Journal of Communication, 2022, 511–521

https://doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqac020
Advance access publication 11 June 2022
Original Article

Netflix, library analysis, and globalization: rethinking mass

media flows
1 2 3
Amanda D. Lotz *, Oliver Eklund , Stuart Soroka
1
Digital Media Research Centre, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
2
Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
3
University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
*To whom correspondence should be addressed: Amanda Lotz, Digital Media Research Centre, Queensland University of Technology, Kelvin Grove Campus,
Z1 Musk Avenue, Brisbane, QLD 4001, Australia; Email: amanda.lotz@qut.edu.au

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Abstract
The advent of subscriber-funded, direct-to-consumer, streaming video services has important implications for video distribution around the globe.
Conversations about transnational media flows and power—a core concern of critical communication studies—have only just begun to explore
these changes. This article investigates how global streamers challenge existing communication and media theory about transnational video and
its cultural power and considers the theory rebuilding necessitated by streamers’ discrepant features. It takes particular focus on Netflix and
uses the library data available from Ampere Analysis to empirically explore and compare 17 national libraries. Analyses suggest considerable vari-
ation in the contents of Netflix libraries cross-nationally, in contrast with other U.S.-based services, as well as Netflix libraries offering content pro-
duced in a greater range of countries. These and other results illustrate, albeit indirectly, the operations and strategies of global streamers, which
then inform theory building regarding their cultural role.
Keywords: Netflix, streaming, media globalization, media flow, proximity

As is often the case in technological innovation, thinking critical communication/media studies scholarship, the three
about streaming services has been structured by the capabili- most important differences are: Streamers’ reliance on sub-
ties and protocols of similar technologies that came before. scriber support, their ability to deliver bespoke content on de-
A century ago AT&T imagined radio through the lens of the mand, and their ability to be offered at a near-global scale.
telephone, though failed to make radio a point-to-point tech- These features allow different business strategies that yield
nology, while television largely adopted regulatory norms and different content priorities and different cultures of consump-
scheduling features from radio. Industry, policymakers, and tion than characteristic of previous distribution technologies
scholars now attempt to slot streaming video services into our that provide the foundation of the field’s thinking.
conceptual understandings of previous video providers that Subscriber funding alters the core business of streamers
used broadcast signal, cable, or satellite to distribute content from the commercial norms of advertiser funding in profound
to the home. ways (Lotz, 2007, 2017). The need to compel viewers to pay
However, Internet-distributed video both is and isn’t com- and the ability to offer a range of titles simultaneously—
parable to these previous technologies. Indeed, even Internet- rather than a single title most likely to attract the most view-
distributed video may be too varied a category to make sub- ers—enables, even requires, different content strategies than
stantive claims—TikTok and YouTube operate under very have been used by video services that seek to attract the most
different industrial conditions than Netflix and Disneyþ, attention to particular titles at a specified time. Streamers
though all offer Internet-distributed video. The latter services, have accelerated the transition from mass to niche video in-
also identified as subscription, video-on-demand services dustry logics that had been developing since the widespread
(hereafter, “streamers”), provide the focus here. As video adoption of cable and satellite in the 1990s. The ubiquitous
services, streamers do important cultural work in society by accessibility of broadcasting that was core to theories about
producing and circulating stories that, like other audiovisual the cultural power of in-home video also diminishes as a con-
services, mostly reinforce, but sometimes contradict hege- sequence of these different affordances (Lotz, 2021b).
monic ideas and contribute to culture shared by many (Fiske, The global reach of several of the most widely subscribed
1987; Gitlin, 1979; Newcomb & Hirsch, 1983). But they are streamers integrates them in conversations about transna-
also different from previous distribution technologies upon tional media flows and power that have been a core concern
which foundational theories were built, and these differences of critical communication studies. Video media businesses
require revising or reframing theory. Moreover, the industrial have been transnational since technology made video trade
context of the 21st century, which is characterized by much feasible (Steemers, 2004; Havens, 2006), yet the last quarter
greater choice in services (channels and streamers) and sub- of a century has accelerated and reconfigured the internation-
stantial audience fragmentation across these choices, also alization of video businesses and video consumption (Lobato,
necessitates adjustment of theories that were developed for 2019; Steemers, 2016). The rapid expansion of global stream-
norms of limited choice and mass audiences. In terms of ing services has hastened the erosion of once-nationally

C The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of International Communication Association.
V
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which
permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
512 Netflix, library analysis, and globalization

organized video sectors and substantially altered legacy busi- categorization for preliminary assessment of streamers’ librar-
nesses of transnational television trade, their industrial priori- ies. Such theories derive from the stronger national organiza-
ties, and the accessibility of video produced outside the long- tion of predigital distribution technologies and have informed
dominant Hollywood system. policy and come to be “industry lore” (Havens, 2014) but do
This article investigates how global streamers challenge not adequately account for the complexity of viewing practi-
existing communication and media theory about transna- ces now common, especially with regard to such expanded
tional video and its cultural power. It considers how stream- choice. The inquiry here does not aim to assert flaws with the
ers’ discrepant features combine with coterminous, but previous emphasis on proximity and national specificity.
unrelated disruption from previous industrial norms and con- Rather, it explores how the industrial context in which these
ditions to necessitate theory rebuilding. These adjustments theories were developed was circumscribed by mechanisms
have implications for key theories and assumptions about the and practices that substantively narrowed available content in
dynamics of power involved in media trade, including those a manner never accounted for because those mechanisms
about corporate ownership (de Sola Pool, 1979; Schiller, appeared so natural they obscured counter explanations.
1969; Tunstall, 1977), proximity (Straubhaar, 1991; 2007), The broader significance of this inquiry relates to how new
asymmetrical interdependence (Straubhaar, 1991; Straubhaar distribution technologies—and the different business models

