Introduction: The rapid expansion of video-on-demand (VOD) platforms has fundamentally transformed the landscape of cultural consumption and the dynamics of power in the twenty-first century. This study argues that classical critical paradigms, such as the Frankfurt School’s concept of the Culture Industry and theories of glocalization, are insufficient on their own to explain the increasingly sophisticated mechanisms of power and control operating within contemporary digital ecosystems. The Culture Industry model largely conceptualizes audiences as passive subjects whose consumption is shaped through external forms of control, while glocalization approaches have often emphasized cultural hybridity and localization as potential forms of pluralism. Neither perspective, however, fully accounts for the increasingly voluntary and participatory forms through which power operates in contemporary digital environments.
To address this theoretical gap, the study draws on the philosophy of technology of Byung-Chul Han and examines global platforms such as Netflix alongside their Iranian counterparts not merely as media technologies but as digital architectures through which psychopolitical forms of power are exercised. Drawing on Han’s distinction between disciplinary society and the contemporary achievement society, the study examines the transformation of power from external prohibition and coercion toward forms of self-motivation, self-optimization, and voluntary participation. In this configuration, power operates less through prohibiting the subject than through the continuous production of possibilities, choice, and participation. The central research question is how globalization has evolved from a process associated primarily with the compression of time and space into a form of algorithmic intervention in the lifeworld. The study hypothesizes that contemporary VOD platforms increasingly govern subjectivity rather than merely regulating bodies by constructing a transparent and frictionless environment in which users experience algorithmically structured preferences as expressions of individual freedom.
Methods: This study employs a qualitative research design based on a critical-analytical approach. Data were collected through library-based research, including a comprehensive review of theoretical literature on the Culture Industry, globalization and glocalization, and Byung-Chul Han’s conceptualization of digital psychopolitics. Comparative qualitative content analysis was used to examine selected series available on global platforms such as Netflix and Iranian platforms such as Filimo and Namava. The analytical framework derived from Han’s philosophy was applied to the selected content in order to examine narrative structures, visual aesthetics, modes of representation, and underlying value systems. The comparative analysis focused on identifying similarities and differences between global and local productions and assessing the extent to which Iranian platforms provide distinctive cultural alternatives or reproduce broader forms of algorithmic and platform-based cultural logic.
Findings: The analysis indicates that VOD platforms operationalize forms of digital psychopolitics through four interrelated mechanisms that shape users’ patterns of attention, consumption, and subjectivity.
First, the platforms contribute to the emergence of the achievement society by transforming binge-watching from a form of leisure into a project of continuous consumption and self-management. In contrast to the relatively passive viewer associated with traditional broadcasting, the contemporary user is increasingly positioned as a self-motivated and self-exploiting subject who may voluntarily sacrifice time and sleep to maintain continuous engagement with content. Platform features such as Top 10 lists and trending categories can intensify this pressure by encouraging users to keep pace with dominant consumption trends and thereby transforming cultural consumption into a form of achievement and social participation.
Second, the platforms contribute to what Han conceptualizes as the “Hell of the Same.” Recommendation algorithms predominantly operate through patterns of similarity and personalization. By continuously recommending content on the basis of users’ previous behaviors and preferences, platforms may reinforce existing patterns of consumption and contribute to the formation of filter bubbles. In this process, encounters with difference and unfamiliarity may be reduced, while cultural diversity can be transformed into variations within an increasingly standardized system of content recommendation. From this perspective, algorithmic personalization does not simply facilitate individual choice; it may also narrow the range of cultural encounters available to users.
Third, the study identifies the emergence of what Han describes as an “Aesthetics of the Smooth.” Features such as the “Skip Intro” function can be interpreted as technological manifestations of this logic, reducing transitional moments and thresholds that traditionally structured the viewing experience. At the level of visual aesthetics, this tendency is reflected in highly polished, seamless, and visually intensified forms of representation. The resulting emphasis on transparency, immediacy, and frictionless consumption can reduce ambiguity and critical distance and encourage the transformation of cultural products into readily consumable digital objects.
Fourth, the analysis identifies similarities in the representation and normalization of neoliberal values across global and local content. A comparative analysis of series such as Netflix’s Ozark and the Iranian series Mortal Wound (Zakhm-e Kari) reveals similarities in the treatment of themes such as betrayal, murder, competition, and revenge. In these narratives, such actions are frequently represented not only as moral transgressions but also as strategies for navigating competitive environments and acquiring or maintaining power. Characters are often differentiated less by coherent ethical frameworks than by their ability to strategically navigate complex and competitive power relations. These similarities suggest that Iranian productions distributed through local platforms may reproduce elements of broader neoliberal narrative and cultural logics, even when they are embedded in distinct linguistic, social, and cultural contexts.
Conclusion: This study concludes that VOD platforms constitute important infrastructures through which contemporary forms of digital psychopolitics can operate. The findings suggest that the distinction between global and local platforms cannot be understood solely in terms of language, geography, or cultural content. Despite substantial differences in these dimensions, local platforms may reproduce elements of the algorithmic logic, consumption patterns, competitive value systems, and frictionless visual aesthetics characteristic of the broader platform economy. This convergence can contribute to the emergence of a form of hyperculture in which local cultural specificities coexist with increasingly standardized modes of production, distribution, recommendation, and consumption.
From this perspective, globalization in the digital era is not limited to the circulation of cultural products across geographical boundaries; it also involves the diffusion of common technological and economic logics that shape cultural consumption and subjectivity. The power of VOD platforms therefore lies not simply in controlling what users can access, but also in structuring how they encounter, select, consume, and evaluate cultural content. Users retain the experience of choice and autonomy, while their preferences are continuously shaped by personalized interfaces, recommendation systems, and platform architectures. Digital psychopolitics thus operates through a subtle convergence of freedom and control, in which participation itself becomes an important mechanism of power. The resulting form of cultural globalization is characterized not necessarily by the disappearance of local differences, but by their incorporation into standardized technological and market structures that increasingly organize contemporary cultural life.