research paper on netflix in india

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Netflix’s growth in india on a slippery turf.

The CASE Journal

ISSN : 1544-9106

Publication date: 8 June 2023

Issue publication date: 2 January 2024

Teaching notes

Case summary, research methodology.

A secondary research method was used to collect data for this case. The authors have made use of newspaper articles and published articles written by journalists and experts, which are available in the public domain.

Case overview/synopsis

This case discusses the hurdles faced by Netflix in India. Netflix experienced rapid growth ever since its entry into the Indian over-the-top (OTT) sector. The aggressive pricing strategies by OTT competitors put Netflix in a defensive position in India. Netflix introduced the low-priced mobile-only plan to attract price-sensitive Indian consumers. However, this was not sufficient. Netflix was forced to reduce the price of all its plans in December 2021. The dilemma faced by Reed Hastings (Founder and Co-CEO, Netflix) was whether the revised price was low enough to hold on to existing subscribers and attract new subscribers in India. Netflix was caught between the rock and the hard place in its pursuit to achieve its target of achieving 100 million subscribers from India versus continuing its skimming-pricing strategy. This case highlights the compound challenges of low household income in India and high-income inequality resulting in a lower available market for multinational service providers such as Netflix. The pricing plans and features of OTT competitors in India have also been discussed in sufficient depth to facilitate analysis and classroom discussion by the target audience.

Complexity academic level

Undergraduate students studying marketing management and basic marketing courses in business management and commerce streams can use this case. This case can also be used for marketing specialization courses at the undergraduate level.

• Subscribers
• Pricing strategy
• Skimming pricing
• Market share

Publisher : Emerald Publishing Limited

On August 9, 2022, Reed Hastings (Founder and Co-CEO, Netflix) was contemplating Netflix’s future in India. In 2018, Hastings set an ambitious target of attaining 100 million subscribers in India ( Borgohain, 2018 , February 24). However, in reality, Netflix had managed to attain just five million paid subscribers in India. The Netflix leadership team in India attributed Netflix’s slow growth in price sensitive Indian market to its high-price strategy. Most of the Indian viewers felt that Netflix was overpriced and wanted the subscription price to be reduced. But, price reduction was a complex decision adversely affecting revenue and profits in the short run. Even if the subscription price was reduced, there was a possibility of the competitors following suit leading to a price war. Netflix being the highest-priced player would suffer the most. Also, Netflix had to maintain parity in pricing across emerging markets. Frequent reductions in price would dilute the premium status occupied by Netflix in the over-the-top (OTT) segment. Hastings had to find the right balance for Netflix’s pricing strategy in India.

Netflix inception and growth

Netflix was founded by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in the year 1997 in California. Netflix initially focused on DVD rental by mail and DVD sales. However, DVD sales were abandoned by the founders within one year of operations to exclusively focus on the DVD rental business ( Pogue, 2007 , January 25). In 2007, Netflix introduced streaming media and video on demand. The company expanded to Canada in 2010, followed by Latin America and the Caribbean. In 2013, the service began to acquire and produce original content, beginning with the political drama House of Cards . By 2022, original productions accounted for half of Netflix’s library in the USA, and the company had ventured into other categories, such as video game publishing via the Netflix service ( Wikipedia contributors, 2023 , February 16).

Netflix worldwide subscribers amounted to 231 million worldwide, EMEA region (Europe, Middle East and Africa), accounting for over 76 million of Netflix’s total global subscriber base, the USA and Canada accounted for 72 million subscribers, whereas India accounted for approximately five million subscribers ( Statista, 2023 , January 20).

Table 1 illustrates the timeline of Netflix expansion worldwide starting from its inception at California in 1997.

Netflix journey in India

Netflix was launched in India in 2016 but started operating and streaming content in India in April 2017. Netflix initially focused on the English-speaking audience in India who were interested in popular international TV series and Hollywood movies. However, after understanding the lingual diversity of India, Netflix started streaming vernacular content for the Indian audience. In partnership with leading local production houses, Netflix developed original content in vernacular languages for Indian consumers. Prominent production houses with whom Netflix partnered include T-Series, Red Chillies Entertainment, Pooja Entertainment, Viacom 18 Studios, Luv Films, Reliance Entertainment, RSVP Movies, Benaras Media Works, Maddock Films, Junglee Pictures, Balaji Telefilms and Matchbox Shots ( Ramachandran, 2022 , September 8).

