Abstract

This thesis argues that Netflix’s scaled expansion has hinged upon its ability not only to create but more importantly to communicate the new forms and flows of potential value in platform capitalism, wherein capital is derived and mobilized not only from direct revenue streams but also the new value assigned to inputs and investments of data, debt, attention, behaviour, taste, time, sociality, and speculation. To better understand and critique these new communications and projections of value, this thesis performs a discursive analysis of the streaming industry leader Netflix and its investor lore: the multi-sited narrative of value found in the company’s investor relations materials and corporate communications, such as letters to shareholders, financial earnings reports, executive interviews, press releases, and blog posts. This company represents an unprecedented and increasingly present nexus of tech, finance, and culture industries, mobilizing Silicon Valley's deep ties to Wall Street to provide cultural content; turning what were once cultural products and behaviours into data generating user experiences. For decades the company has borrowed billions of dollars to sustain its internet entertainment service, hoping to attract and retain users believing this will increase data and revenue flows with faith that such flows will eventually produce profits and earnings. This is the emergent speculative fiction upon which Netflix depends, relying on the rhetorical ability to persuade investing actors and institutions to subscribe to this narrative of value to mobilize and sustain operational capital. My analysis seeks to provide a new approach to studying the cultural logic of platforms and their new economies of code, content, and capital.