Audiovisual consumption and streaming among Portuguese higher education students: media coexistence and algorithmic mediation

Abstract

The contemporary audiovisual landscape is frequently narrated as a process of linear substitution: the inexorable death of linear television and the triumph of streaming. Yet this study challenges this narrative through empirical analysis of media consumption habits among 89 Portuguese higher education students. Findings reveal not substitution, but functional coexistence wherein 54.3% of respondents still prefer free-to-air (FTA) television while 53.5% are streaming subscribers. Within the subscriber segment, platform hegemony is observed whereby Netflix achieves 88.6% penetration, suggesting a transition from broadcaster monopoly to algorithm-mediated platform monopoly. The drivers of this migration are structural: temporal flexibility (89.9%) and advertising rejection (65.2%) reflect a generational rupture with the "appointment viewing" model. Yet the autonomy perceived by users occurs within spaces deliberately designed to constrain choice, instantiating the concept of conditioned activity. The specific Portuguese context—with 92.1% access to Pay-TV—transforms the "cord-cutting" narrative into one of strategic service accumulation, evidencing how platformisation unfolds differently according to national infrastructures. The study contributes to critical understanding of contemporary algorithmic culture, challenging simplistic dichotomies between "passive" and "active" audiences and proposing that media power, despite technological transformations, persists under new forms of intermediation.