The curation of European Netflix catalogues on social media: The key role of transnational and local cultural traits

Abstract

This article aims to analyse how Netflix uses social media to generate a dialogue between the local and transnational layers of television, to position its brand and curate content in domestic markets. Within the frame of transnationalism, a cross-cultural comparative study has been conducted in three different local European markets: the United Kingdom, Spain and the Nordic region. The results show the negotiation between transnationalisation and the needs of local cultural distinctiveness through language adaptation, emphasis on in-house original US flagship productions, the overrepresentation of original local content and use of cultural references at different levels.

Keywords

Netflix localisation transnational social media cultural traits

Introduction

Profound changes reshaping television in the ‘post-network’ era are intensifying the strain between the transnational and local layers of the audiovisual industry. Local broadcasters remain the dominant players in European markets (EAO, 2020), but the global spread of Subscription Video-On-Demand (SVOD) services, with Netflix as the main pioneer, has led to an evident transnationalisation of television in Europe. However, the importance of the local to television has not diminished (Wayne, 2020), and the international expansion of online streaming platforms make clear that a global brand is not enough to appeal to domestic viewers (Cornelio-Marí, 2020; Lobato, 2019; Rios and Scarlata, 2018).

With the intense competition among online and linear audiovisual players, the localised branding strategies of online streaming services and the curation of catalogues, which grant different levels of value to titles through contextualisation (Robinson, 2017), are crucial for user appeal. Social media is one of the ways in which Netflix and the other SVOD platforms try to engage with local audiences by creating individual, and locally specific, profiles within each market. Therefore, the branding and promotional activities implemented on social media platforms are key to understanding the domestic strategies of streaming services (Fernández Gómez and Martín Quevedo, 2018).

This article aims to analyse how Netflix uses social media to interconnect the transnationalisation and localisation of its brand image and catalogues in three different local European markets: the United Kingdom, Spain and the Nordic region. The cross-cultural comparative approach between the three markets gives a detailed vision of the diversification of strategies in key audiovisual markets. It begins with a discussion on the need to localise global subscription streaming platforms. Next, the article delves into how television converges with social media, and how on-demand platforms are using the latter to position themselves in local markets. This is followed by the methods section, where the content analysis classifying and analysing the activity and posts published by Netflix on Twitter, Instagram and YouTube are explained. The results give a sense of the main strategies used by Netflix in the markets studied, to showcase the different local to transnational layers of the brand and its catalogues. Finally, the conclusions shed light on the interconnection between the transnational elements of television with the need for local cultural distinctiveness.

The need for brand and catalogue localisation

Netflix is the most representative SVOD player when reviewing the current changes in the transnational and local layers of television in terms of distribution, production and consumption (Jenner, 2018; Lobato, 2019; Penner and Straubhaar, 2020). The instant international availability of Netflix original content has changed how television programmes circulate across territories, adding complexity to the windowing strategies in the audiovisual markets (Doyle, 2016).

However, the reach of Netflix is not global, with no service in China, Syria, Crimea and North Korea, and ‘is predicated on access to high-speed broadband, a functional computer, electricity and money to regularly pay subscriptions, further limiting its scope to the global elites’ (Jenner, 2018: 190). Furthermore, the streaming service still needs to operate within a national media ecology, with regulatory laws and licensing agreements restricting access to local markets, thus making catalogues specific to each country (García Leiva and Albornoz, 2020; Lobato, 2019). Taking this into account, Netflix becomes framed as a transnational player, which affects and connects to different local, national, regional and global aspects of the television industry (Straubhaar et al., 2019; Jenner, 2018). Therefore, localisation is part of the process of transnationalisation as similarities across local markets create the need to distinguish one from another, without erasing the growing parallels in audiovisual productions from different territories.

Cultural aspects also must be considered in the expansion of the service into international markets. Television programmes, as cultural goods, are part of and, at the same time, shape local cultures and identities (Navarro and Prado, 2019). In relation to transnationalism, Joseph Straubhaar argues that individuals possess multi-layered identities ‘based on space and place’ from local to global (Straubhaar, 2013: 66), which intertwine in their choices of audiovisual consumption. Similarly, García Canclini (2014) asserts that identities are currently polyglot, multi-ethnic and migrant, and are formed from elements of different cultures. Consequently, heterogeneity is not only encountered within communities but also within the same individual, and this needs to be considered by transnational players.

The local aspects and appeal to domestic viewers still must be considered in the current ‘post-network’ era. High-end dramas are portraying an increasing degree of locality in terms of language, locations, storylines and cinematography, not only for local audiences but also for cosmopolitan, international audiences (Havens, 2018b; Weissmann, 2018). Considering this, the concept of ‘cultural proximity’, first introduced by Straubhaar in the early 1990s, has continuing relevancy in the on-demand context (Straubhaar et al., 2019), where the author argues that local viewers choose content with cultural relevance based on language, trade, migration, geographic adjacency or regional themes (Straubhaar, 2008: 15).

At the same time, the multiplication of platforms for television consumption has led to the further fragmentation of local audiences and nichification of mass media (Robinson, 2017), but transnational clusters of viewers have emerged in recent times. Such a shift has been analysed with, for example, the popularity of K-drama in Western and Latin American countries (Jin, 2016; Ju, 2020) or the global rise of Turkish melodramas (Alankus and Yanardagoglu, 2016). This phenomenon cannot be merely explained by the proximity thesis. Other relevant aspects such as the new global audiovisual market, new ways of consumption or the policy incentives and initiatives have helped some peripheral markets to have a more prominent role in the global television flows than in the past. In addition, this frequency of audiovisual exchanges across borders has increased the need to create content with a transnational appeal, reducing the local aspects of cultural texts in some cases to gain alternative sources of income from other markets (Jenner, 2018; Penner and Straubhaar, 2020).

Acquisitions from other television markets, especially from the United States, have been part of local television schedules worldwide. This imported content has been introduced to each market through different ‘national mediations’ (Barra, 2020: 287), which includes subtitling or dubbing, scheduling within the local flow and through its promotion and marketing. Therefore, imported content has heterogenous meanings in each local market since, according to Appadurai, ‘as rapidly as forces from various metropolis are brought into new societies they tend to become indigenised in one or another way’ (1990: 5). Similarly, Ritzer argues that the global and the local tend to mix, generating different outcomes in each culture, resulting in a hybridisation of cultures (2004: 163).