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et al., 2021), cultural discount (Hoskins and Mirus, 1988), they enable—challenge existing theoretical frameworks.
contra-flow (Thussu, 2006), and the roles of geography, lan- Within critical cultural studies, decades of norms developed
guage, and culture in explaining patterns of video flow for linear, mostly ad-supported channels produced particular
(Sinclair et al., 1996). hegemonies of industry operation and hegemonies of schol-
This article takes particular focus on Netflix as a streaming arly thinking about them. The differences in business model
service utilizing the most distinctive strategy, such that Lotz and the lack of publicly accessible viewership data have made
(2021a) has described it as a “zebra among horses” in a mul- it difficult to assess how subscriber-funded video services may
tifaceted analysis of its “global” strategy. Relying on datasets deviate from conditions previously theorized. This analysis
obtained through subscription to Ampere Analysis,1 the arti- informs that conversation by exploring streamers’ national li-
cle uses Netflix’s library composition in different countries to braries to begin to reveal the differences among global stream-
investigate what the titles in these libraries suggest about ers and enable assessment of their cultural role.
streamers’ contribution to the transnational flow of video
content. It also juxtaposes evidence derived from comparing
Netflix’s library strategy with other major, transnational serv- Media flows and technological/industrial
ices to illustrate its distinction. The article queries the extent change
to which streamers with global reach do and do not replicate The ideas that American movies and series dominate the globe
the industrial practices of linear video services (broadcast, ca- and that viewers prefer “proximate” content are among the
ble, satellite) and consequently how our theories about trans- least contested ideas in critical media studies—despite their
national cultural influence may require nuance. apparent contradiction. The assertion that U.S. media enacts
The investigation is limited by the inaccessibility of the cultural imperialism (Schiller, 1969) has been difficult to dis-
most useful data for answering these questions: data regard- lodge, although it has been extensively critiqued (Tomlinson,
ing audience use. There is nevertheless much to learn from a 1991; Golding & Harris, 1997). While there was and remains
focus on library composition. Indeed, title-level data including imbalance in flows, the implications of that imbalance on cul-
country of origin facilitates analyses that provide sophisti- ture have not been empirically shown.
cated understandings of what these services are and what they Rather than being driven by political power and ideological
offer viewers and is useful for assessing the complementarity aims, economic logics—with their own ideological concerns—
of these services along with their widely assumed competition. better explain decades of U.S. dominance in audiovisual pro-
Is Netflix a global behemoth capable of exerting enormous duction and trade. As Hoskins and Mirus (1988) explain, the
cultural and market influence in the manner its occasional in- scale and wealth of the U.S. market created incredible advan-
clusion among abusive “tech giants” suggests and thus in tages in exporting movies and series. They argue U.S. titles de-
need of policy intervention? If so, is it cultural or competition rived less of a “cultural discount” because so many markets
policy that is warranted? Does its strong market capitalization had been “acclimatized to Hollywood product,” despite a pref-
and scale eliminate the viability of domestic services in the erence for what Straubhaar (1991) terms “proximate” content.
many markets it services? Or does its scale enable it to func- In practice, the need to create titles for an expansive and het-
tion as a complement to domestic services with different pri- erogeneous American mass market led to productions that
orities (e.g., public service or nation-specific commercial planed off a lot of cultural specificity, and many of the most
broadcasters) and its library strategy suggest it offers viewers popular titles emphasized universal themes such as family dy-
an experience not otherwise available? namics or narrative pleasures such as mystery resolution.
This article examines evidence relevant to established theo- Indeed, the “style, values, beliefs, institutions, and behavioral
ries and persistent presumptions in the field regarding the patterns” (Hoskins & Mirus, 1988, p. 500) found in U.S. titles
implications of nationality of ownership of conglomerates, were often as foreign to many Americans as to those who
the cultural specificity indicated by titles’ country of produc- viewed them from around the globe. This is not to say that
tion, and preferences for local content. It follows critiques such titles are not imbued with belief structures pervasive in
that dominant theories have overstated physical proximity American culture—for example surrounding individualism—
and the relevance of the nation as the primary site of cultural but to note we lack detailed scholarship grounded in textual
connection in a way that has exaggerated the frame of the na- analysis of what characteristics make titles specifically and ex-
tion in the questions we prioritize (Morley & Robbins, 1995; clusively “American.” Instead, country of production has been
Esser, 2016), although country of origin provides a useful assumed indicative of cultural features.
Journal of Communication (2022), Vol. 72, No. 4 513

Cultural and economic concerns have become complicat- viewing hours), Straubhaar (2007) developed a more nuanced
edly intertwined over time, both in national policy and schol- picture than provided by macro level data of raw imports
arship regarding audiovisual industries. In many countries, used to argue U.S. hegemony.
cultural policies such as local content quotas, as well as sup- Research developed since the height of belief in cultural im-
ports and subsidies for domestic productions or national/pub- perialism identified significant sub-flows of content that could
lic broadcasters, aimed to prevent imported content from be explained by geo-cultural or cultural-linguistic proximity
dominating or inhibiting local production. Many of these pol- (Sinclair et al., 1996). The priority of proximity transcended
icies were effective through the twentieth century, as countries scholarship and even became common in industry discourse.
found a balance that enabled coexistence of domestic and for- This encouraged a surge in the development of “reality” pro-
eign content. gram formats that could be sold across markets and remade
Substantial changes in industrial dynamics that increased with market specificity in the early 2000s as titles such as Big
the pressure to achieve transnational audience scale have Brother, Pop Idol, and Weakest Link blanketed the globe
steadily eroded this balance. Satellite channels and their appe- (Waisbord, 2004). These formats avoided the level of concern
tite for programming encouraged greater internationalization that exports of Dragnet, Dallas, and Baywatch inspired ear-
(Chalaby, 2005) that has since been expanded by multi- lier because they enabled “customization,” a deliberate dis-

