BEYOND THE SHELF: DVD CULTURE IN LEBANON IN THE DIGITAL AGE

Abstract

With digital technologies creating new updated and trendier ways for people to consume media, DVDs remain essential to this provision. Throughout the first chapter, we get an understanding of the distribution process of DVDs in Lebanon and its role in providing content throughout the years. In the second chapter, we understand how important the role of DVDs was during the pandemic in enabling people to reach media content when formal entities and other internet technologies were not easily accessible. The third chapter explains the ongoing effect of the financial crisis and the ways DVDs continue to survive even with the reopening of formal entities. This chapter permits us to see that DVD artefacts were capable of adapting to new trends to ensure a longer existence. All three chapters help readers understand why DVDs should not be underestimated nor understudied when one wishes to understand how people in Lebanon reach global media. This thesis is especially important because it opposes popular beliefs that DVD artefacts are considered as “old media” and that they will eventually be ultimately forgotten