In terms of transnational distributors, there is nothing new in the need for localisation. Chalaby (2002) studied the different steps taken by pan-European television channels in the mid-1990s not only to localise their brands but schedule content which would appeal to the local audience. Transnational channels such as MTV, CNN or BBC World applied different levels of localisation in domestic markets depending on their degree of commitment to specific regions. These went from introducing local advertising window breaks and subtitling or dubbing programmes to producing local original content and even creating headquarters in some regions. In terms of localisation, Netflix follows a similar strategy (Jenner, 2018). While not including advertising on its platform, the first step when entering local markets is to translate its interface into the local language and dub or subtitle the shows included in the catalogues. As Kuipers (2015) and Barra (2020) note, the translation of television programmes is a ‘mediation’, to use Barra’s term, to adapt content to a local context. However, the mere dubbing of a programme does not reflect the cultural traits of domestic markets because it usually does not add extra elements of meaning to the audiovisual text (Cornelio-Marí, 2017; 2020).

The second step in localising the brand and the catalogue is to acquire exhibition rights for local shows from the most popular genres in that country to generate interest in the available content and gain subscribers. Hence, the knowledge of audience preferences is key to understanding what resonates with local users (Robinson, 2017). To further localise content, Netflix, and other transnational streaming services, started to commission content in local markets besides the United States. Netflix uses the term ‘Original’ to refer to both commissioned and exclusive content for the platform, the latter ones coined as ‘false originals’ by Petruska and Woods (2019: 51). This local content has strengthened their brand positioning across markets, enabling them to stand out from the competition (Penner and Straubhaar, 2020).

This strategy has been unequal across countries since the level of investment by Netflix in domestic markets is not even as it depends on the role and prominence of the country in the transnational television industry. Furthermore, each country has a different national production system and culture that has been impacted, to differing degrees, by the entrance of the transnational players (Lobato and Lotz, 2020). Several studies analysing markets with significant differences in the industrial and cultural context such as Israel (Wayne, 2020), Mexico (Cornelio-Marí, 2020), Australia (Lobato, 2019; Rios and Scarlata, 2018), Spain (Castro and Cascajosa, 2020) or Japan (Tse, 2020) have shown that SVODs can be simultaneously a competitor but also an opportunity for local industries.

Therefore, in some markets there is a profitable co-existence with the revitalisation of audiovisual productions and the economic growth of its industry. Spain is an example, with the first Netflix production centre in Europe inaugurated in April 2019. In addition, the Spanish market has the third highest production volume for Netflix worldwide, behind the United States of America and the United Kingdom (Green, 2019). However, in other markets there have been claims of media imperialism and globalisation, both because of US ownership of the main global services, as well as the primary market of original content. In this sense, Netflix operates a long-distance localisation strategy in most global markets (Lobato, 2019: 114).

Besides the localisation of content, other localisation steps taken by the company should be highlighted. First, the pricing of the service has been adjusted to take into account the income level of each territory to achieve the maximum level of profits (Cornelio-Marí, 2017; Straubhaar et al., 2019). Second, in most local markets entered, Netflix has partnered with local players, mostly telecommunications companies (Wayne, 2020). This has allowed Netflix to integrate within the different domestic markets and rapidly gain subscribers. Lastly, marketing strategies are adapted for each market as a tool to localise the platform as well as brand the programmes (Barra, 2020). Within the marketing strategies, promotional campaigns are customised for each local market on platforms such as billboards, television ads or social networks to cater to the specifics of that region.

Local branding on social media

The vast catalogues available places promotion at the centre of Netflix’s strategy to orient viewers and has created new transnational television branding practices which need to be analysed, including strategies on social media. These platforms are public spaces where, according to William I Robinson, audiovisual content is constantly curated as networks ‘for discussing, sorting, suggesting, critiquing, and interacting with, in, and around televisual texts’ (2017: 26). Such curation is done by users actively seeking content and sharing their viewing experiences, tastes and comments on social media; and by broadcasters and streaming platforms, which consider these networks as a tool to increase the number of viewers and engage with them (Delgado et al., 2018; Monclús et al., 2019).

The promotional activities through social media have different aims, such as increasing awareness and positioning the brand, highlighting specific shows, informing the users, building an online community or maintaining loyalty (Fernández-Gómez and Martín-Quevedo, 2018; Johnson and Ranzini, 2018; Martín-Quevedo et al., 2019). However, as pointed out by Wayne (2018: 510), in the current context of transnationalisation and high competition, the lines are blurring between channel-as-brand – a strong channel brand to secure viewer loyalty – and programme-as-brand promotion – a particular show which generates value for the entire service, creating a unified image of the platform or channel.

Within the different social media networks, previous research has mostly focussed on the use of Twitter and Instagram by SVOD platforms and found that the posts referring to original titles by the services are the ones with more engagement from the users and are mostly used to promote content rather than to offer information (Fernández Gómez and Martín Quevedo, 2018; Johnson and Ranzini, 2018; Martín-Quevedo et al., 2019). When comparing the use of the different social networks, Twitter is considered the backchannel of television (referring to traditional broadcasters), since real-time conversations allow viewers to use this platform while watching linear television. However, asynchronous conversations about audiovisual content also occur on the platform, which is being used by on-demand platforms. In contrast, Instagram has been analysed for its connection with younger audiences and their visual-centred approach and is being used by SVOD services to engage with this segment of their subscribers, being the social network used mostly among youth (Martín-Quevedo et al., 2019).

Netflix’s activity on social media offers an excellent insight in how the company wants to represent itself in each region. Marketing on these platforms is firmly linked to and influenced by cultural aspects. As an example, humour and memes, used by SVOD platforms, are part of the social media ecology and have acquired great importance in the representation of popular culture (Davison, 2012), and are being used to create a common language with their audience and generate a community (Fernández-Gómez and Martín-Quevedo, 2018) in each of their markets.

To navigate the multi-layer identities and cultural referencing of local viewers (García Canclini, 2014; Straubhaar, 2008), Netflix has several official social media accounts. These are both transnational and local in character, related to specific television genres or individual official profiles depending on the market. This allows Netflix to be culturally specific and appear closer to the domestic users. With these profiles, its brand can be positioned accordingly in each region and draws attention to certain titles of the catalogues (and not to others). The goal for the rest of this article is to identify and examine which strategies Netflix uses on social media to position its brand and curate content taking into account the transnational and local cultural layers in domestic markets. In addition, the comparative approach allows for the analysis of how different European cultural and industrial contexts impact these promotional strategies.

