The Microdrama Phenomenon: A New Language of Serial Drama in the Age of Clip-Based Thinking

The subject of this study is short-format serial audiovisual narratives that have emerged in the digital environment of mobile viewing and vertical video. The focus is not on the reduction of screen time itself, but on the changing principles of constructing episodes, scenes, conflicts, and audience expectations. This study analyzes a format in which an individual episode loses its relative completeness and begins to function as a brief conflict unit included in a chain of continuations. Particular attention is paid to the connection of this form with the clip-based mode of perception, the platform logic of distribution, algorithmic mechanisms for maintaining attention, and melodramatic models of rapid emotional recognition. The material draws on contemporary studies of serial dramaturgy, vertical video, web series, clip-based thinking, as well as cases of the Chinese duanju model, the ReelShort platform, and tourist and socially oriented microdramas. The methodology is based on narratological, structural-semiotic, and media-cultural analysis, allowing us to examine the short serial episode as an artistic, platform, and audience construct. The research's novelty lies in its clarification of the microdrama's dramatic microstructure: an episode is viewed as a brief conflict unit organized through rapid genre recognition, a conflictual stake, a micro-twist, and a deferred resolution. This approach distinguishes microdrama not only from traditional television series but also from short films, sketches, advertising mini-plots, and social media storytelling. It is shown that limited running time becomes not only a technical requirement but also a principle for organizing the action: conflict is introduced without extensive exposition, characters are often defined through their function in the situation, and the episode's ending is constructed as a deferred resolution. The role of the cliffhanger is clarified: it serves not as an external effect but as a structural mechanism that connects episodes and maintains tension between them. It is concluded that the development of the format is determined by the balance between the commercial effectiveness of platforms, the repetition of plot schemes, and the possibility of artistic complication through the precision of the scene, acting intonation, editing rhythm, and cultural specificity.