Netflix’s Leap: From Political Economy of Distribution to Symbolic Production, The Río Grande Way

Abstract

This paper studies Netflix’s algorithm of prediction, recommendation and mediation to promote audiovisual consumption and symbolic mediation of Latino images in global markets. I explore some of the mechanisms used by Netflix for cultural symbolic construction of a global, transnational, Latino discourse. I focus on Netflix’s audience engagement through the appropriation of Telenovelas’ operating rules for the development of a global transnational community of producers and consumers which reuse the elaborate production and interpretative process of Latino codes, meanings and contents. I argue that Latino culture, through its diverse cultural contacts functioning like a global Rio Grande, serves Netflix as a mechanism of textual production, distribution and consumption that operates through the conflicts between three global market geographies.