Research method

Despite the opacity of company data, according to comparitech.com, in the first quarter of 2020 Netflix had 14,757,243 subscribers in the United Kingdom, 3,516,330 in the Nordic region counting only Sweden and Norway, and 3,402,900 in Spain (Moody, 2020). We have selected these three markets for this comparative study for a number of reasons. To start with, the United Kingdom was the first European market chosen by Netflix for its European conquest in January 2012. It is worth noting the importance of this nation as the United Kingdom is the main audiovisual producer in Europe (EAO, 2020). Furthermore, accoeding to Catherine Johnson, it already had a mature online television market in terms of established services and users (Johnson, 2017). Netflix’s arrival in Europe through the United Kingdom can be seen as a natural step as both the United States and the UK share language, historical background and cultural similarities. It should be noted that Netflix’s social media accounts also include the Republic of Ireland as a secondary market, but profiles are clearly focussed on the market in the United Kingdom.

Second, in October 2012, the Nordic countries proved the second stage in Netflix’s European expansion. The high penetration of broadband in homes in this region and, consequently, the potential volume of consumers were the reasons highlighted by the then-Head of Global Communications of the company, Joris Evers (cited in Layton, 2015) to expand into Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Norway. In addition, the rising transnational success of Nordic fiction – also known as Nordic noir (Creeber, 2016; Waade and Jensen, 2013) – also encouraged further investment in this northern European market with the commissioning of the first ‘original’ content, namely the Norwegian series, Lilyhammer (2012–2014), partnering with the Norwegian public broadcaster (NRK) and a national production company owned by the international Shine Endemol Group (Sundet, 2016). Another key element was the high level of English-language competency in the Nordic region with no immediate need to add extra subtitles or dubbing (Layton, 2015). Nonetheless, the differentiating aspect of Netflix’s strategy in the Nordic countries for this study is the creation of a shared profile on social networks, under the name of ‘Netflix Nordic’, which directs its activity mainly to the markets of Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway, with Iceland as a secondary market. These countries, closely related linguistically and culturally, are considered the same regional market not only by Netflix but the main global SVOD companies (Kristensen et al., 2019). Analysing how Netflix modifies its strategy under the same identity umbrella for these countries and if, at the same time, the specificities of each is considered are of special interest for this work.

Finally, we examine Spain, which the company entered in October 2015 and which it chose as the site for Netflix’s first production centre in Europe, investing millions in the creation of Spanish content, justified by the worldwide success of series such as La casa de papel [Money Heist] (2017–), Las chicas del cable [Cable Girls] (2017–2020) and Élite (2018–), among others (Castro and Cascajosa, 2020). Supporting local creative talent and growing the Spanish audiovisual sector were the main arguments used by the platform at the inauguration of its production headquarter in Madrid (Netflix, 2019). Their commitment to the national market also acted as a natural anchor to promote their content in the other Spanish-speaking countries sharing strong historical, political and cultural ties. It should be noted that Netflix’s local partner in Spain, Grupo Secuoya, is present in Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Chile and other Latin American countries.

The United Kingdom, the Nordic Region and Spain present different characteristics in terms of their cultural characteristics, the structure of their audiovisual industry and their prominence in the transnational market that make their analysis relevant and a determining factor for this cross-cultural comparative study.

Sample and analysis

In order to explore which strategies Netflix uses on social media to position its brand and curate content and taking into account the transnational and local cultural elements in domestic markets, our sample includes all posts published between 1 September 2018 and 31 August 2019, by the official local Netflix accounts on Instagram, Twitter and YouTube. This period corresponds to a full calendar year when the company was already consolidated in each of the three markets. The social networks analysed, together with Facebook, are the ones with most users worldwide (Statista, 2020). Facebook has been excluded from this study because of the difficulties in accessing the data of individual profiles for each market.

Instagram posts were captured using the Python package Instaloader. On this platform, Instagram Stories, which last only 24 h, have not been considered due to their fleeting nature. Twitter data were obtained through Twitonomy, a software package that allows the downloading of the last 3200 posts by an account. Lastly, for YouTube data, YoutubeDataTools (Rieder, 2015) was used to download all videos from the period time of the sample. A total of 6055 posts have been analysed within the three networks and markets (Table 1).

Table 1.

Sample overview.

	Instagram	Twitter	YouTube	Total
United Kingdom	559 (28.3%) @netflixuk	903 (45.8%) @NetflixUK	510 (25.9%) Netflix UK & Ireland	1972 (32.5%)
Nordic region	324 (17.7%) @netflixnordic	434 (23.7%) @NetflixNordic	1075 (58.6%) Netflix Nordic	1833 (30.3%)
Spain	562 (25.0%) @netflixes	1290 (57.3%) @NetflixES	398 (17.7%) Netflix España	2250 (37.2%)
TOTAL	1445 (23.9%)	2627 (43.4%)	1983 (32.7%)	6055

A double step quantitative and qualitative content analysis has been carried out to study the posts from the three social networks. All the identified posts (n = 6055), considered as the unit of analysis, have been subjected to a protocol consisting of 24 variables taking into consideration the text, images, video, hashtags, links and mentions included in each post, encompassing all elements available on social networks. First, posts have been divided into those promoting Netflix as a brand (platform branding) or those a specific or multiple titles (programme branding). Within the posts endorsing a specific show, the programmes mentioned have been coded following the classification of Euromonitor, a permanent European observatory of television schedules (Prado et al., 2020). The Euromonitor classification has three levels of analysis: the nature of the programme identified (macrogenre); the programme classification according to its format (genre); and the main theme of the programme (microgenre). Titles have also been categorised by their country of origin and grouped into three categories: ‘local’ for those programmes produced exclusively in the same country; ‘imported’ for those produced in another market; and ‘co-productions’ for titles co-produced by the domestic market with a company from another country. Finally, programmes are classified by the type of licence held by Netflix. Considering the diversity of agreements behind the content categorised as ‘Netflix original’ we have distinguished between in-house originals, those that have been launched and directly commissioned by the company initially, and ‘false-originals’, programmes that are branded as ‘Netflix originals’ but have had a previous first-window in their original market and have been commissioned by another player (Petruska and Woods, 2019: 51), as a way to highlight the titles not commissioned by the platform. The non-original content has been coded as licensed.