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territory streaming services. Appeals to governments to in- tinction drawn by Moran (against localization) because the
crease supports of “cultural industries” on economic grounds shows still aim at national audiences and lack specification to
have led economic metrics and sector growth to sublimate local communities (Moran, 2009, p. 157).2
what were initially cultural policies and led some to prioritize Like cultural imperialism, the idea that viewers would pre-
national production output as a metric that has become con- fer proximate content is a theory that makes sense on its face.
flated with delivering effective cultural policy—though such In later work, Straubhaar and La Pastina (2007) extended the
sector supports offer little to ensure productions take on concept to include other forms of proximity, such as genres,
attributes sought by cultural policy such as local identity, themes, and values, though these ideas were difficult to test
character, and cultural diversity (Lotz & Potter, 2022). Sector without extensive audience research and pushed more into
advocates assume a title produced in Australia—even if an the psychology of individual preference. In recent work that
American “runaway” production—inherently delivers accounts for streamers—but does not include updated audi-
Australian cultural value as well as economic value; however, ence research—Straubhaar et al. (2021) back away from
broader industrial changes have disrupted market forces that proximity and instead suggest evidence of new permutations
compelled domestic content as a key strategy of domestic of asymmetrical interdependence. The scale at which house-
channels to attract the attention of domestic audiences. The holds have adopted—and willingly pay for—streamers serv-
weakening of domestic channels (in the face of new advertis- ices that offer no or negligible domestic content suggests the
ing tools such as search and social media that have drawn ad- limits of proximity, or at least that there are other motivations
vertiser spending) has resulted in the imagined audience for driving viewers. In the pre-multichannel industrial context of
series and movies to be decreasingly presumed as domestic in limited choice and prioritization on constructing mass audien-
the first instance. ces, these other motivations would have been difficult to rec-
The national dynamics of production and circulation ecosys- ognize; it would have required audiences to identify a
tems are also now far more complicated than when most media preference for something absent from the market. However,
studies theory was written. Subscribers in countries around the the adoption of streaming services with library strategies quite
world choose to pay monthly for access to services featuring different from past scheduling norms begins to suggest the ex-
minimal local content and, as the analysis below indicates, istence of these alternative motivations.
Netflix offers libraries made up of mostly foreign—though not Though Straubhaar et al. (2021) engage in speculation
American—content in all markets. This is not to suggest that about motives based on theories of cosmopolitanism, what is
the concerns about power central in earlier scholarship about most required to answer these questions is audience research
ownership and country of origin are invalid, rather that the with the qualitative sophistication offered by those who have
conditions for the operation of that power have changed in contributed foundational insights about cultural practices of
ways that require retheorization that accounts for the more viewing (e.g., Gray, 1992; Morley, 1986; Wood, 2009) to as-
multifaceted dynamics of the 21st century. sess the complicated cultural roles and ideological processes
Proximity, the idea that “Most audiences seem to prefer of the fictional storytelling pervasive among streaming serv-
television programs that are as close to them as possible in ices. In the absence of audience data, this study compares
language, ethnic appearance, dress, style, humor, historical Netflix’s offerings across 17 different national markets to in-
reference, and shared topical knowledge” (Straubhaar, 2007, troduce deeper understanding of its library composition and
p. 26) developed from empirical evidence, but evidence col- to illustrate how simple categorization of it as “American”
lected at a time when far less channel/program choice existed. and similar to other streaming services offered by American
With his decades-long trajectory of research, Straubhaar companies leads to facile understanding. Qualitative inter-
(1991) provided one of the first empirical interventions into views and complex multi-method approaches are needed to
ideas about cultural imperialism that assumed country of ori- theorize the behavior of viewers who choose streaming serv-
gin functioned as a strong indicator of cultural effects and ices, work that remains rare given its costs and challenges.
dominated early understandings of the implications of the Until such studies emerge, however, we can develop more
spread of American media content around the world. comprehensive accounts of the differences between the cur-
Straubhaar’s theory of “asymmetrical interdependence” rent industrial context and the context in place when founda-
addressed how early importation levels were tied to a first tional theory was established. Inspired by the insights
stage of national broadcasting development. By investigating produced by Straubhaar’s examination of scheduling, we con-
when imported content was scheduled (often outside prime duct systematic analysis of Netflix libraries.
514 Netflix, library analysis, and globalization

Twentieth-century television and distribution technolo- analytics companies indicate Netflix is a niche service (sub-
gies—the context in which most communication and media scribed to by fewer than a quarter of households) in most
studies theories about the operation of “mass storytelling” in countries. But it is arguably a mass market product in
culture were built—offered viewers the metaphorical tip of Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States, and
the iceberg in terms of the range of stories perceived as com- Canada where roughly half of homes subscribe.4
mercially viable. Most programs were designed to attract the On the one hand, Netflix is a single entity. Much about it is
most attention—foremost in their nation of production—but consistent across its transnational reach. On the other hand,
by the 1990s, the need for U.S. content to be accessible and Netflix is varied in ways that many do not realize. For exam-
desired by viewers around the globe also provided a guiding ple, Wayne (2020) identifies localization of the user interface
industrial logic for what was made for U.S. audiences. Viewer in Israel with both Hebrew language and right to left orienta-
choice was constrained, though not strongly perceived as such tion of the interface—a localization strategy common in many
because the condition of channels selecting programs and markets, and Netflix has offered a lower priced mobile-only
making them available at particular times was simply subscription in some markets, particularly in India to
“normal.” Though cable and satellite introduced more choice addresses two characteristics of that context: (a) that Netflix’s
through more channels, most programming on those channels standard price is high relative to market norms and (b) that

