Streaming difference(s): Netflix and the branding of diversity

Description

Since 2018, Netflix has been very outspoken about its commitment to diversity. In 2021, the company published its first diversity report detailing the make-up of Netflix’s talents across all US commissioned film and series released between 2018 and 2019. The report shows that, overall, Netflix is outpacing the global entertainment industry with regards to the representation and inclusion of underrepresented groups. With the report, Netflix reiterates its pledge to be the voice of change, expressing the hope that such an audit will become the benchmark of the entire industry (Sarandos, 2021) . While such decision is laudable and certainly apropos, we contend it is not anodyne. In fact, as Netflix progressively expands outside the frontiers of the Western world, we suggest that this emphasis on diversity—hereafter the diversity strategy—is a key apparatus to Netflix’s transnational expansion. Indeed, throughout the report and in its corporate communication, Netflix stresses the company’s commitment to represent its audience in all its diversity—i.e. ethnic, sexual or linguistic. This commitment, in turn, appears to justify Netflix’s diversification of content in order to appeal to broader audiences. Therefore, this article examines how Netflix rhetorically frames its diversity strategy across different markets by asking the following question: a) how does Netflix brand its narrative about diversity? Instead of appraising the company’s commitment, this article proposes an original contribution to current studies on and theorizations of Subscription Video On Demand (hereafter SVOD) services by using Netflix as case study. A growing body of work has explored said services either from the vantage point of production (Castro & Cascajosa, 2020) distribution (Lotz et al., 2018) or consumption (Turner, 2019) Yet, few studies have looked at the narratives and discourses that SVOD services use to justify and organize these industrial practices.(Crawford, 2019; Wayne, 2018) Branding narratives, especially, are of paramount importance to understand how SVOD services (re)shape industrial practices, and further obscure established relations between television texts, producers and audiences. Moreover, while Netflix’s branding, particularly in relation to diversity, is under growing scrutiny in television research,(Elkins, 2021) few studies so far have provided an in-depth examination of how a) Netflix deploys this branding across different markets and, b) uses it to secure a global footprint in the entertainment industry. Hence, following Lotz (2021) and adding to Jenner’s grammar of transnationalism (Jenner, 2018) this article investigates the cultural impact(s) of streaming platforms and expands current theorizations on Netflix’s expansion by focusing specifically on how the streamer uses its branding of diversity to create a transnational appeal. To this end, this contribution outlines four strategies used in Netflix’s branding of diversity. Taken together, these strategies highlight how the streamer exerts specific circulations of power with distinct implications for (local) industries and audiences. These operations of power, in turn, allow Netflix to uniquely juggle its transnational dimension with its national ambitions. This article is based on a thematic analysis of Netflix press releases (N=800) published on the company’s website between December 2019 and June 2021. The thematic analysis is also supplemented by the addition of press articles (N=100) published between December 2017 and June 2021.

Periode	10 feb 2022
Evenementstitel	Etmaal van de Communicatiewetenschap 2022
Evenementstype	Conference
Locatie	Brussels, Belgium
Mate van erkenning	Regional