Netflix: Phenomenology of the Teen Drama Genre in Italy
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Date
2024-08-07
Authors
Pisacane, Gerardo
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Oregon
Abstract
In the era of online streaming services, the distribution of TV content has altered the old paradigm of the ‘one-way flow’ of media products. An Internet-distributed television such as Netflix enables shows to circulate more seamlessly, across national borders, allowing viewers to access content that would have been more difficult to find in the past. With a presence in 191 out of 195 worldwide countries reached and 260 million paid subscribers, Netflix stands as the most prominent global Internet TV service. Most research attention on Netflix has discussed how this online streaming service categorizes its shows and targets them to spectators, as part of the personalization and recommendations system (PRS). Scant consideration has been given instead to the effects of Netflix's technological affordances on the writing of TV series. This dissertation addresses this gap in the literature by exploring how Netflix conceives shows aimed at a potentially transnational audience, with a specific emphasis on the teen drama genre in the Italian mediascape.
Through a post-structuralist analysis of the teen genre, which considers genre categories as culturally dynamic and changing constructs, this study examines Zero and Baby, two teen shows written, produced, and filmed in Italy. The examination demonstrates that, because of the friction between Netflix’s global reach and its need to produce shows ingrained with local cultures, this online streaming’s products emerge as fascinating examples of glocal dramas. Zero and Baby reveal elements in the text that specifically cater to a local viewership and counterbalance the features of a genre such as teen drama, highly globalized because of the spread of American youth content in media. The results of this analysis add to the field of media studies that examine the increasing number of youth-oriented dramas on Netflix, developing a theoretical understanding of the impact that this online streaming has on the writing of TV shows and genre formation.
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Keywords
Genres, Glocalization, Italian TV, Netflix, Online Streaming Service, Teen Dramas