1 Routledge Taylor & Francis Group Educating for Tomorrow1* Media Extending the Broadcast: Streaming Culture and the Problems of Digital Geographies Benjamin Burroughs and Adam Rugg This article examines the recent move by many television sports broadcast- ers of streaming their content online behind geographically restricted "geo- fences." Despite the increasing use of this distribution method, we argue that Internet users are increasingly bypassing geofences that center sports con- sumption within a nationalized television broadcasting framework through the use of VPN (virtual private network) technologies. Importantly, the geographic fluidity of the Internet often allows users to do this legally—producing mean- ingful ruptures in the logic that seeks to replicate the structures of mediation central to the television broadcast model within the space of the Internet. We argue that the streaming of sports content, then, should be understood and analyzed as an enforcement of corporate media strategies and reflection of telecommunication policy, as well as a cultural practice and tactic. Large transnational media corporations, typically the holders of popular sporting rights, attempt to bend digital sports content consumption to the broadcast models that they have historically employed. Yet, amidst this emerging model of digital broadcasting lie the problems of digital geography and the cultural practice of a streaming culture within the conditions of post-convergence. This practice often rejects the restrictions and stipulations of digital broadcasting in favor of a globetrotting, station-hopping exercise of content hunting. It is, to me right now, at the tip of this convergence between what is the best of the south [Hollywood] and the best of the north [Silicon Valley]. I think you're starting to see something very new, very original budding out of it. There is something great going on there ... Right now, to me, it is the wild, wild west. DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg, 2013 Benjamin Burroughs (M.A., University of Southern California, M.Sc., London School of Economics and Political Science) is a doctoral student in the department of Communication Studies at the University of Iowa. His research interests include streaming culture, digital media, and digital ritual. Adam Rugg (M.A., University of South Florida) is a doctoral student in the department of Communication Studies at the University of Iowa. His research interests include the evolving relationship between sports, media, and technology. Both authors are first authors, please note that they are listed in alphabetical order. © 2014 Broadcast Education Association Journal o f Broadcasting & Electronic Media 58(3), 2014, pp. 365-380 DOI: 10.1080/08838151.2014.935854 ISSN: 0883-8151 print/1550-6878 online 365