Second, all posts have been manually coded to detect if they contain any cultural references, divided into transnational or local (or regional) traits. A post is considered localised when it uses defined local cultural traits, such as a reference to a cultural good or value. In addition, these traits have been inductively classified into common categories encountered across the markets and social networks to identify the main type of cultural codes used.

The analysis was undertaken by two coders and the inter-coder reliability on a random selection of 605 posts (10% of the sample) yielding Krippendorf’s alpha acceptable ranges from 0.862 to 0.969 for the set of variables coded, which include type of branding, title mentioned, macrogenre, genre, type of production, origin, presence of local traits and presence of transnational traits, among others.

Results

In order to localise the promotional strategies, Netflix creates specific promotional campaigns using offices based in each local territory (Jenner, 2018: 199). Due to its immediacy, social media is significant when establishing a dialogue between the transnational and local layers of television, to position the brand in domestic markets and have been used by the company since the beginning of their global switch on (Lobato, 2019). When analysing the social media activity of Netflix in the United Kingdom, the Nordic region and Spain, a concurrence of coordinated transnational strategies and domestic specificities to localise the content and the brand has been observed. This conjunction has been encountered on the three social networks analysed, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube, with some specificities that will be discussed later.

The dominant activity by Netflix on social media is the promotion of a specific title (1 or more per post). This programme branding represents 93.4% (86% 1 title, 5208 posts; 7.4% >1 title, 448 posts) of total posts published. In contrast, only 6.6 per cent corresponds to platform branding (399 posts). Therefore, the platforms are mostly used to enlarge programme discovery or reinforce the programme-as-brand of certain shows, since the visibility of the titles in the Netflix catalogues is very uneven. The promotion of titles is used to announce a new release, season or episode, but also to promote the actors or protagonists. Regarding the type of programmes promoted on the posts referring to a single title, fiction is the most visible content in all markets and platforms by a significant margin over the second (Table 2). This is not surprising since fiction, and mostly serialised fiction, is the key genre on SVoD platforms (EAO, 2020), helping them to establish a brand due to the seriality of the content that builds viewer loyalty and also satisfies the desire to binge-watch programmes.

Table 2.

Macrogenres promoted by platform.

	Fiction		Information	Infoshow	Game	Show	Total
United Kingdom	Instagram	427 (94.5%)	2 (0.4%)	19 (4.2%)	- (0%)	4 (0.9%)	452 (27.0%)
	Twitter	637 (86.5%)	27 (3.7%)	60 (8.2%)	- (0%)	12 (1.6%)	736 (43.8%)
	YouTube	387 (79.1%)	22 (4.5%)	52 (10.7%)	1 (0.2%)	27 (5.5%)	489 (29.2%)
	Total	1451 (86.7%)	51 (3.0%)	131 (7.8%)	1 (0%)	41 (2.5%)	1675 (32.2%)
Nordic region	Instagram	278 (95.9%)	2 (0.7%)	8 (2.7%)	- (0%)	2 (0.7%)	290 (17.2%)
	Twitter	295 (86.8%)	24 (7.1%)	10 (2.9%)	- (0%)	11 (3.2%)	340 (19.9%)
	YouTube	952 (89.6%)	53 (5.0%)	45 (4.2%)	- (0%)	12 (1.1%)	1062 (62.9%)
	Total	1525 (90.3%)	79 (4.7%)	63 (3.7%)	- (0%)	22 (1.3%)	1689 (32.4%)
Spain	Instagram	479 (98.0%)	2 (0.4%)	6 (1.2%)	- (0%)	2 (0.4%)	489 (26.5%)
	Twitter	905 (90.9%)	23 (2.3%)	47 (4.7%)	- (0%)	20 (2.1%)	995 (53.1%)
	YouTube	340 (90.7%)	18 (4.8%)	14 (3.7%)	- (0%)	3 (0.8%)	375 (20.4%)
	Total	1724 (93.5%)	43 (2.3%)	67 (3.6%)	- (0%)	10 (0.5%)	1844 (35.4%)
TOTAL		4700 (90.3%)	173 (3.3%)	261 (5.0%)	1 (0.0%)	73 (1.4%)	5208 (100%)

While having a similar strategy across platforms, Twitter is used by Netflix to establish concurrent conversations with the users and the option of using only text gives greater flexibility in the messages uploaded. In addition, this platform has a more heterogeneous profile, promoting a wide variety of genres and aimed at a more diverse audience. Instagram clearly targets youth titles, while YouTube is reserved for trailers and, to a lesser extent, exclusive content created for social media showing the main characters of Netflix’s emblematic shows.

Language as a soft localisation strategy

Language is one of the key aspects in generating a sense of ‘cultural proximity’ for domestic viewers (Straubhaar, 2008), and is used to adapt imported content into the local context (Barra, 2020; Kuipers, 2015). While users watching content can choose between original, dubbing or subtitling depending on the original language of the programme, in terms of activity on social media, language is important for the textual part of the posts, as well as the visual elements including videos and images with text.

In the case of the United Kingdom, posts with videos of non-English titles are shown with the original version and English subtitles; while in Spain non-Spanish content is posted with subtitles or dubbed, a practice long accepted in this domestic market. The Nordic region is more of a challenge due to the different languages spoken in each country. The majority of its Instagram and Twitter posts are written in English with videos containing English subtitles, a language that is spoken to a high level in the region (Layton, 2015) and frequently used as the ‘lingua franca’ of the region. However, YouTube is the exception, since the same content is repeated with subtitles and text of the four main Nordic languages (Swedish, Danish, Finnish and Norwegian). This explains the large number of posts on the @netflixnordic profile on YouTube (Table 1) and highlights the different localisation strategies on each social media platform.

With the increase in original non–English-language programmes in the catalogues to enlarge the transnational appeal (Jenner, 2018: 171), the diversity of languages on the shows promoted on social media has generated a multilingual feed. This showcases the transnationality of the brand and programmes but, at the same time, the use of subtitles and, showing the dubbed version of shows in the case of Spain, simultaneously localises content for local audiences. However, this is considered a soft localisation strategy since it does not reflect or appeal to cultural traits or tastes of the local market (Cornelio-Marí, 2017; 2020).