Netflix’s net profit in India for the fiscal year 2017 was INR2.02m. It earned revenue of INR580m in the fiscal year 2018 ( Laghate, 2018 , December 28). As per a report by Morgan Stanley Research, Netflix had the highest average watch time of more than 120 min as compared to other OTT service providers in July 2018 ( exchange4media Staff, 2018 , September 26). Netflix Founder and Co-CEO Reed Hastings announced in December 2019 that the firm planned to invest INR30bn in original Indian content over two years.

Netflix Entertainment Services India LLP, the India arm of Netflix, had reported a 66% growth in gross revenue at INR1,529.36 crore for the fiscal year 2021 as against INR923.33 crore in the previous fiscal. Its total expenditure stood at INR555.02 crore in FY21, compared to INR72.23 crore in FY20 ( Farooqui, 2021 , November 6).

Over-the-top market in India

Indian video OTT market in India was projected to grow from US$1.5bn in 2021 to US$12.5bn by 2030. Native Hindi language speakers and state-wise vernacular language-speaking populations in Tier 2, Tier 3 and Tier 4 cities were expected to contribute to growth in subscription and viewership. The OTT market in India was expected to grow at a CAGR of 28.6% from 2022 to 2025 (The Economic Times, 2021, July 18). The leading players in the Indian OTT landscape were Disney+ Hotstar, Amazon Prime Video and Netflix in terms of customer satisfaction and subscriptions. Indian OTT space had witnessed the growth of many regional OTT players, such as SonyLIV, Voot, ALTBalaji, Eros Now, Zee5, Sun NXT, Hoichoi, Adda Times, etc. ( Business Insider, 2021 , July 15).

Reports on the mass media suggested that the majority of Indian subscribers/users viewed OTT content on smartphones. Nachiket Pantvaidya, CEO of ALTBalaji, stated that 80% of subscribers viewed their content on smartphones ( Bhatia, 2020 , June 2). In line with this trend, Netflix introduced its basic pricing model for streaming on smartphones. Netflix had given full access to all the available content for its mobile plan users. Most Netflix Indian subscribers were viewing content on smartphones as compared to developed western countries where subscribers preferred bigger screens. Aggressive OTT competitors in India were stepping up their attack on Netflix and were wooing the OTT smartphone segment with discounts, low-priced packages and freemium pricing. Table 2 illustrates the aggressive pricing for subscription plans by Netflix’s OTT competitors in India.

Challenge of low household income in India

Around 69% of households in India struggle with financial insecurity and vulnerability. The average income of an Indian family of 4.2 persons is INR23,000 per month. Over 46% of Indian families have an income of less than INR15,000 per month, i.e. belong to the aspiring or lowest-income cohort. Only 3% of Indian households have a luxury standard of living and belong to high-income cohorts ( India.com News Desk, 2022 , November 5).

India stands out as a “poor and very unequal country, with an affluent elite,” where the top 10% holds 57% of the total national income, including 22% held by the top 1%, while the bottom 50% holds merely 13% in 2021, according to the World Inequality Report 2022 ( Sengar, 2022 , May 25).

Despite India’s large population base of 1.412 billion in 2022 ( Patranobis, 2022 , July 12), the challenge of low household income combined with high inequality in income distribution make it an uphill task for foreign multinational corporations to penetrate the lower-income segments of the Indian market.

Pricing dynamics in India

Netflix started its operations in India with a high pricing strategy as compared to other competing OTT platforms. The Covid-19-induced lockdown resulted in a surge in revenue for Netflix due to the addition of new subscribers. High pricing was one of the prime reasons for the higher revenue of Netflix as compared to most of the competing OTT platforms. However, high pricing was turning out to be a pain point for Netflix in India due to the aggressive pricing plans of competitors.

Netflix started its Indian operations with only three-monthly priced plans, namely Basic (INR499), Standard (INR649) and Premium (INR799). All three plans offered access to unlimited content, the differentiating factor was the number of screens. One screen at a time could be accessed with the basic plan, whereas subscribers could access two screens at the same time with the standard plan and four screens could be accessed simultaneously with the premium plan.

