This panel strives to foment discussion and dissemination of various analytical approaches to studying streaming media in languages other than English. Given the explosion of streaming media in various languages and cultures across the globe over the last ten years, online delivery of television and similar media has changed the way people experience and interact with visual culture. These changes are often linked to anglophone practices, and streaming platforms often operate directly under, or in conjunction with US-based international conglomerates, but in many regions and cultures, both the programs being created and the streaming practices unfolding are diverging from the American mainstream practices of classic television and of Hollywood representation. Additionally, as language departments across higher education struggle with course enrollments, this panel hopes to foster dialogue on the teachability of these types of streaming texts, both for language acquisition as well as texts that promote and develop cultural competency in our classrooms. This panel will respond to existing scholarship focused on visual media and culture, especially recent trends in television studies and spectatorship, as well as existing scholarship in non-English language fields related to cultural representations, regionalisms, and theories of space and place. The three panelists will provide presentations of no more than 18 minutes to allow for ample time for conversation and exchange of ideas. A brief outline of the three presentations is provided below. The three speakers study three different linguistic and cultural regions – France, India, and Spain – and also embody different aspects of the profession via their formal training, rank and affiliation, and theoretical perspectives.

Kévin Drif’s presentation will explore the way the Netflix series En place (2023 -) allows for the creation of new on-screen imaginaries that not only nationally force the French audience to come to terms with its postcolonial citizens, but most importantly globally produce a new image of the country with a series whose political intervention eschews romanticized depictions of French culture. He will employ a formal analysis of the spatial representation of the relations between race and power and the way the main character imposes blackness in French political spaces on screen.

Aishani Pandi’s presentation will examine the adaptation of American children’s sitcoms for Indian television through a close reading of Best of Luck Nikki (2011-16) and The Suite Life of Karan and Kabir (2012-13). She will argue that these Hindi language adaptations illustrate how global television formats are reworked within local cultural frameworks. In doing so, these texts introduce Indian teenage viewers to new televisual experiences shaped by post-millennial globalization and neoliberal cultural flows, while breaking away from the long historical dominance of the Indian state in children’s television. The end result is that these programs become a site of intersection between local and global televisual culture.

Nick Phillips’ presentation will study the Netflix horror series Feria: The Darkest Night (2022), drawing on theories of space and place to elucidate the American streaming platform’s representations of Andalusian rural geography, cultural practice, and use of regional accents. Additionally, the genre melding of crime drama and supernatural horror thriller will be examined as it relates to the depiction of Andalusian village life in the late 20^th century in Spain. Phillips will also analyze how Netflix’s internationally-focused representation of local cultural practices help illuminate underrepresented geographies of Spain, while also calling into question their packaging for consumption on a global stage.