Transnational English-language flagships

Regarding the titles promoted, the programmes most present on social media are the Netflix in-house originals (71.2%). Netflix has full exclusivity rights to these titles, highlighting the importance of having exclusive content in the catalogues to establish its brand (Penner and Straubhaar, 2020). The Nordic region exceeds the average with 77% of its posts dedicated to in-house originals, while Spain and the United Kingdom stand at 70.1% and 67.6%, respectively. In the three markets, the vast majority of these programmes are US productions and co-productions (71% in the United Kingdom; 73.4% in the Nordic region; and 49.2% in Spain) displaying the continuing hegemony of content from the United States in audiovisual exchanges (Navarro and Prado, 2019). Among the most visible titles encountered are key US productions such as Stranger Things (2016–) or Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (2018–), fiction series aimed mainly at the youth market. Original in-house programmes have been used as flagships for the brand since the beginning of series commissioning by the platform in order to establish clear and visible content relating to the streaming service (Havens, 2018a).

In this case, the flagships of Netflix at a transnational level form a cultural reference that encompasses all countries where the platform is present. This is further shaped with coordinated promotional strategies for these programmes, where we can see the same images and similar texts across the three markets. While on YouTube the trailers are released on exactly the same day, on Twitter and Instagram the same visuals (images or videos) and texts are used. The text is sometimes localised through local cultural traits, as will be explained later. Furthermore, some transnational campaigns are adapted, tailored for individual territories. For example, to promote the British series Sex Education (2019–), videos were made where the main characters had to guess the meaning of popular Spanish and Swedish expressions using language as a form of localising a foreign series (Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Example of a transnational coordinated strategy with localised cultural traits. The Spanish reads ‘In Spanish everything sounds sexual. We are not saying that, the cast of Sex Education is’.

Overrepresentation of local titles

Despite the importance of US in-house originals, local programmes are present in 23% of the posts published in Spain, 6.2% in the Nordic accounts and 21.2% in the United Kingdom. A clear overrepresentation of local titles (or co-productions) is observed on the social networks analysed when compared to the total number of local titles in the catalogues, particularly when looking at the most mentioned titles on each social network (Table 3). Amongst the top 10 most promoted titles in Spain, there are five different local programmes – four series and one movie – which is the greatest number of local content in the three regions. Money Heist is the most repeated title on social media (it appears in 103 posts), a Spanish series that has enjoyed enormous international success since its launch on the platform in 2017.

Table 3.

Top 10 titles promoted and frequency in posts mentioning one title.

INSTAGRAM - UK		TWITTER - UK		YOUTUBE - UK
Stranger Things	110	Stranger Things	48	Stranger Things	30
Sex Education	73	Sex Education	47	Queer Eye	18
Riverdale	25	Queer Eye	28	Sex Education	13
Chilling Adventures of Sabrina	21	Black Mirror	26	Orange Is The New Black	12
The Umbrella Academy	15	Our Planet	24	My Next Guest Needs No Introduction	10
You	15	After Life	21	Black Mirror	9
Brooklyn Nine-Nine	14	The Good Place	21	Daredevil	8
Orange Is The New Black	13	The Haunting of Hill House	20	Chilling Adventures of Sabrina	7
Queer Eye	10	Ru Paul	18	The Umbrella Academy	7
Black Mirror	9	Chilling Adventures of Sabrina	16	After Life	6
INSTAGRAM - NORDIC REGION		TWITTER - NORDIC REGION		YOUTUBE - NORDIC REGION
Stranger Things	33	Stranger Things	17	Daredevil	31
The Rain	28	The Rain	16	Stranger Things	26
Chilling Adventures of Sabrina	21	The Haunting of Hill House	11	Orange Is The New Black	25
Sex Education	18	Sex Education	10	Dark	20
Riverdale	16	Quicksand	8	The Rain	19
Orange Is The New Black	11	After Life	7	Maniac	17
Quicksand	10	Our Planet	7	Quicksand	17
Queer Eye	8	The Umbrella Academy	7	Bird Box	15
The Perfect Date	6	Chilling Adventures of Sabrina	6	Chilling Adventures of Sabrina	15
The Umbrella Academy	6	Money Heist	6	Élite	15
INSTAGRAM - SPAIN		TWITTER - SPAIN		YOUTUBE - SPAIN
Money Heist	70	Money Heist	87	Paquita Salas		34
Stranger Things	52	Élite	45	Money Heist		16
Élite	42	Stranger Things	45	Daredevil		8
Chilling Adventures of Sabrina	36	Paquita Salas	44	Chilling Adventures of Sabrina		7
Cable Girls	29	Chilling Adventures of Sabrina	40	Élite		7
Paquita Salas	21	The Umbrella Academy	30	Dark		6
Sex Education	16	Harry Potter movies	28	Maniac		6
You	16	Black Mirror	19	Black Mirror		5
Who would you take to a desert island?	10	Ru Paul	18	Cable Girls		5
The Umbrella Academy	10	Narcos: México	17	The Dark Crystal		5

Note: Titles in bold are local titles; Underlined, co-productions between the market and the United States; Italics, European shows or co-productions between Europe and the US.

Another domestic series highly promoted on social media is Paquita Salas (2016–), a low-budget comedy series which derives its humour from Spanish popular culture (it is promoted in 99 posts). Netflix has created short promotional clips launched exclusively on YouTube to promote the series, with direct references to its other local original series. Therefore, the promotion of Money Heist is related to the international success of the local series, while Paquita Salas is praised for its locality. In addition, the overall high number of Spanish original productions demonstrates the importance of the Spanish market to Netflix. Regarding the other content found on Spanish profiles besides the US flagships, Netflix original shows from other European markets, mainly from the United Kingdom and Germany, are also highly promoted in Spain. In addition, the Latin American series, Narcos: México (2018–2020), is one of the most promoted titles on Twitter, highlighting the cultural and language connection between the regions.

In the case of Nordic accounts, the references to local shows are much lower than in the Spanish case, both quantitatively and qualitatively (see Table 3). However, while the overall number of Netflix original local productions from the region is not high, they are still present on the list of most promoted titles, with for example the series The Rain (2018–2020) and Quicksand (2019–) prominent on the three social networks (The Rain appears in a total of 63 posts while Quicksand is 35, values much lower in comparison to the local titles most mentioned in the Spanish accounts). The first is a co-production between Denmark and the United States; however, the series is promoted only as Danish and linked exclusively to Danish and, less often, Nordic culture.