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was merely a reairing of series made for ad-supported linear video consumption in India predominantly occurs on mobile
channels or movies made for theatrical release. devices (Ramachandran, 2019). But another significant way it
Twenty-first-century video distribution technologies have varies is by offering different libraries of content in different
revealed much more of the storytelling iceberg. Internet distri- countries.
bution has enabled direct-to-consumer, subscriber-funded, The analysis here focuses on 17 different Netflix national li-
on-demand video services that access different commercial braries. These 17 include many of the countries estimated to
strategies and utilize different metrics of success (Lotz, 2022). have the most subscribers and account for the experience of
As a result, they have expanded the content fields available to roughly 80% of Netflix subscribers globally. The focus was
the consumers who choose and can afford to access them. also demarcated based on a limited piece of viewing data in
In order to investigate the similarity and difference across which Netflix released lists of the 10 most-viewed titles during
Netflix libraries, this study uses title-level library data cap- 2019 in these 17 different countries.5 The library data was
tured by Ampere Analysis, the leading commercial data ana- collected in February 2021 unless otherwise noted.6
lytics company in the transnational streaming sector. Figure 1 shows the total number of titles in each of the 17
Knowing what people watch would be especially valuable, libraries in 2021 as well as the 2016 title count for the 13 li-
but library data allows us to appreciate what these services of- braries that existed at that time. By 2021, the 17 libraries are
fer, how the offerings of the services differ, and how those relatively similar in size, though there were larger differences
offerings compare with linear, ad-supported services. five years earlier.7 Note also that despite the similarity in li-
Moreover, Netflix uses vast amounts of behavioral data in its brary size, there are differences in the composition of librar-
selection of titles for both commissioning and licensing.3 ies—a topic we consider in more detail below.
Thus, at this established stage of Netflix’s global distribution,
it is reasonable to expect that Netflix curates its libraries in re- Country of origin
sponse to insight about what is watched. To be clear, this Given the dominant role of Hollywood in producing video
analysis does not argue library composition provides accurate content found throughout the world, we examined the pro-
information about viewing differences across nations, but it is portion of U.S.-produced content in the different libraries.
the case that the service has proprietary access to substantially Figure 2 illustrates that U.S. produced content does not ac-
more detailed information about viewer behavior than has count for the majority of titles in any of the libraries, includ-
ever been the case. As Cunningham and Craig (2019) identify, ing the United States’ library, and ranges from 36% to 44%
the company developed from a “tech” mindset that fore- of titles in each library. This is a notable finding. Our analysis
grounds data-based decision making over the “instinct” long of other global streamers’ libraries shows a much greater em-
claimed central to television and film making in contexts phasis on U.S. content: Amazon Prime Video 48%, HBOMax
where individual-specific behavior data has never been 74%, AppleTVþ 91%, and Disneyþ 92%.8 Not only does
available. Netflix operate with a strategy that is not dominated by U.S.
productions across its many libraries, it also offers a smaller
proportion of U.S. content than other global U.S.-based
Netflix library composition: a study of streamers.
17 countries Netflix libraries are not overwhelming composed of
Analyzing Netflix libraries can add to our understanding of American titles, but they are also not particularly local.
how transnational streamers blend local and global features Rather, individual libraries contain an average of 7.7% do-
in new and old ways. Netflix reaches subscribers in more than mestic titles across the 17 libraries (and this falls to 3.8% if
190 countries and thus is generally regarded as “globally” the three outlier libraries discussed below are excluded). The
available, although its rates of household penetration vary Netflix United States and Netflix Japan libraries have uncom-
significantly by nation. It has only released data about sub- monly high levels of domestically produced titles—39% and
scribers at a “regional” level: At year end 2021, Netflix 24%, respectively—followed by South Korea (14%), India
recorded 75.2 million paying subscribers in UCAN (United (13%), and the UK (8%). But domestic content accounts for
States and Canada), 74 million in EMEA (Europe, Middle just a small percentage of titles in Taiwan, Italy, and
East, and Africa), 39.9 million in LATAM (Latin America), Colombia, which is more typical of the service.9 (Looking
and 32.6 million in APAC (Asia Pacific) (Netflix Annual outside our sample, is it also the case in most countries.)
Report 2021, pp. 21–22). Subscription estimates from data Percentage of domestic titles is a somewhat difficult indicator
Journal of Communication (2022), Vol. 72, No. 4 515

Argentina
Australia
Brazil
Canada
Colombia
France
Germany
India
Italy
Japan
Mexico

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South Korea
Spain
Sweden
Taiwan
UK
USA

0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000

Total # Titles, 2016 & 2021
(2016 values shown with black lines, where available)

Figure 2. Percentage of national library produced in United States.

