Interface real estate: Amazon Prime and visibility politics

This paper investigates how Amazon Prime Video’s interface design affects content visibility, specifically analysing the prioritisation of Prime-included versus third-party content. Using the Vignette tool on French accounts, we conducted a mixed-methods analysis of homepage structures, including ro...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inCritical studies in television
Main Authors van Es, Karin, Iordache, Catalina
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published 06.09.2025
Online AccessGet full text
ISSN1749-6020
1749-6039
DOI10.1177/17496020251375211

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Summary:This paper investigates how Amazon Prime Video’s interface design affects content visibility, specifically analysing the prioritisation of Prime-included versus third-party content. Using the Vignette tool on French accounts, we conducted a mixed-methods analysis of homepage structures, including row hierarchies and title heatmaps across multiple user profiles. We find that while Prime Video shares common strategies with other services (e.g. own content prioritisation and burying the continue watching button), it distinguishes itself with a uniquely dense landing page layout featuring a large number of thumbnails and content rows. This design reveals deeper commercial logics shaped by Amazon’s integrated retail model.
ISSN:1749-6020
1749-6039
DOI:10.1177/17496020251375211