Intensified Simplicity? A Content Analysis of Narration in Scripted Netflix Original Series

Digital streaming platforms shape the production and consumption of cultural content in modern society. Big tech companies such as Netflix are poised to gain from this transformation, as binge-watching has become the dominant type of consumption. These changes are caused predominantly by platformization, which refers to how logics of datafication and commodification affect ’the production, distribution, and circulation of cultural content’ (Nieborg & Poell, 2018, p. 4275). Studies on production and consumption are arguably key to television and streaming research in the platform era; nevertheless, research on streaming content and its constitutive feature, narration (or storytelling), has been underdeveloped apart from a few recent exceptions (Heiselberg et al., 2026; Lotz & Lobato, 2023).
This paper examines longitudinal changes and continuities in the narration of the most popular original fiction series on Netflix (the world’s leading streaming service) from beginning to present (2013-2024). It performs a quantitative content analysis of over 150 episodes selected through a stratified sampling strategy (Riffe et al., 2023). The focus is threefold: plot, style, and character. Taken together, these three dimensions are constitutive of narration, just like narrative is constitutive of a fiction series. Drawing on narratology, manuscript literature, and recent theory on serial narration (for instance Altman, 2008; Bordwell, 1985; Christensen, 2023; Field, 2005; Heiselberg et al., 2026), this article presents a quantitative framework for analysing narration in fictional and serial platform content. The subject is relevant and timely given the growing production and consumption of such content in the platform age.
Being a work in progress, the paper will first perform statistical analyses of the constitutive variables of the three narrational dimensions. Secondly, it will compare the findings to popular hypotheses circulating in the academic and critical debate: Have Netflix’s streaming fiction series become more complex and intensive? Or is it rather the opposite: simpler and extensive? Finally, it will discuss the usefulness of the framework for future studies on related, yet different, types of platforms, for instance, Broadcast Video-on-Demand services.

 
References

Altman, R. (2008). A Theory of Narrative. Columbia University Press.
Bordwell, D. (1985). Narration in the fiction film. Routledge.
Christensen, N. I. (2023). Midt i fortællingen: En grundbog i audiovisuel dramaturgi. Ajour.
Field, S. (2005). Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting. Random House LCC US.
Heiselberg, L., Walther, B. K., Nielsen, J. I., & Rønlev, R. (2026). Seriality in the Streaming Era. Routledge.
Lotz, A., & Lobato, R. (Eds.). (2023). Streaming Video: Storytelling Accross Borders. New York University Press.
Nieborg, D. B., & Poell, T. (2018). The platformization of cultural production: Theorizing the contingent cultural commodity. New Media & Society, 20(11), 4275–4292.
Riffe, D., Lacy, S., Watson, B. R., & Lovejoy, J. (2023). Analyzing Media Messages: Using Quantitative Content Analysis in Research. Routledge.