Pandemic-Incited Intermediated Communication| (Mis-)Connected: Web Series, Digital Culture, and Everyday Life in Lockdown

Nicola Evans, Mark Ryan, Steinar Ellingsen, Meredith Burkholder, Leandro da Silva

Abstract


Web series are, in some ways, tailored for capturing everyday life in a pandemic. As short-form episodic content distributed via online platforms, the creators of Web series commonly work with tight budgets, recruiting crew and cast from their own networks, and making use of the home as an inexpensive location, methods well suited to the conditions of creative work in lockdown. This essay examines 3 of the many Web series that sought to chronicle everyday life during a pandemic: Cancelled, a Spanish-Australian Web series drama; If I Were There With You, an experimental Brazilian Web series; and the German comedy Web series Drinnen—Im Internet sind alle gleich (Inside: Everyone is equal on the Internet). The essay explores the ways in which international Web series made during lockdown interrogate and expand our understanding of the role of digital culture in everyday life for a post–COVID-19 future.


Keywords


Web series, everyday life, pandemic, digital culture

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