Netflix, Instagram, celebrity and fashion: A brave new convergent world?

Abstract

This article examines the Netflix series La casa de papel and Élite as examples of ‘media convergence’ in which content flows between several industries and creates synergies that cannot be fully explained by a television studies framework of analysis alone. By the same token, the methodological tools of traditional star studies may not provide the best lens for analysing how the actors of these series, most of them unknown until recently, have suddenly become global stars. I argue that these two series have made prominent the formation of a new paradigm of stardom, which I call ‘Insta-flix celebrity’, that compels us to develop new conceptual frameworks to theorize how multiple media – in this case Netflix, cinema, Instagram and fashion – participate in a transmedia ecology that has altered established relationships between production and consumption of media texts. Insta-flix celebrity is a phenomenon that affords audiences novel opportunities to interact with media content. With their active participation, consumers decide which stars to follow and which clothes to buy while also engaging with the series’ content and adding their own two cents – comments and social media discussion that can make or break a star, a show or a fashion brand.