When the lights go down: why do people still go to the movies?

This study explored why individuals still attend movie showings in a theater environment when so many alternatives are available in the digital age. The goals of this paper were to understand the behavior of movie-going using theoretical research, qualitative interviewing, and ethnographical observation. A total of eighteen subjects were interviewed in three North Carolina cities: Winston-Salem, Lexington, and Charlotte. It was determined that movie-going is based on cultural geography, time, and population. Subsequently, the literature and field data strongly suggest that movie-going culture and fandom carries different meanings for each individual. Since movie-going has often been attributed as a unique social experience, each subject was asked to expound on how the movie-going experience differed from that of in-home digital alternatives such as Netflix, Hulu, and illegal pirating. Nostalgia, social solidarity, escapism, and even religious behavior were reoccurring motivations for the participating moviegoers in this study