An attractive subscription plan of INR199 per month was launched by Netflix in 2019 offering streaming only on mobile phones with unlimited access to content ( Saha, 2019 , July 26). However, this INR199 for single mobile screen viewing was considered expensive in the price-sensitive Indian market with a significant proportion of the population in the middle-class and low-income category. To increase its subscriber base, Netflix further reduced its price with effect from December 14, 2021, as shown in Table 3 . Under the new price scheme, the mobile-only plan was priced at INR149 per month, instead of the earlier INR199 per month; the Netflix Basic plan was priced at INR199 per month; the plan used to cost INR499 per month earlier so this was a significant price drop. The standard Netflix plan was priced at INR499 per month, instead of INR649, which was the earlier price. Finally, the premium plan was priced at INR649 per month, instead of the earlier cost of INR799 per month (Desk, 2021, December 16).

Way forward

Reed Hastings and Netflix top management team faced the challenge of getting its pricing strategy right in India. Even with multiple price reductions, Netflix was not able to match the low pricing of its competitors. Attaining its ambitious target of 100 million subscribers from India looked almost impossible. Netflix’s top management faced the following strategic question: Should they reduce the prices in India to match the pricing of their OTT competitors, or should they continue with the current high-pricing strategy?

Netflix’s growth path in India will depend to a great extent on its pricing strategy. Netflix faces a tough battle in its attempt to increase its market share in India. Making the right decisions will ensure Netflix’s long-term continuity and growth in India.

Baboori , P. ( 2021 ), “ Top 10 OTT platforms in India 2021 ”, IndianOnlineSeller.Com , available at: https://indianonlineseller.com/top-10-ott-platforms-in-india

Bhatia , A. ( 2020 ), “ ALTBalaji CEO interview: small town India discovering OTT platforms; ‘adult’ no more a taboo word ”, The Indian Express , available at: https://indianexpress.com/article/technology/tech-news-technology/alt-balaji-ceo-interview-ott-platforms-adult-

Borgohain , A. ( 2018 ), “ The next 100 mn users of Netflix will come from India: Netflix CEO Reed Hastings ”, The Economic Times , available at: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/startups/newsbuzz/the-next-100-mn-users-of-netflix-will-come-from-india-netflix-ceo-reed-hastings/articleshow/63047513.cms?from=mdr

Business Insider ( 2021 ), “ India’s OTT industry to be worth $15 billion by 2030: report ”, available at: www.businessinsider.in/advertising/media/news/indias-ott-industry-to-be-a-15-billion-industry-by-2030-report/articleshow/84439078.cms

Chatterjee , D. ( 2020 ), “ Calls for Netflix ban: the perils of India’s own ‘cancel culture’ ”, The Wire , available at: https://thewire.in/culture/netflix-india-ban-perils-india-own-cancel-culture

exchange4media Staff ( 2018 ), “ Video OTT revenue in India expected to reach Rs 13,800 crore by FY 2023 ”, Indian Advertising Media & Marketing News – Exchange4media , available at: www.exchange4media.com/digital-news/video-ott-revenue-in-india-expected-to-reach-rs-13-800-crore-by-fy-2023-92262.html

Farooqui , J. ( 2021 ), “ Netflix India’s FY21 revenue zooms 66% to Rs 1529 crore ”, Indian Advertising Media & Marketing News – Exchange4media , available at: www.exchange4media.com/digital-news/netflix-indias-fy21-revenue-zooms-66-to-rs-152936-crore-116706.html

India.com News Desk ( 2022 ), “ Average income of Indian family is Rs 23,000 per month: survey ”, India.com , available at: www.india.com/business/average-income-of-indian-family-is-rs-23000-per-month-survey-5725299/

Jonnalagadda , H. ( 2018 ), “ Netflix is getting crushed in India, and it’s all because of amazon and Hotstar ”, Android Central , available at: www.androidcentral.com/netflix-getting-crushed-india-and-its-because-amazon-and-hotstar

Laghate , K.B.A.G. ( 2018 ), “ Netflix leases space for India headquarter in BKC ”, The Economic Times , available at: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/internet/netflix-leases-space-for-india-headquater-in-bkc/articleshow/67280626.cms?from=mdr

MySmartPrice , T. ( 2021 ), “ Netflix subscription plans 2021: monthly and yearly price in India, validity, Jio & Vi recharge offers ”, MySmartPrice , available at: www.mysmartprice.com/gear/netlfix-subscription-plans-india/