Figure 1. Number of titles in Netflix libraries over time: 2016 and 2021.

to make sense of because streamers’ offering of a library is so Table 1. Source country of titles in Netflix library, based on average
different than the schedules linear services have offered; and composition of 17 national Netflix libraries
there is not consistent and comprehensive data about this as-
US 40.8%
pect of linear services. We can nevertheless put these results India 8.7%
into what may be a more meaningful context. On average, Japan 6.1%
3.8% of a library amounts to roughly 200 titles. This is not UK 5.5%
an insignificant number, though it likely is more meaningful S. Korea 4.8%
when compared to other streamers in a specific market (see France 3.3%
Spain 3.0%
Lobato and Scarlata, 2019). To be certain, sorting produc-
Canada 2.5%
tions by country of origin is a limited point of analysis. It does China 2.2%
not tell us if a title is at all culturally ‘of’ the place it is pro- Egypt 1.8%
duced. In other analyses we have found some Netflix commis- 69 others 21.4%
sions to be significantly grounded with cultural specificity
(place-based), yet more often they rely only on banal signifiers
that locate the setting without cultural detail (placed), and in perceived as dominant in past trade.10 Steemers (2004) cites
other cases produce stories devoid of cultural or geographic data produced in 2001 indicating the United States accounted
indicators (placeless) (Lotz and Potter, 2022; see chapters in for 75% of the value produced by exporting television, the
Lotz and Lobato, 2023). Systematic textual analysis is needed UK 10%, and Australia and France 1.2% each, leaving 12%
to investigate the extent to which domestic titles indicate cul- accrued by the rest of the world. This is not a perfect compari-
tural specificity but cannot be validly performed with a corpus son to the library titles, but it is indicative of the dynamics of
of titles as expansive as a national library. the linear era and how strongly the U.S. dominated trade.
Another way to assess national origin of the libraries is to In sum, Netflix libraries aren’t overwhelmingly composed
evaluate the countries that are the source of the titles in the 17 of only U.S.-produced titles. The U.S. accounts for more con-
countries’ libraries. Table 1 presents the top ten countries that tent than other countries—typically around 40% of titles—
source the 17 libraries and the average percentage of titles but the remaining 60% is sourced from 80 different countries;
they account for. Only eight of the 17 countries that are part this is very different from other U.S.-based services (Disneyþ;
of the library analysis rank among top ten sources; titles from Apple TVþ). Even so, Netflix offers significant domestic con-
China, a country in which Netflix does not offer service, ac- tent in only a few countries (United States, Japan, South
count for just over 2% of titles, while Egypt is just under 2%. Korea, India, and UK).
Both China and Egypt produce content for substantial audi-
ences, China in terms of population and Egypt as a major pro- Library composition
duction hub in its region. Note also that the countries that To investigate more deeply the extent to which there is cross-
provide the most titles in Table 1 are not those generally national variation in the titles included in Netflix libraries we
516 Netflix, library analysis, and globalization

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Figure 4. Library commonality matrix.

Figure 3. Percentage of common titles in each library and US library.

queried the percentage of titles held in common in the 16 non-

U.S. libraries relative to those in the U.S. library. As Figure 3
indicates, there is significant commonality. Roughly 60–80%
of the titles in non-U.S. libraries also appear in the U.S. li-
brary. But what about the 20–40% not common across the
libraries?
To investigate the similarities across libraries in a more de-
tailed way, we compared titles in each of the 17 libraries with
the others to identify the proportion of titles held in common.
Results are illustrated in Figure 4, in which darker shades re-
flect higher levels of overlap.11 The country-by-country com-
parison illustrates how higher levels of library commonality
can be identified among three clusters: Latin America
(Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico); Europe (France,
Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden); and the Anglosphere
(Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, United States) þ India.
The Asian countries do not form a comparable cluster. This
results from the fact that the Asian libraries used in this study,
particularly India, Japan, and South Korea, include an un-
commonly high number of domestic titles specific to their
libraries.
To better understand the dynamics of Asian libraries, we Figure 5. Asian library commonality matrix.
compared the libraries of all nine Asian countries included in
Ampere’s dataset (India, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and
five others outside our 17-country sample: Indonesia, A contrast among these three uncommon libraries is that
Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand). This addi- Japanese domestic content is largely exclusive to that country,
tional analysis, illustrated in Figure 5, reveals that Japan and as is South Korea’s, while the Indian content is more regularly
South Korea feature uncommonly unique libraries, as well as included in other countries’ libraries. Indeed, India ranks sec-
the distinction of the Taiwanese and Indian libraries from ond as the source country of most countries’ libraries (as ex-
what appears to be the “core” Asian cluster. Also notable, in plored in Table 1). This explains the greater commonality
terms of comparing this extended Asian sample with the 17- between the Indian library and other countries’ libraries ob-
country matrix in Figure 4, is the distinction of the core Asian served in Figure 4. It also raises another notable phenomenon,
cluster from the Indian library, which shows higher levels of that of the variable extent to which Netflix commissions titles
commonality with libraries in the Anglosphere. in different countries.
Journal of Communication (2022), Vol. 72, No. 4 517

Commissioned titles
Another point of library comparison that shows strong com- Argentina
monality is the balance of “commissioned” versus licensed Australia
content. Commissioned titles are those where Netflix funds
Brazil
production costs, which earns it input on development;
whereas licensed content is commissioned by other providers, Canada
typically television channels, or created for theatrical release. Colombia
Across the 17 libraries, commissioned titles account for 28%
France
on average. Netflix generally makes its commissioned titles
available across all libraries, so variation owes primarily to Germany
differences in library size. Commissioned content ranged from India
1,404 titles in the Japanese library to 1,520 titles in the
Italy
Spanish library, with an average of 1,464 titles across the 17
libraries. Commissioned titles are important to analyzing the Japan