In the first case, this action is carried out through the use of references to the Danish language or to stereotypes about Danes. In the second case, it is highlighted through the mention of common socio-cultural aspects of the different Nordic countries that identify them under the umbrella of Nordic culture, for example, with allusions to shared habits such as respecting queues, drinking a lot of coffee, making inappropriate jokes about terrible things or having a single duvet. Our study shows that in the case of co-productions between the United States and other markets, Netflix chooses to highlight the title’s local link to the other (always minor) market and ignores the US part of the production as a strategy to reinforce the localisation and diversification of its catalogue in their promotions on social media. Regarding the European titles showcased, there are productions from the United Kingdom, Germany and Spain, indicating the considerable value of European works in this market (among the 10 titles most promoted, there are 6 European co-productions present in 83 posts).

In the United Kingdom, local shows are less frequently mentioned (only two British productions are found among the most promoted titles, appearing in 71 posts), despite British Netflix originals being the second largest number of Netflix commissions (Green, 2019). In terms of co-productions with the United States, Sex Education (2019–) was one of Netflix’s biggest ventures of 2019 (appearing in a total of 133 posts). When promoting this comedy-drama, only the British cultural elements of the title are highlighted, a strategy similar to The Rain, to increase the locality of the catalogue. Nevertheless, with no European shows present within the most mentioned shows, the geopolitical alignment of the British and US audiovisual markets is confirmed (Rixon, 2019). Another difference is that, while in Spain and the Nordic countries the promoted titles were similar on the three social networks, British productions receive greater publicity on Twitter, including three series and one documentary.

When promoting content, the dialogue between the local with the transnational is present in all three markets with a focus on in-house original shows. Nevertheless, transnational elements, mainly represented by the US flagships, have a stronger presence in terms of the catalogue promoted, particularly on the Nordic and British accounts as Table 3 shows. Within the negotiations of the local and transnational, when promoting more than one title in the same post, Netflix sometimes uses the strategy of mentioning a local title when introducing a newly imported show to highlight the similarities between the two. Linking a domestic title to an imported programme is a clear way of localising the catalogues by referring to the national cultural context and thus giving value to the series from a different market. This is evident in Figure 2 where an American and a British example is used in order to introduce the Spanish fiction Elite.

Figure 2.

Example promoting an imported series by pointing out the similarities to a local series.

Local and transnational cultural traits

Another key strategy used by Netflix on social media to navigate the local and transnational of their brand and catalogue is the use of cultural traits. The inclusion of cultural references is a regular practice on social media and essential in understanding Netflix’s localisation strategies and its connection with the transnational aspects of popular (digital) culture (Davison, 2012; Selva, 2016). Across the three markets, the social network most extensively used to add cultural codes in posts is Twitter, followed by Instagram. This might be due to the flexibility of Twitter which only requires text and allows more textual resources. Instagram, a visual-centred social network, requires more preparation when publishing posts, and images also limit the spontaneity and speed of the content posted. In the case of YouTube, this is even more complex since videos require more time and resources to prepare.

The transnational cultural traits used are mostly composed of pointers to Netflix flagship productions, generating codes that can be understood across markets by the cross-border clusters of viewers. As previously mentioned, the flagships mostly used are English-language in-house originals, mostly from the United States followed by the United Kingdom (Green, 2019). Additionally, other licensed US programmes present in the catalogues such as Friends (1994–2004) are also used as transnational references when mentioning specific gags from the sitcom presuming that domestic users will understand the joke. The abundant and constant presence of US audiovisual programmes in European television markets have helped these shows become part of a transnational cultural layer (Buonanno, 2002).

To a much lesser extent, cultural references to the characters and content of three non-English shows have been identified in the markets analysed: the Spanish, Money Heist; the German co-production, Dark (2017–2020); and the Mexican, Narcos: Mexico. This reinforces Netflix’s recent multilingual approach in relation to the need to diversify its international expansion by commissioning original content in other markets (Jenner, 2018). Other universal values are also used, mainly love, friendship and family, with a Western perspective across the regions analysed. In the case of love, romantic love, family love or platonic love are used as themes for the promotion of their titles. Sometimes reference is also made to feelings such as affection, admiration, attachment or desire in the content of these publications to promote the titles in their catalogues. The importance of friends, complicity with them or shared concerns are some of the aspects that stand out in posts related to friendship. The mention of the family as a constituted social and affective group, as well as the importance and value of its different members (mainly fathers, mothers, children and grandparents) are other claims that Netflix uses to promote the titles on social networks. Thus, these classic themes continue to sit at the heart of narratives to capture the attention of local audiences.

Transnational cultural references are combined and intermixed with local cultural elements, both in different and the same posts. The use of local cultural traits explores different aspects of the need to engage with domestic users and create a sense of cultural relevancy, which in most cases is not included in the text, in order to add a certain level of ‘cultural proximity’ (Straubhaar, 2008). While they are not important in terms of quantity (Table 4), the discourse created with these local codes, as the further examples illustrate, is fundamental to the localisation of the brand. Regarding the types of posts where these resources are used, there is a clear balance of programme-as-brand and platform-as-brand posts. In those mentioning specific titles, as happened in terms of visibility, in-house originals, and local and co-produced titles are most localised. The latter types are used to showcase the locality of the platform.

Table 4.

Posts with specific local cultural traits.

