Algorithmic cosmopolitanism: on the global claims of digital entertainment platforms

Abstract

Streaming entertainment services Netflix and Spotify sell themselves as stewards of a benevolent form of globalization characterized by liberal-cosmopolitan ideals of international connection. Drawing on discourse analysis and critical political economy, this article examines how Netflix and Spotify market their platforms through initiatives that encourage global, intercultural connection and affinity. The first such venture is Spotify’s “I’m with the Banned” project, which initiated and promoted collaborations between U.S. pop acts and musicians from countries affected by the Trump administration’s 2017 travel ban. The second is Netflix’s mid-to-late-2010s discourse of the “taste cluster” or “taste community.” This is the idea, supposedly discovered by Netflix’s analysis of user data but steeped in established practices of psychographic marketing, that common tastes bind viewers across geographic distances and cultural differences. I argue that by centralizing international, intercultural connection and affinity within their public images, the platforms attempt to legitimize their globally expanding business and technological practices as humanistic and cosmopolitan rather than faceless, mathematical, and all-consuming. By claiming that the services help enable cross-cultural global community, they promote a benevolent vision of themselves to new markets while tacitly attempting to soothe anxieties about the platform-imperialist dominance of a small handful of algorithmic digital platforms.

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