Video: From Netflix to iQiyi: As the World Turns, Serial Dramas in Virtual Circulation

A literary storytelling format dating back to the era of print medium, serial narrative has reinvented itself in numerous ways in the past decades, surviving successively the traditional TV network system, the rise of multi-channel cable and global satellite delivery, shifts in domestic and global regulatory policies and ownership rules, and most recently the rise of Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, now Disney Plus in the US, and Youku, Tudou, Bytedance, Mango TV, iQiyi, and Sohu in China. This talk discusses the interplay between serial dramas and streaming services in PRC and the US, the two leading countries in content-production and circulation in the era of non-synchronized, instantaneous, and globalized streaming ecosystem. It highlights the interaction between Netflix and iQiyi as the former seeks global expansion and the latter local dominance. The focus is on dramatic programing, particularly mini-series or what the media industry in the US now calls limited series. 

Ying ZHU is the founder of a double-blind peer reviewed academic journal, Global Storytelling: Journal of Digital and Moving Images. She has published ten books including Hollywood in China: Behind the Scenes of the World’s Largest Movie Market (2022) and Two Billion Eyes: The Story of China Central Television (2012). Arecipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship and a Fulbright Senior Fellowship, Zhu’s writings have appeared in leading academic journals such as Journal of Cinema and Media Studies and Screen as well as major media outlets such as The Atlantic, BBC, Boston Global, CNN, Financial Times, Foreign Policy, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. Previously a faculty member at the City University of New York, Zhu is now a professor in the Academy of Film at the Hong Kong Baptist University.