Characterization of Fictional Web Series: Colombia as a Case Study

This exploratory and descriptive research characterizes web series based on the case of Colombia, where such products are promoted by regulations, funding programs, and festivals, and are created by audiovisual industries, educational centers, government agencies, and fans. After identifying 241 web series on Yo uTu b e produced during the first two decades of the centu-ry, we analyzed aspects of content, format, publication, quality, and imple-mentation through an ad-hoc matrix. Its main results show that Colombian web series: 1) are produced in a similar way by professionals and amateurs; 2) vary in duration, number of episodes, and number of seasons; 3) are usu-ally comedies and dramas about childhood, adolescence, or family aimed at a young audience, and 4) are produced in urban centers where the au-diovisual industry has traditionally been based and are used by educational centers to compete in the audiovisual market as peripheral agents. These findings contribute to the growing body of academic knowledge regarding fiction content created exclusively for the Internet.