out in my mind from all the other episodes because it featured a Twitter hash tag that appeared before the event occurred and essentially ruined that moment. The hash tag #PoorSpencer appeared on the screen before anything had happened and prompted a lot of angry tweets on Twitter because of it. Now the hash tag has become a joke on many fan sites because of this mistake. Only viewers who watched the show on the night it aired are in on this joke and creates an inner circle of viewers. The Twitter hash tags only appear while watching the show on TV during the first night it airs, creating  a different viewing experience that the viewer could not get online. “By combining the strengths of both the episodic and serials formats, this narrative mode allows new and/or sporadic viewers to enjoy the standalone story of a particular episode while also rewarding more dedicated, long-term viewers for their sustained interest in the overall series” (Sconce 98). The viewer has repetitive themes that are present in every episode but features new episodic elements that allow new viewers the ability to watch single episodes without feeling completely lost.
Another popular TV viewing method today is through Netflix. “It makes more sense to refer to the personalization of television as a kind of ‘flexible microcasting,’ where computer and television technologies are combined to produce the effect of enhanced viewer choice in the form of a stream of programming carefully tailored to the viewer’s preferences, tastes, and desires” (Parks 135). Watching something on Netflix begins to create personalized suggests similar to the shows previously watched. Netflix offers a completely different viewing experience than TV can offer and watch DVRs can offer. Netflix has TV show seasons available and therefore allows the viewer to continually watch shows, something that is not possible on TV. A distinct feature is the ability to watch shows with commercials, which also changes the viewer’s experience. Having Pretty Little Liars encourages re-watching of the show and allows the viewer to further invest themselves in with the characters of the show and the storyline. Being able to watch the show at any time on Netflix allows the viewer to see things they wouldn’t see on TV unless they had a DVR because of the ability to pause and rewind. “Where television viewers are perceived as passive couch potatoes, computer users are by comparison seen as active and overworked” (Parks 137). Television viewers whether they are watching on a television set or on the computer should both be thought of as active because often times the viewers are doing more than one thing at once. When I watch TV shows online I am fully devoted to the show and am not looking at other web pages because if I did that I could no longer see the show at all. When I am watching TV on a television set I am very often working on the computer and may not be giving my full attention as I would if I were watching a show online. This is because I know I will be able to simply look up at the TV set and see what is going on, while if I’m on the computer different pages can block the show and I would be delayed if I had to switch screens to see what it going on.
	Pretty Little Liars tries to reach out to its viewers on different media platforms by making exclusive content available only through certain media devices. Central to the show is the use of cell phones because it is the way A communicates with the characters. “The show is edited in such a way that it enables viewers to see the contestant’s face and interface and play along (especially using new interactive options), and it encourages viewers to visit the program’s Web site at a computer interface to further test their knowledge (Parks 139). The viewer is always able to read the cell phone screen and able to see A’s messages and the reactions of the characters. On the show’s website is a function that one could sign up for texts for exclusive videos and makes one feel as if they are getting texts from A and like a character of the show. In this way the show strives to become more than just a show but a real mystery that the viewer must solve, the mystery becomes a part of the viewer’s life. Another form of convergence is how weekly webisodes were released to satiate viewers between the season finale and the Halloween special. The webisodes created the illusion of watching the show since they were released weekly and at the same time keep viewers coming back to the website.
	TV viewing has changed drastically over the years with the converging of TV and other media platforms. TV has become accessible to virtually anyone and is no longer so exclusive. DVRs have changed how TV is viewed on a TV set because of its ability to manipulate flow and schedule to the viewer’s liking. TV has become personal to each viewer with its move towards digitization. Another important factor in the evolution of TV is the cumulative narrative style that makes viewers more invested in the stories. I feel Pretty Little Liars exemplifies TV today because of the way it promotes expansion to other media devices to give viewers unique experiences they could not get simply through the TV and feel more connected to the show. TV is something that the viewer can now be in complete control of and be better incorporated to fit the different schedules of any viewer.

Works Cited
“Dead to Me.” Pretty Little Liars. ABC Family. ABC Family, Santa Cruz. 5 Feb. 2013. Television.
Parks, Lisa. “Flexible Microcasting: Gender, Generation, and Television-Internet Convergence.” Television After TV. Eds. Lynn Spigel and Jan Olsson. Durham: Duke University Press, 2004. 133-56. Print.
Sconce, Jeffrey. “What If?: Charting Television’s New Textual Boundaries.” Television After TV. Eds. Lynn Spigel and Jan Olsson. Durham: Duke University Press, 2004. 93-112. Print.