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service’s role in culture because they enable the service to de- Mexico
ploy a bespoke content strategy. Commissions are also impor-
South Korea
tant to a subscriber-funded service because they are typically
exclusive to the service. Netflix commissions substantively Spain
more content than other “global” streaming services. (This is Sweden
discussed further below; see Figure 7.) Taiwan
Figure 6 shows the number of domestic commissioned titles
in each national library, titles that are commissioned by UK
Netflix and produced in the country of that library. The num- USA ..........911
ber of domestic commissioned titles for the United States is
far larger than elsewhere, so we use a truncated x-axis to
show differences across the remaining countries. The UK, and 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140
to a lesser extent Japan, Mexico, and India have more domes- Number of Domestic Commissioned Titles
tic commissioned content than other countries.
Figure 6. Domestic commissioned titles in 17 Netflix libraries, February
Commissioned, domestic titles account for 16% of the U.S. li- 2021.
brary with 911 titles; the UK ranks second at 1.4% with 86
titles. Netflix’s origin as a U.S.-only service contributes some
to this imbalance; the percentage of U.S.-sourced titles has de-
creased as U.S. subscribers have diminished relative to the Netflix
subscriber base (Lotz, 2022). In February 2021, 61% of all Amazon Prime Video
Netflix commissions were produced in the United States
(which includes earlier years when the service was more reso- Hulu

lutely North American), yet among the commissions that deb- HBO Max
uted in 2020, only 50% were produced in the United States,
Disney+
illustrating the decline in U.S. production as the balance of
subscribers shifted outside UCAN. Still, many of the 17 major Paramount
Netflix markets have 20–40 domestic commissions, which
AppleTV+
amounts to less than 1% of their library titles.
It is important to remember that these 17 libraries are not
0 2000 4000 6000 8000
representative of other Netflix libraries in terms of domestic
commissioning: 95% of Netflix commissions are accounted Total Hours Commissioned
for in these 17 libraries, so other libraries will include very lit- Figure 7. Comparison of total hours commissioned by major streaming
tle locally commissioned content. Although Netflix is commis- services, February 2021.
sioning a significant number of titles outside the United
States, this number is more impressive when aggregated cross-
nationally than it is at the national level. origin of its library. Services such as Disneyþ, Paramountþ,
Yet, Netflix clearly differs from other global streamers in and HBO Max rely on titles produced in the United States for
the extent of its commissioning of titles outside the United decades before streaming.
States. Figure 7 shows the number of hours commissioned by A key factor in Netflix’s differentiation from other stream-
different global streaming services.12 It should be noted that ers, then, is the extent to which it commissions content in
several of the other services launched since 2019 while many countries and that it then circulates those titles across
Netflix’s first commissioned series debuted in 2013. its libraries. Netflix’s commissioned titles account for roughly
Commissioned content produced in the U.S. accounts for half of the 60% of titles common across the libraries.
58% of Amazon commissions, 61% of Netflix commissions, Netflix’s transnational “circulation” of content is uneven, but
88% of HBO Max commissions, and 96% of Disneyþ com- arguably more distributed than the case of broadcast or satel-
missions.13 The scale of Netflix’s commissioning—as opposed lite channels. It is unclear whether this strategy will remain
to those offering a service based on owned intellectual prop- specific to Netflix or be adopted by other streaming services
erty—is relevant for understanding the variation in country of as their new title development expands.
518 Netflix, library analysis, and globalization

Discussion context. The cluster may seem surprising, aside from roots in
The capabilities of multi-territory streaming services have British colonialism, but this is likely a function of Netflix tar-
reanimated legacy concerns about cultural imperialism and geting a particular sector of the Indian population and the
balance and flow in audiovisual trade. The willingness of a fact the country has more English speakers than any country
significant number of subscribers to pay to access Netflix—a but the United States. Even though it offers a discounted,
service with predominantly foreign content and not guided by mobile-only pricing plan in India, its library strategy suggests
the aim of building a national audience—challenges the pre- a priority on a cosmopolitan niche that complements the
sumed priority on proximity that developed to explain past dominant Indian-based streaming services in the market such
as ALTBalaji and Eros Now that have libraries of mostly
transnational media flow dynamics. The implications of the
Indian productions.
evidence derived from Netflix library analysis are complicated
To consider context in another case, the high take up of
and suggest the need for new lines of research about the cul-
Netflix in Australia should not be casually explained by cul-
tural role of video in the 21st century.
tural and linguistic proximity alone. Rather, it likely owes as
Its clearest contribution is in dismantling false presumptions
much to Australia’s lack of a competitively priced cable or
of uniformity across U.S.-based, multi-territory streaming serv-
satellite service. The Australian company Foxtel has held a