	United Kingdom			Nordic Region			Spain
		Instagram	Twitter	YouTube	Instagram	Twitter	YouTube	Instagram	Twitter	YouTube
All sample	15 (2.7%)	88 (9.7%)	39 (7.6%)	41 (12.6%)	79 (18.2%)	44 (4.1%)	57 (10.1%)	180 (14%)	59 (14.8%)
Platform branding		1 (5%)	15 (24.2%)	0 (0%)	6 (31.6%)	17 (27.4%)	0 (0%)	3 (10.3%)	17 (8.4%)	2 (10%)
Program branding		14 (2.6%)	77 (10.3%)	39 (7.6%)	35 (11.5%)	62 (16.7%)	44 (4.1%)	45 (8.4%)	163 (15%)	57 (15.1%)
	1 title	14 (3.1%)	72 (9.8%)	36 (7.45)	33 (11.4%)	56 (16.6%)	42 (4%)	37 (7.6%)	150 (15.3)	50 (13.9%)
	>2 titles	0 (0%)	5 (4.7%)	3 (14.3%)	2 (13.3%)	6 (17.1%)	2 (15.4%)	8 (18.2%)	13 (68.4%)	7 (36.8%)
Type of production*
	In-house originals	23 (5.9%)	69 (12.2%)	35 (8.1%)	27 (11.1%)	44 (16.5%)	38 (4.2%)	35 (8%)	103 (13.5%)	46 (14.3%)
	‘False originals’	0 (0%)	6 (14.6%)	1 (2.4%)	2 (50%)	2 (9.5%)	4 (2.9%)	0 (0%)	8 (13.8%)	2 (5.1%)
	Licensed	2 (3.4%)	13 (10.9%)	0 (0%)	4 (9.5%)	8 (16.6%)	0 (0%)	2 (5.2%)	17 (11.3%)	2 (12.5%)
Origin*
	Local	13 (25%)	12 (11.9%)	28 (70%)	5 (35.7%)	12 (92.3%)	17 (100%)	25 (13.5%)	72 (28.8%)	43 (55.8%)
	Co-produced	8 (8.1%)	34 (28.3%)	11 (32.3%)	4 (14.3%)	8 (44.4%)	17 (73.9%)	0 (0%)	3 (50%)	0 (0%)
	Imported	41 (12.5%)	13 (2.5%)	68 (16.4%)	24 (9.7%)	34 (11.1%)	8 (0.8%)	12 (4%)	60 (8.3%)	7 (2.4%)

*Posts mentioning one title.

Moving to the domestic codes used in each market, some local shows are used as cultural references referring to their context and storyline. The following shows are the domestic titles mentioned most on social media: Sex Education in the United Kingdom, The Rain in the Nordic region and Money Heist and Paquita Salas in Spain. Regarding codes external to the brand, the analysis shows that local cultural traits can be classified into two axes. The first refers to the use of cultural identity elements typical in each territory, which can be stereotypes, symbols, values and other cultural aspects such as language, gastronomy, music and traditions. The second axe focusses on the use of major national events in the political and cultural sphere as an anchoring element to connect with domestic audiences, as will be developed in the following section.

Local cultural identity elements

Relating to the local cultural identity elements identified, the most recurrent elements are the use of socio-cultural stereotypes, mostly related to the characters, attitudes and behaviours (clichés) of the autochthonous inhabitants of each territory, as well as the pre-established and associated characteristics of certain themes such as the weather. As Figure 3 shows, Netflix UK & Ireland posts ‘Joe staring at Beck = brits when we wanna get past but are too awkward to say «excuse me»’, making a clear allusion to a shared British behaviour (the recurrent use of ‘excuse me’) to promote the US series You (2018–). This is a way to entice local viewers into watching non-local content by generating cultural connections with the show that are not present in the series.

Figure 3.

Examples of posts using local stereotypes, weather themes and local celebrities to engage with local users. The Spanish reads ‘Because Rosalía liked it, we recommend you…’

The weather conditions of each region are another recurrent topic on Netflix’s social media profiles. In the case of the Nordic countries, numerous posts refer to the cold and low temperatures of these territories to promote non-local series. As can be seen in Figure 3, an image of the protagonist from the American fiction Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (2018–2020) is shown frozen captioned ‘Nordic weather changes catching you off guard like…’. In the British case, allusions are made to the changing British weather and in the Spanish case, just the opposite, the characteristic sunny environment are used to localise foreign content.

Traditions, which refer mainly to local pagan festivals and national religious celebrations such as National days, Christmas or Easter, are also present in the social media posts with local cultural traits. In addition, language through popular expressions (such as idioms), word games and abbreviations are cultural identity claims that are also used in this localisation strategy.

Symbols such as flags, local celebrities, food, popular music and emblematic places, both urban and rural, are further examples of recurring cultural elements in Netflix’s posts to seek affinity with local audiences. Figure 3 shows how Netflix Spain uses a post by the highly famous singer Rosalía to promote the American series Orzak (2017–), taking advantage of the fact that the Spanish singer makes a positive assessment of the series.

Closely related to national symbols are values such as patriotism and nationalism, aspects which have been identified to be more intense in the United Kingdom and Scandinavia. In the Nordic case, these identity elements can be at both a local and regional level, thus highlighting the identity signs of the different countries included under the Nordic regional umbrella and, on many occasions, making comparisons between them. Some of these examples are shown in Figure 4. In the Nordic case, a tweet is collected which clearly states that ‘Me explaining for the 1000 time that Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland are 4 different countries and none are the capital of IKEA’, but at the same time the presence of several posts similar to the caption ‘What the Nordic DNA looks like up close’ also shows a strategy to reinforce the feeling of belonging to a Nordic region that integrates and identifies with them all. The British use many references to the British–American comparison from a humorous perspective. The Spanish example collected in Figure 4 also shows a comparison between Spaniards and Italians where the affinity between both countries is highlighted, as indicated in the post ‘Spaniards and Italians understand each other…’, this argument in turn claims each nationality serves to promote the Spanish Elite series and the Italian Baby (2018–2020).

Figure 4.

Examples of national differences between countries to engage with local users. The Spanish reads: ‘Spaniards and Italians understand each other…’ Are you sure? The guys of #EliteNetflix and #Baby are put to the test.

Large local events

Although the strategy of including local cultural identity elements is the one most widely adopted by Netflix, it is also important to highlight references to major national political and cultural events as a strategy to localise content. In the political sphere, both historical events and current affairs such as elections or other acts related to national politics are used, particularly on Twitter, the social network most connected to the daily life of users due to its ability to create synchronous conversations (Delgado et al., 2018). Large national cultural events are also another recurring element. Mentions of music festivals, film festivals or award ceremonies in different disciplines are examples of this type of resource and, on occasion, sporting events are also referenced as the examples included in Figure 5 illustrate. Some of these events have a transnational reach but are mentioned from a local perspective. This allows Netflix to become a part of the daily life of its users by commenting on elements, topics and events that are not directly related to their shows and brand image, such as the World Cup, Roskilde Festival or the Spanish elections, to be continuously in the mind of its subscribers. As mentioned previously, these types of local traits are usually found more on Twitter than the other social networks due to the ease of publishing, which sometimes only using text to appeal to the users, such as in the third image of Figure 5.

Figure 5.

Examples of mentions of political and cultural events to engage local users. The Spanish reads ‘Are you still there? Get out and vote, we are not going anywhere until you come back.’

