Netflix and the Transnationalisation of Teen Television

With the renewed popularity of teen series, SVOD services such as Netflix are increasingly investing the production and distribution of the teen genre. Yet, unlike other SVOD services, Netflix is the first one (so far) to have exported the genre outside the western world. This transnationalisation of the teen genre is, we argue, infused with the streamer increasing emphasis on diversity.
Based on a qualitative analysis of Netflix’s teen series’ trailers, this contribution explores how the streamer a) challenges existing televisual conventions and b) establishes its cultural authority through distinct negotiations of the global and the local. We highlight four dimensions of Netflix’s transnationalisation of the teen genre and conclude that, more than mere diversification of its catalogue, Netflix managed to encapsulate different dimensions of diversity within the teen genre as part, on the one hand of its transnational strategy of expansion, and, on the other hand, its cultural politics.