Whose Story to Tell? Platform Strategies, Cultural Identity, and Local Representation in Netflix's Rabo de Peixe

Abstract

Using Netflix’s Rabo de Peixe as a case study, this article examines how cultural identity is negotiated when global streaming platforms engage with non-hegemonic contexts. Grounded in Cultural and Media Studies, it draws on qualitative research combining semi-structured interviews and media-based reception analysis to examine production conditions, institutional mediation, and audience response in Portugal’s audiovisual sector. It shows how Açorianidade functions as a flexible yet essentialised identity framework, selectively mobilised to signal authenticity while ensuring transnational legibility. Although nationally celebrated as a landmark achievement, the series generated local resistance, exposing how platform-driven visibility might amplify asymmetries of symbolic power and narrative authority.