Parekh , M. ( 2016 ), “ Netflix everywhere: Netflix faces piracy, pricing, content challenges in India ”, S&P Global Market Intelligence , available at: www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/trending/nssbz5qdn4jtkvjsxbwegw2

Patranobis , S. ( 2022 ), “ India’s population is higher than China’s, claims researcher ”, Hindustan Times , available at: www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/indias-population-is-higher-than-china-s-claims-researcher-101657651124385.html

Pogue , D. ( 2007 ), “ A stream of movies, sort of free ”, The New York Times , available at: www.nytimes.com/2007/01/25/technology/25pogue.html

Ramachandran , N. ( 2022 ), “ Variety ”, Variety , available at: https://variety.com/2022/tv/global/netflix-india-content-chief-strategy-1235353166/

Saha , S. ( 2019 ), “ Netflix Rs 199 mobile plan is cheap but there is a big catch here and you must know about it ”, India Today , available at: www.indiatoday.in/technology/features/story/netflix-rs-199-mobile-plan-is-cheap-but-there-is-a-big-catch-here-and-you-must-know-about-it-1573051-2019-07-24

Sengar , S. ( 2022 ), “ 15% Indians earn less than Rs 5,000 per month while 1% rich hold 22% of the national income ”, IndiaTimes , available at: www.indiatimes.com/news/india/15-indians-earn-less-than-rs-5000-per-month-while-1-rich-hold-22-of-the-national-income-570508.html

Statista ( 2023 ), “ Netflix: number of subscribers worldwide 2022 ”, available at: www.statista.com/statistics/250934/quarterly-number-of-netflix-streaming-subscribers-worldwide/

Wikipedia contributors ( 2023 ), “ Netflix ”, Wikipedia , available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Netflix

Wikipedia contributors ( 2023 ), “ Timeline of Netflix ”, Wikipedia , available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Netflix

Timeline of Netflix expansion

Source: Created by the authors using data from MySmartPrice (2021 , December 14)

Acknowledgements

Disclaimer. This case is intended to be used as the basis for class discussion rather than to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of a management situation. The case was compiled from published sources.

Corresponding author

About the authors.

Avil Saldanha is based at the Department of Marketing, St Joseph’s Institute of Management, Bangalore, India. *Dr Avil Saldanha is an Assistant Professor at St Joseph’s Institute of Management, Bangalore, in the marketing domain. He has 13 years of teaching and six years of industry experience. He has published several research papers and case studies. His areas of research interest include consumer behavior, retail, brand management and allied management-related topics.

Rekha Aranha is based at the Department of OB and HR, School of Business and Management, CHRIST (Deemed to be University), Bangalore, India. **Dr Rekha Aranha is an Assistant Professor at School of Business and Management, CHRIST (Deemed to be University), Bangalore. She has 15 years of teaching and one year of industry experience. She has published several research papers and case studies in the management domain.

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Article Contents

Media flows and technological/industrial change, netflix library composition: a study of 17 countries, data access, acknowledgments.

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Netflix, library analysis, and globalization: rethinking mass media flows

• Article contents
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Amanda D Lotz, Oliver Eklund, Stuart Soroka, Netflix, library analysis, and globalization: rethinking mass media flows, Journal of Communication , Volume 72, Issue 4, August 2022, Pages 511–521, https://doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqac020

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The advent of subscriber-funded, direct-to-consumer, streaming video services has important implications for video distribution around the globe. Conversations about transnational media flows and power—a core concern of critical communication studies—have only just begun to explore these changes. This article investigates how global streamers challenge existing communication and media theory about transnational video and its cultural power and considers the theory rebuilding necessitated by streamers’ discrepant features. It takes particular focus on Netflix and uses the library data available from Ampere Analysis to empirically explore and compare 17 national libraries. Analyses suggest considerable variation in the contents of Netflix libraries cross-nationally, in contrast with other U.S.-based services, as well as Netflix libraries offering content produced in a greater range of countries. These and other results illustrate, albeit indirectly, the operations and strategies of global streamers, which then inform theory building regarding their cultural role.

