Globalization and Cultural Identity: Unveiling Non-Western Narratives from China, Russia, and Turkey on Netflix

The research delves into the political and imaginative relationship between culture and media in non-Western countries. Recognizing the necessity of expanding the view of globalization (Beck & Sznaider, 2006), the study aims to analyze how media products can create new spaces for engaging with global public discourse when examined from territories of “impurity” (Boccia Artieri, 2022). The concept of "impurity" here refers to the blending and coexistence of diverse cultural elements, media practices, and power dynamics that defy the purity of dominant Western narratives. Specifically, the work examines how television series produced from the "Rest" of the world (Kupchan, 2012) distributed within Western platform ecosystems can enrich political and cultural interpretations of globalization (Waisbord & Mellado, 2014).

The main question focuses on how non-Western audiovisual products can act as ideological, identity, and cultural vectors, although when mediated by a Western digital intermediary like Netflix. The research concentrates on audiovisual products from China, Russia, and Turkey. Selected countries served as cases to potentially de-westernize sociological, political, and digital imaginations (Bhambra, 2023).

Despite their differences, these countries share imperialist legacies that reshape power dynamics, including in the intersections of media, culture, and society (Morgan, 2022). In the current era of media abundance, narrative products still hold a privileged position in shaping worldviews and common sense (Jenkins, 2014). From Netflix Italy’s catalog, the study selected three series based on school settings and youth protagonists: A Love So Beautiful (China), Sparta (Russia), and Love 101 (Turkey). A mixed methods approach (Creswell 2015) was used, conducting qualitative content (Downe-Wamboldt, 1992) and visual analysis (Rose, 2022) of 48 episodes. The methodology set up a qualitative analysis sheet to examine how the cultural and political values are represented and conveyed to international audiences.