The "Decentralized" Scheduling of New Media Short Dramas: The Spatial Reconstruction Logic of Vertical Screen Images—From the Perspectives of User Behavior, Technological Iteration, and Narrative Revolution

Vertical screen short dramas subvert the traditional film and television creation paradigm through "decentralized" scheduling. Essentially, it is a process in which the transformation of media forms leads to the transfer of spatial power. Starting from the theory of technological affordance, this paper demonstrates how the vertical screen format reconstructs the power relations in the entire "creation - dissemination - reception" chain through spatial compression, interactive empowerment, and algorithmic intervention. By combining cases such as the TikTok short drama *Escaping the British Museum* and the Kwai Xingmang short drama *After Remarriage*, it reveals the triple logic of "decentralized" scheduling: the democratization of content production empowered by users, the fragmentation of narrative driven by algorithms, and the spatial fluidity under the integration of virtual and real, providing an interdisciplinary perspective for new media film and television research.