As is often the case in technological innovation, thinking about streaming services has been structured by the capabilities and protocols of similar technologies that came before. A century ago AT&T imagined radio through the lens of the telephone, though failed to make radio a point-to-point technology, while television largely adopted regulatory norms and scheduling features from radio. Industry, policymakers, and scholars now attempt to slot streaming video services into our conceptual understandings of previous video providers that used broadcast signal, cable, or satellite to distribute content to the home.

However, Internet-distributed video both is and isn’t comparable to these previous technologies. Indeed, even Internet-distributed video may be too varied a category to make substantive claims—TikTok and YouTube operate under very different industrial conditions than Netflix and Disney+, though all offer Internet-distributed video. The latter services, also identified as subscription, video-on-demand services (hereafter, “streamers”), provide the focus here. As video services, streamers do important cultural work in society by producing and circulating stories that, like other audiovisual services, mostly reinforce, but sometimes contradict hegemonic ideas and contribute to culture shared by many ( Fiske, 1987 ; Gitlin, 1979 ; Newcomb & Hirsch, 1983 ). But they are also different from previous distribution technologies upon which foundational theories were built, and these differences require revising or reframing theory. Moreover, the industrial context of the 21st century, which is characterized by much greater choice in services (channels and streamers) and substantial audience fragmentation across these choices, also necessitates adjustment of theories that were developed for norms of limited choice and mass audiences. In terms of critical communication/media studies scholarship, the three most important differences are: Streamers’ reliance on subscriber support, their ability to deliver bespoke content on demand, and their ability to be offered at a near-global scale. These features allow different business strategies that yield different content priorities and different cultures of consumption than characteristic of previous distribution technologies that provide the foundation of the field’s thinking.

Subscriber funding alters the core business of streamers from the commercial norms of advertiser funding in profound ways ( Lotz, 2007 , 2017 ). The need to compel viewers to pay and the ability to offer a range of titles simultaneously—rather than a single title most likely to attract the most viewers—enables, even requires, different content strategies than have been used by video services that seek to attract the most attention to particular titles at a specified time. Streamers have accelerated the transition from mass to niche video industry logics that had been developing since the widespread adoption of cable and satellite in the 1990s. The ubiquitous accessibility of broadcasting that was core to theories about the cultural power of in-home video also diminishes as a consequence of these different affordances ( Lotz, 2021b ).

The global reach of several of the most widely subscribed streamers integrates them in conversations about transnational media flows and power that have been a core concern of critical communication studies. Video media businesses have been transnational since technology made video trade feasible ( Steemers, 2004 ; Havens, 2006 ), yet the last quarter of a century has accelerated and reconfigured the internationalization of video businesses and video consumption ( Lobato, 2019 ; Steemers, 2016 ). The rapid expansion of global streaming services has hastened the erosion of once-nationally organized video sectors and substantially altered legacy businesses of transnational television trade, their industrial priorities, and the accessibility of video produced outside the long-dominant Hollywood system.

This article investigates how global streamers challenge existing communication and media theory about transnational video and its cultural power. It considers how streamers’ discrepant features combine with coterminous, but unrelated disruption from previous industrial norms and conditions to necessitate theory rebuilding. These adjustments have implications for key theories and assumptions about the dynamics of power involved in media trade, including those about corporate ownership ( de Sola Pool, 1979 ; Schiller, 1969 ; Tunstall, 1977 ), proximity ( Straubhaar, 1991 ; 2007 ), asymmetrical interdependence ( Straubhaar, 1991 ; Straubhaar et al., 2021 ), cultural discount ( Hoskins and Mirus, 1988 ), contra-flow ( Thussu, 2006 ), and the roles of geography, language, and culture in explaining patterns of video flow ( Sinclair et al., 1996 ).

This article takes particular focus on Netflix as a streaming service utilizing the most distinctive strategy, such that Lotz (2021a) has described it as a “zebra among horses” in a multifaceted analysis of its “global” strategy. Relying on datasets obtained through subscription to Ampere Analysis, 1 the article uses Netflix’s library composition in different countries to investigate what the titles in these libraries suggest about streamers’ contribution to the transnational flow of video content. It also juxtaposes evidence derived from comparing Netflix’s library strategy with other major, transnational services to illustrate its distinction. The article queries the extent to which streamers with global reach do and do not replicate the industrial practices of linear video services (broadcast, cable, satellite) and consequently how our theories about transnational cultural influence may require nuance.

