From Just-In-Time to On-Demand: A Manufacturing History of Streaming Video and its Conveniences

29 Oct 20219am—10.30am

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Marc Steinberg, Concordia University
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The temporal immediacy and conveniences of “video on-demand” have been central themes of accounts of video streaming platforms from Netflix to AbemaTV to Tudou. Overlooked is an earlier model of production that subtends the on-demand logics of internet-distributed video: just-in-time (JIT). Developed by Japanese automobile manufacturer Toyota in the 1950s and exported to the world as a management philosophy from the 1970s through 1990s, JIT is a model of manufacture and circulation that presumes the “on-demand” delivery of parts to the factory and products to the consumer.

It also impacts supply chain management, software development, start-up philosophy, and now streaming platforms. This talk will offer, first, a critical reflection on the parallels and distinctions between JIT and on-demand. By attending to the supply chain management and labor practices JIT and on-demand both presume, we may deepen our understanding of the politics of video on-demand and the legacies of East Asian manufacturing history that underpin them. Second, this talk will consider the models and politics of convenience that are often called on to explain the turn to streaming video. As we will see, our ideas about convenience are themselves shaped by changes in the services industries as they incorporate just-in-time principles. Just-in-time may just be the key to rethinking what streaming means today – in Asia and beyond.