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ices and of Netflix as providing chiefly U.S.-produced content.
monopoly on multichannel service and achieved a household
Netflix may be a U.S.-based company, but at this point, its strat-
penetration rate of only around 25% of Australian house-
egy in sourcing and circulating content differs significantly from
holds as of 2019, compared to 51% pay-TV-household pene-
services with which it is often compared such as Disneyþ,
tration in the UK (Ofcom, 2019, 5), 65% in the United States
Amazon Prime Video, Apple TVþ, and HBO Max. Library
(down from 90%, Spangler, 2020), or 70% in Canada
analysis reveals the scale of its consistency in offering a multi-
(CRTC, 2020).14 Streaming was aggressively adopted in
nationally sourced video service and yet caution is warranted in
Australia because the market lacked the quality of options in
presuming too much commonality across its national libraries.
comparable countries. Macro-level analysis, as offered in the
Claims about “Netflix” must also account for the particularity library analyses above, can establish parameters and trends,
evident in its operation in Japan, South Korea, and India and in but it is necessary to also investigate specific places and ac-
terms of geographic and linguistic clusters, for instance. count for their particular contextual dynamics as we begin to
There is thus a need for caution in assuming that theory de- theorize the cultural implications of streaming services.
veloped for linear, ad-supported services is a reliable starting Theories may need to be tuned to particular configurations of
point for investigating streamers and that the stories the linguistic, economic, technological, and regulatory dimen-
streamers offer have a consistent cultural role across the sions rather than be aimed at explaining the cultural role of
nations in which they are available. Part of developing the streaming globally.
necessarily nuanced understanding of Netflix and its cultural Similarly, rather than use the library evidence to presume
role is recognizing the limits of talking about it as serving 190 greater preference for cultural proximity among the Japanese
countries when it is a most-niche service in most of them. This or South Korean markets, we must investigate underlying
is important for scholarship that seeks to make claims of its contextual dynamics. Pertierra and Turner (2012) note that
reach, consistency, and influence. historically 90% of Japanese television content was produced
One of the most difficult aspects of theorizing the role of in Japan—a much higher domestic level than typical in much
video in culture in the 21st century is the degree to which a of the world outside of major exporters such as the United
multiplicity of niche tastes guides commercial strategies and States and UK. Netflix’s comparatively bespoke approach to
the extent to which theories built for explaining services the Netflix Japan library may reflect awareness of this.
driven to create mass audience norms have not engaged with It is notable that the comparison of libraries illustrated in
implications of niche video conditions. The ability to build a Figure 6 corresponds to Lotz’s (2021a) hypothesis regarding
service by attracting even some subscribers across a base of Netflix operating “consistently” across North and South
190 countries is an endeavor very different from seeking a America, Europe, and Australia and in contrast to the
mass audience within a nation. We mustn’t assume these serv- “variable” markets of India, Japan, and South Korea. That
ices aim to be mass services (available in the majority of analysis was based on very limited viewing data released by
homes) in every country, as this allows us to be alert to new Netflix: the ten most-watched titles across the 17 countries
flows and strategies that emerge and then consider their impli- assessed here for all of 2019; it identified that India, Japan,
cations relative to the operation of culture and power. The in- and South Korea ranked the lowest in viewing of U.S. pro-
frastructure of these services enables greater flexibility than duced titles and had the highest level of domestic titles in the
earlier distribution technologies; that flexibility will affect most viewed content after the United States. If there is causa-
adoption patterns, cultural functions, and likely introduce un- tion in this relationship, it is impossible to know the underly-
expected “patterns of video flow”. Library analysis can offer ing cause. Netflix may have identified different viewing
us a starting point for understanding, but most theory build- patterns in these countries and developed library strategies ac-
ing requires a broader array of contextualized evidence. cordingly, or the difference in viewing may be “caused” by
Relatedly, the understanding we develop of the cultural the emphasis on domestic content in these libraries. The 2019
role of these services needs to begin from a specific context. viewing data is a very small bit of insight, but given the pau-
For individuals, “Netflix” only derives its meaning and value city of available viewing data, it is worth noting that patterns
relative to other options in their market such as the features in viewing data are consistent with the more extensive and
of legacy services and the extent to which domestic and other systematic library analysis developed here.
streamers are available. For instance, in order to explain the This article provides an evidence-based frame for building
presence of a library cluster of the “Anglosphere and India” theories about how global streaming services both perpetuate
we must begin by appreciating the specificity of India’s and contrast from expectations of global video services
Journal of Communication (2022), Vol. 72, No. 4 519

developed for previous technologies and to illustrate the atypi- Funding

cality of Netflix. Constructing such a broad view prevents the This research relies on funding from the Australian Research
article from the specific investigations needed that will cumula- Council (Discovery Project DP190100978).
tively bring into relief both nationally particular and transna-
tional dimensions of these services. The detailed insight only
possible through examination of specific national contexts is Notes
crucial to theorizing the cultural implications of these services,
1. Ampere Analysis is a data and analytics firm specializing in the
implications likely to vary considerably on the basis of pre-
SVOD sector. Access to its database of SVOD libraries is available
existing services, the extent to which global services take be-
for an annual subscription fee; we generated reports for the services
spoke approaches, and the extent of local services and non- under consideration using parameters facilitated by Ampere.
U.S., multi-territory services that emerge. Although subscriber- Ampere is used globally by regulators, industry, and researchers.
funded, Internet-distributed video services have reconfigured 2. Within critical media studies, attention increasingly turned to closer
storytelling norms in some ways, they also expand the tyranny examinations of specific national contexts in the late 1990s and
of the pursuit of economies of scale that drives media industries early 2000s that uncovered particular industrial, historical, and
and leads to inequitable circulation and commissioning. contextual features that further explained the role of television in

