For decades, the geopolitical domination of the United States remained almost unquestioned. However, other countries have emerged as poles of influence in recent years, including China and Brazil. Despite this, cultural and media interaction between the two countries is still limited and often mediated by the United States. This paper explores the algorithmic representation of China by the video streaming platform Netflix and argues that the company acts imperialistically by seeking to establish monopolistic control of the global Internet television market and promoting biases that we call ‘algorithmic orientalism’. By presenting China to the Brazilian public through this lens, Netflix plays the role of cultural gatekeeper that continues to promote hegemonically American worldviews.
AlbuquerqueA (2021). The institutional basis of anglophone western centrality. Media, Culture & Society, 43(1), 180–188. https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443720957893
2.
AmpujaM.KoivistoJ.NordenstrengK. (2020). Historicizing and theorizing media and cultural imperialism. In Boyd-BarrettO.MirrleesT. M. I. (Eds.), Continuity and change (pp. 31–44). Rowan & Littlefield.
3.
AraujoM. (2022). Orientalismo Algorítmico: a China sob os olhos da Netflix [Algorithmic Orientalism: China through the eyes of Netflix]. Ph.D Thesis. Fluminense Federal University.
4.
BabbS. (2013). The Washington Consensus as transnational policy paradigm: Its origins, trajectory and likely successor. Review of International Political Economy, 20(2), 268–297. https://doi.org/10.1080/09692290.2011.640435
BathaeeY. (2018). The artificial intelligence black box and the failure of intent and causation. Harvard Journal of Law and Technology, 31(2), 890–931.
7.
BeltránL. R.Fox de CardonaE. (1980). Comunicación dominada: Estados Unidos en los medios de América Latina. Nueva Imagen.
CarlssonU. (2003). The rise and fall of NWICO: From a vision of international regulation to a reality of multilevel governance. Nordicom Review, 24(2), 31–67. https://doi.org/10.1515/nor-2017-0306
12.
CouldryN.MejiasU. A. (2019). Data colonialism: Rethinking big data’s relation to the contemporary subject. Television & New Media, 20(4), 336–349. https://doi.org/10.1177/1527476418796632
13.
DavisS. (2021). What is Netflix imperialism? Interrogating the monopoly aspirations of the ‘world’s largest television network. Information, Communication & Society, 26(6), 1143–1158. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2021.1993955
14.
DorfmanA.MattelartA. (1971). Para leer al Pato donald [how to read donald duck]. Ediciones Universitarias de Valparaíso.
15.
EnghelF.BecerraM. (2018). Here and there: (re)situating Latin America in international communication theory. Communication Theory, 28(2), 111–130. https://doi.org/10.1093/ct/qty005
16.
FarrantA.McPhailE.BergerS. (2012). Preventing the “abuses” of democracy: Hayek, the military “usurper” and transitional dictatorship in Chile?The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 71(3), 513–538. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1536-7150.2012.00824.x
17.
FreijeV. (2019). The ‘emancipation of media’: Latin American advocacy for a new international information order in the 1970s. Journal of Global History, 14(2), 301–320. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1740022819000081
GillespieT. (2014). The relevance of algorithms. In GillespieT.BoczkowskiP. J.FootK. A. (Eds.), Media technologies: Essays on communication, materiality, and society. MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/9780262525374.003.0009
20.
HarveyD. (2003). The new imperialism. Oxford University Press.
21.
JanssenS.VerboordM. (2015). Cultural mediators and gatekeepers. Elsevier Ltd.
22.
JinD. Y. (2013). The construction of platform imperialism in the globalization era. tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique. Open Access Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society, 11(1), 145–172. https://doi.org/10.31269/triplec.v11i1.458
23.
JinD. Y. (2015). Digital platforms, imperialism, and political culture. Routledge.
24.
KeohaneR.NyeJ. (2012). Power and interdependence. Pearson.
KhooO. (2023). Picturing Diversity: Netflix’s Inclusion Strategy and the Netflix Recommender Algorithm (NRA). Television & New Media, 24(3), 281–297. https://doi.org/10.1177/15274764221102864
27.
KrigeJ. (2006). American hegemony and the postwar reconstruction of science in Europe. The MIT Press.
28.
LathamM. E. (2011). The right kind of revolution: Modernization, development, and U.S. Foreign policy from the Cold war to the present. Cornell University Press.
LobatoR. (2017). Rethinking international TV flows research in the age of Netflix. Television & New Media, 19(3), 241–256. https://doi.org/10.1177/1527476417708245
31.
LobatoR. (2018). Netflix nations: The geography of digital distribution. New York University Press.
MadianouM. (2019). Technocolonialism: Digital innovation and data practices in the humanitarian response to refugee crises. Social Media + Society, 5(3), 205630511986314. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305119863146
34.
MazurD.MeimaridisM.RiosD. (2022). Original by deception: Netflix's mixed blessings to Hallyu in Brazil (1, pp. 19–32). Netflix and Hallyu.
35.
Nye JrJ. S. (1990). Bound to lead: The changing nature of American power. Basic Books.
36.
ParkJ. H.KristinA.KimY. L. (2023). Netflix and platform imperialism: How Netflix alters the ecology of the Korean TV drama industry. International Journal of Communication, 17(1), 72–91. https://doi.org/10.117/1932–8036/20230005
37.
ParmarI. (2012). Foundations of the American century: The ford, carnegie, and rockefeller foundations in the rise of American power. Columbia University Press.
SacramentoI.MonariA.ChenX. (2020). O vírus do morcego: fake news e estereotipagem dos hábitos alimentares chineses no contexto da Covid-19. Comunicação & Inovação, 21(47), 82–98. https://doi.org/10.13037/ci.vol21n47.7285
40.
SaidE. (2007). Orientalismo: o oriente como invenção do ocidente. Companhia das Letras.
41.
SalsabilaK. (2021). Netflix: Cultural diversity or cultural imperialism?Rubikon: The Journal of Transnational American Studies, 8(1), 15–27. https://doi.org/10.22146/rubikon.v8i1.65480
42.
SchillerH. I. (1969). Mass communication and American empire. A. M. Kelley.
StegerM. B. (2008). The rise of the global imaginary: Political ideologies from the French revolution to the global war on terror. Oxford University Press.
46.
StraubhaarJ. (1991). Beyond media imperialism: Asymmetrical independence and cultural proximity. Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 8(1), 39–70. https://doi.org/10.1080/15295039109366779
47.
TomlinsonJ. (1991). Cultural imperialism. Continuum.
48.
TotaA. P. (2009). The seduction of Brazil. The americanization of Brazil during World War II. University of Texas Press.
49.
TseY. (2020). Black ships? Locating Netflix in Taiwan and Japan. JCMS: Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, 59(3), 143–148. https://doi.org/10.1353/cj.2020.0036
50.
WilliamsonJ. (2008). A short history of the Washington Consensus. In SerraN.StiglitzJ. E. (Eds.), The Washington Consensus reconsidered: Towards a new global governance (pp. 14–30). Oxford University Press.
51.
WittfogelK. (1957). Oriental despotism: A comparative study of total power. Yale University Press.
