Call for Chapter Proposals for an Edited Collection

 

Cinema and Cinematic Television in the Age of Netflix: A Study of the Global South 

 

Chapter contributions are welcomed for an edited scholarly volume on the global impact of streaming services, crucially Netflix. The American company Netflix has, owing to its pioneering role, become synonymous with the world of streaming. The growing list of “Netflix Nations” (to invoke the title of Ramon Lobato’s 2019 book) means that there are only a few territories such as China, Iran, North Korea, and Syria that remain outside its purview. In recent years, a number of other streaming giants have emerged in the Western world– mostly notably, Amazon and Disney+ –that compete tightly within international markets. Typically, these companies work by appeasing foreign audiences, even investing in local productions, all of which ensures larger markets for their costly “originals.” Never before in the history of globalized mass media have Western media entities operated so systematically and so vastly in other regions of the world, by orchestrating local production and screenings that are ultimately essential to sustaining their hegemony. 

 

At the same time, the significant challenges faced by Netflix in penetrating foreign markets such as India and Japan also raises questions about the extent to which the rise of global streaming giants signals a new wave of Western, media-based, cultural domination. Or, does this rise in fact complicate what the UNESCO described in 1974 and 1996 as the one-way traffic of Western media? After all, Western companies like Netflix have needed to compete and collaborate with a wide array of locally operative streaming services in order to gain a foothold in international contexts. Moreover, similar services exist even in places where Netflix has not been able to reach: for instance, Iqiyi in China, Filimo in Iran, Manbang in North Korea, and Syria TV in Syria. 

 

This edited collection coalesces the perspectives of scholars working on how streaming has transformed the political economy and aesthetics of media production, and impacted viewing patterns and social attitudes, particularly outside of the West. Areas of the Global South provide vast markets for Western as well as non-Western streaming companies; yet, the North-South dynamic has still to be explored within emerging scholarship on streaming and its restructuring of audiovisual production and reception globally. 

 

The following include some key questions that this edited volume aims to address: 

 

–How has the rise of audiovisual streaming in the Global South altered the political economy and generic conventions of filmmaking as well as television production in the region? Have these two forms of media production converged in some areas and remained separate in others? 

 

–What is the nature of the “content” and corresponding genres produced? Who makes streaming content, who subtitles/dubs? To what extent are diasporic communities involved in the production and consumption of films or TV shows that play internationally? 

 

–Who watches the content produced by streaming services in the Global South? How accessible or affordable is it? 

 

–To what extent has streaming brought new and welcome forms of diversity to the global media landscape? Or, to what extent have streaming companies consolidated existing networks and reinforced concentration in media production? 

 

–What kinds of representational stereotypes does this content promote among general audiences? Or, to what extent does it participate in countering or complicating existing stereotypes with respect to intersectional representations of race, gender, sexuality, nation, and class? 

 

–To what extent have conceptions of cinema (especially in major filmmaking contexts like Egypt, India, Iran, Pakistan, and Turkey) shifted with the entry of streaming services? How have film industries been asked to shift their storytelling, production and distribution practices? 

 

Submissions: 

 

This project has received strong interest from a reputable academic press. Essays that combine media ethnography (including interviews and portraits of streaming companies’ production and reception cultures) with textual analysis (of emblematic films and television shows, catalogs and personalization interface, for instance) will be prioritized. 

 

Contributors must submit a brief abstract (no more than 300 words) outlining your proposed intervention for new scholarship (previously unpublished) and specifying which section you envision your contribution fitting into, accompanied by a brief biography (approximately 100 words) and a CV that details affiliations, publications, current research interests, and any relevant professional or curatorial experience. 

 

Timeline:

Deadline for submissions of abstracts and biographies: Feb. 15, 2023

 

Regarding chapters:

Selected chapter submissions must be 7000 words in length and conform to the Chicago Manual style for endnotes and bibliography. Authors will provide their own index of terms. 

Please direct all enquiries, correspondence, and submissions to co-editors Shakti Jaising (sjaising@drew.edu) and Hadi Gharabaghi (hadipg@gmail.com