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Implications of the distinctive transnational strategy of a service culture, especially as satellite television significantly challenged the
like Netflix will thus differ among large and small countries, national boundaries of these industries. These accounts identified
however, we should remain open to considering how the affor- storytelling ecosystems that blend domestic and imported content
dances of on-demand libraries and recommendation may make and provided context-based explanations for those practices, al-
content developed in small nations more accessible and discov- though audience research did not figure significantly in these proj-
erable than under analog norms. ects (e.g., Kumar, 2010; Tinic, 2005).
Investigating questions about viewing behavior to refine 3. Commissions (so-called Netflix “originals”) are titles that Netflix
pays production costs and then functionally owns, while licensed
notions such as proximity requires audience research that is also
titles, the majority of the current Netflix content, are created by
crucial to advancing thinking in the field. Despite the scale of
production companies for theatrical distribution or for television
data associated with digital communication technologies, it is channels. Netflix effectively “rents” these titles for a limited period,
human-level data that is most required to understand emerging either for particular national libraries or the service in its entirety.
cultural dynamics. As others have argued (Turner, 2019), quali- 4. Analysis based multiplying subscriber estimates by 2.5 (per house-
tative audience research is desperately needed to begin to build hold composition norms of these countries) and dividing by popu-
theory suited for the contemporary audiovisual ecosystem. lation figures.
5. This is not a lot of data to work from, but the consistency of source
and time make it the richest information our research team has
Data access identified to consider audience viewing relative to the library data.
Data used in this article are proprietary but can be obtained Netflix began releasing daily ten most-watched lists in each market
from Ampere Analysis. Scripts used to run the analyses shown in March 2020; however, these lists cannot be aggregated in any
are available from the author. way to make the data meaningful beyond the day. Netflix has sub-
sequently made weekly lists available, but again, only offer rank
indication.
Authors bio 6. When exploring Ampere datasets for this article, we focused the
main analysis on the month of February 2021 using Ampere’s abil-
Amanda D. Lotz is Professor in the Digital Media Research
ity to filter data by month and year. We filtered to explore titles as
Centre at Queensland University of Technology where she
“TV Shows” and “Movies.” As such, we did not count each TV
leads the Transforming Media Industries research program. Season as a separate title, which is how the data is organized. The
Her research explores how digital distribution has changed coding of country of origin and “commissioned” status is done by
media industries, the content they make, and the implica- Ampere. In a small number of cases, Ampere had not yet coded the
tions for culture. primary production country. There was no assigned production
country for a few titles. The research team manually added this
Oliver Eklund is a PhD candidate in the Digital Media field for those titles.
Research Centre at Queensland University of Technology. 7. We also looked at the data in terms of hours rather than titles. The
His research focuses on media industry and policy trends were not different (a heavier or uneven use of series versus
transformations. movies would cause this) and we decided titles was the most legible
way to present the data.
Stuart Soroka is Professor in the Department of 8. The libraries of these services also vary by country, but much less
Communication at the University of California, Los so, excepting Amazon. Not all services are available in the same
Angeles. His research focuses on political communica- countries preventing a precise comparison. Every effort was made
to achieve a representative result although our analysis of these
tion, political psychology, and mass media.
other services is provided for context and is not as systematic as the
investigation of Netflix. The Amazon Prime Video figure averages
Acknowledgments Australia, Brazil, Germany, India, South Korea, and the United
States—three countries with a major Amazon retail presence and
Our thanks to research team members Ramon Lobato, three without—because there are significant differences in the li-
Stuart Cunningham, and Alexa Scarlata, members of the brary size of countries that have a strong retail presence. Only U.S.
Global Internet Television Consortium, and Anna Potter library data was available for HBO Max. The Apple TVþ figure
for support and feedback on the development of this article, uses Australia, Brazil, Germany, India, and the United States. The
as well as the blind reviewers and editorial team at the Disneyþ figure uses Australia, Brazil, Germany, and the United
Journal of Communication. States.
520 Netflix, library analysis, and globalization

9. Those familiar with European regulation of content quotas may Lobato, R. (2019). Netflix nations: The geography of digital distribu-
find this surprising. It should be noted that the AVMSD was in var- tion. NYU Press.
ious stages of implementation and enforcement across the EU at Lobato, R., & Scarlata, A. (2019). Australian content in SVOD catalogs:
the time the data was collected. Many member states’ national ver- Availability and discoverability. https://apo.org.au/sites/default/files/
sions of the AVMSD catalogue quotas affecting on-demand serv- resource-files/2019-10/apo- nid264821.pdf.
ices allow for the majority of the requirement to be satisfied Lotz, A. D. (2007). If it is not TV, what is it? The case of U.S. subscrip-
through ‘European works’. As such, individual European countries tion television. In S. Banet-Weiser, C. Chris and A. Freitas, (Eds.)
can still record low amounts of domestic content. AVMSD defini- Cable Visions: Television Beyond Broadcasting (pp. 85–102). New
tions count a title as European if it is produced in signatory coun- York University Press.
tries to the European Convention on Transfrontier Television. Lotz, A. D. (2017). Portals: A Treatise on Internet-Distributed
Signatories to that convention include the UK, allowing UK content Television. Maize Publishing.
to count as European post-Brexit. Lotz, A. D. (2021a). In between the global and the local: Mapping the
10. No comprehensive data of global television trade exists publicly, so geographies of Netflix as a multinational service. International
this assertion is based on discourse rather than empirical data. Journal of Cultural Studies, 24(2), 195–215. https://doi.org/10.
11. The commonality matrix shown in Figure 4 is like a correlation ma- 1177/1367877920953166
trix, but the raw material is slightly different. For any given dyad, we Lotz, A. D. (2021b). Unpopularity and cultural power in the age of

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take the average of (a) the proportion of titles in library x that also ap- Netflix: New questions for cultural studies’ approaches to television
pear in library y, and (b) the proportion of titles in library y that also texts. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 24(4), 887–900. https://
appear in library x. The resulting value captures the proportion of the doi.org/10.1177/1367549421994578
two libraries that is shared; and those proportions are illustrated in Lotz, A. D. (2022). Netflix and streaming video: The business of
Figure 4 such that darker shades reflect higher levels of overlap. (See subscriber-funded video on demand. Polity.
the legend to the right of the graphic.) Countries are then arranged in Lotz, A. D., & Potter, A. (2022). Effective cultural policy in the 21st cen-
Figure 4 based on their commonality scores. tury: Challenges and strategies from Australian television.
12. Data in Figure 7 also come from Ampere and are based on the International Journal of Cultural Policy, 1. https://doi.org/10.1080/
hours of commissioned movies and series seasons found in the U.S. 10286632.2021.2022652
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is for Feb. 2021. Paramountþ is for the month of March 2021 due video and storytelling across borders. New York: New York
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