Within this category, popular shows from linear ‘national’ broadcasters are another event commented on by the accounts in the three markets. The strategy of mentioning television programmes that are not part of their catalogues underlines the need for Netflix to be part of the online conversation and, at the same time, of the ecology of the audiovisual local industry. The titles mentioned outside the catalogues are highly popular shows in their local market such as The Voice United Kingdom (2012–) or Operación Triunfo (2001–) (a singing talent show) in Spain, amongst others. Most of these programmes are talent competitions, reality shows, that generate a synchronous conversation on social media during the live broadcast. In addition, some of the programmes commented on such as The Eurovision Song Contest (1956–) and Game of Thrones (2011–2019) are broadcast in several countries but commented on from a local perspective. While SVoD platforms cannot take advantage of the loyalty generated by these synchronous conversations through social television (Delgado et al., 2018), except during some live events, they join the conversation of off-brand titles as a localisation strategy and thus position the brand as an established part of the local industry and digital culture (Figure 6).

Figure 6.

Examples of commenting on programmes not included on the Netflix catalogues. The Spanish reads: ‘Us trying not to comment on the Game of Thrones teaser’.

Conclusions

The need to localise transnational brands is affecting the promotion and branding strategies of transnational SVoD services that cannot operate internationally as a simple global television brand (Cornelio-Marí, 2020; Lobato, 2019; Rios and Scarlata, 2018; Wayne, 2020). While previous research has analysed the localisation of Netflix in local markets in terms of industry and their relationship with local players (Castro and Cascajosa, 2020; Tse, 2020; Wayne, 2018, 2020), this study has focussed on how social media networks must generate a clear local brand and are used as a way to curate the Netflix catalogues, showcasing both the local and the transnational appeal.

Our results confirm that Netflix uses local profiles on social networks to blend the local and transnational levels of its brand and programmes. This dialogue shapes specific local brands in each market resulting in the hybridisation of cultures (Ritzer, 2004). In general terms, the company uses four different strategies to introduce local and transnational elements in the British, Nordic and Spanish markets: language, in-house originals US flagships, overrepresentation of original local shows and use of cultural traits.

The translation of imported content is considered a national mediation between the text and local viewers (Barra, 2020; Kuipers, 2015). On social media, content is also adapted to the main official language of each market but uses subtitles on non-local language videos to maintain certain levels of multilingualism to showcase diversity and increase transnational appeal (Jenner, 2018). In the case of the Nordic region, English is the main language used. This influences the level of localisation of the brand and programmes. However, on YouTube the main Nordic languages are used, highlighting differing localisation strategies on each social network.

Across the three markets, serialised fiction is the content most frequently mentioned since it produces more engagement with the brand than other genres (EAO, 2020). At the same time, the content being promoted are in-house originals, confirming the current importance of exclusivity rights (Penner and Straubhaar, 2020). Within these originals, Netflix uses certain US series, mainly targeting young viewers, as flagships to define its brand across a region, a strategy employed ever since the distribution of the first in-house originals on the platform (Havens, 2018a). Regarding non-English original shows, only three different titles were used across markets as cultural references, illustrating that, despite the increase in shows commissioned outside the United States (Jenner, 2018; Lobato, 2019), the imbalance is still particularly noteworthy between US programmes and shows originating in other peripheral countries.

The overrepresentation of local content on social media is also an important feature to highlight. In the three markets, local series are mentioned frequently, with a significantly higher occurrence than their presence in the catalogues. This part of the localisation strategy is directly related to Netflix’s investment in the markets analysed. While Netflix has invested in local original content in the three regions, the United Kingdom has a worldwide market with the most local original Netflix productions excluding the United States, followed by Spain (Green, 2019). Regarding Nordic original productions, these are fewer in terms of quantity.

Another strategy encountered is to appeal to the cultural background of audiences, their behaviours and trends with Spain making greater use of these resources than the other regions analysed. Netflix introduces transnational and local references with humour. For the transnational appeal, most allusions refer to the context, plot and characters of its flagship shows and Western universal values. In regard to the use of local cultural traits, two different axes are used: local identity elements, mostly behavioural and cultural stereotypes, and large political and cultural events. The social network mostly used to add these references is Twitter, the most important for the temporal publication of posts, reinforcing the importance of synchronous conversations with users.

The cross-cultural analysis has enabled us to highlight the specific strategies targeting each market. The Spanish market is where Netflix equalises the local and transnational elements most, promoting local titles in great variety and frequently referring to local cultural traits. This is connected to the high levels of investment that the SVoD service has made in the market considered as a connection to Europe, as well as Latin America as a Spanish-speaking geo-linguistic region (Sinclair et al., 1996). In the United Kingdom, the close connection with the United States greatly conditions its strategy which does not generally differentiate between local titles and US shows, with the exception of Sex Education, which is promoted as an example of British culture. In the case of the Nordic region, since the profiles on the three social media analysed here target different markets, the strategy defines three different cultural layers: the transnational, the Nordic and, at the same time, the local characteristics of each country.

These results lead us to question how ‘cultural proximity’ is understood in the current post-network era. While the local cultural codes included in the programmes are important, the curation of content on social media adds additional layers of meaning to audiovisual titles, creating connections and cultural references not present in the primary text (the television programme). These extra layers of meaning are important in positioning the global brand in local markets, while appealing to different transnational niche audiences, which are increasing in importance (Ju, 2020).

To conclude, Netflix is using social media to create a balance between the localisation and transnationalisation of its brand and programmes, each layer adding value to the SVoD service in domestic markets. However, while we cannot talk about cultural homogenisation, the transnational layer of television is much greater now than before the appearances of these international platforms. Further research should explore the localisation strategies in Netflix’s smaller markets and, at the same time, study if the other main SVoD platforms are following the same strategies as Netflix which remains the trailblazer for the globalised strategies of internet-distributed streaming platforms.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iDs

Celina Navarro

Belén Monclús

Author biographies

Celina Navarro is a lecturer at the Department of Audiovisual Communication and Advertising at the UAB and a member of the consolidated research group GRISS. She has participated in research projects funded by the Spanish government. Her work as a researcher focusses mainly on television transnational flows and social networks.

Belén Monclús is an associate professor in the Department of Audiovisual Communication and Advertising of the UAB. She is senior researcher at the consolidated research group GRISS and member of Euromonitor (Permanent Observatory of European Television). Her main research lines are audiovisual industry, television and audiences.

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