The investigation is limited by the inaccessibility of the most useful data for answering these questions: data regarding audience use. There is nevertheless much to learn from a focus on library composition. Indeed, title-level data including country of origin facilitates analyses that provide sophisticated understandings of what these services are and what they offer viewers and is useful for assessing the complementarity of these services along with their widely assumed competition. Is Netflix a global behemoth capable of exerting enormous cultural and market influence in the manner its occasional inclusion among abusive “tech giants” suggests and thus in need of policy intervention? If so, is it cultural or competition policy that is warranted? Does its strong market capitalization and scale eliminate the viability of domestic services in the many markets it services? Or does its scale enable it to function as a complement to domestic services with different priorities (e.g., public service or nation-specific commercial broadcasters) and its library strategy suggest it offers viewers an experience not otherwise available?

This article examines evidence relevant to established theories and persistent presumptions in the field regarding the implications of nationality of ownership of conglomerates, the cultural specificity indicated by titles’ country of production, and preferences for local content. It follows critiques that dominant theories have overstated physical proximity and the relevance of the nation as the primary site of cultural connection in a way that has exaggerated the frame of the nation in the questions we prioritize ( Morley & Robbins, 1995 ; Esser, 2016 ), although country of origin provides a useful categorization for preliminary assessment of streamers’ libraries. Such theories derive from the stronger national organization of predigital distribution technologies and have informed policy and come to be “industry lore” ( Havens, 2014 ) but do not adequately account for the complexity of viewing practices now common, especially with regard to such expanded choice. The inquiry here does not aim to assert flaws with the previous emphasis on proximity and national specificity. Rather, it explores how the industrial context in which these theories were developed was circumscribed by mechanisms and practices that substantively narrowed available content in a manner never accounted for because those mechanisms appeared so natural they obscured counter explanations.

The broader significance of this inquiry relates to how new distribution technologies—and the different business models they enable—challenge existing theoretical frameworks. Within critical cultural studies, decades of norms developed for linear, mostly ad-supported channels produced particular hegemonies of industry operation and hegemonies of scholarly thinking about them. The differences in business model and the lack of publicly accessible viewership data have made it difficult to assess how subscriber-funded video services may deviate from conditions previously theorized. This analysis informs that conversation by exploring streamers’ national libraries to begin to reveal the differences among global streamers and enable assessment of their cultural role.

The ideas that American movies and series dominate the globe and that viewers prefer “proximate” content are among the least contested ideas in critical media studies—despite their apparent contradiction. The assertion that U.S. media enacts cultural imperialism ( Schiller, 1969 ) has been difficult to dislodge, although it has been extensively critiqued ( Tomlinson, 1991 ; Golding & Harris, 1997 ). While there was and remains imbalance in flows, the implications of that imbalance on culture have not been empirically shown.

Rather than being driven by political power and ideological aims, economic logics—with their own ideological concerns—better explain decades of U.S. dominance in audiovisual production and trade. As Hoskins and Mirus (1988) explain, the scale and wealth of the U.S. market created incredible advantages in exporting movies and series. They argue U.S. titles derived less of a “cultural discount” because so many markets had been “acclimatized to Hollywood product,” despite a preference for what Straubhaar (1991) terms “proximate” content. In practice, the need to create titles for an expansive and heterogeneous American mass market led to productions that planed off a lot of cultural specificity, and many of the most popular titles emphasized universal themes such as family dynamics or narrative pleasures such as mystery resolution. Indeed, the “style, values, beliefs, institutions, and behavioral patterns” ( Hoskins & Mirus, 1988 , p. 500) found in U.S. titles were often as foreign to many Americans as to those who viewed them from around the globe. This is not to say that such titles are not imbued with belief structures pervasive in American culture—for example surrounding individualism—but to note we lack detailed scholarship grounded in textual analysis of what characteristics make titles specifically and exclusively “American.” Instead, country of production has been assumed indicative of cultural features.

Cultural and economic concerns have become complicatedly intertwined over time, both in national policy and scholarship regarding audiovisual industries. In many countries, cultural policies such as local content quotas, as well as supports and subsidies for domestic productions or national/public broadcasters, aimed to prevent imported content from dominating or inhibiting local production. Many of these policies were effective through the twentieth century, as countries found a balance that enabled coexistence of domestic and foreign content.

Substantial changes in industrial dynamics that increased the pressure to achieve transnational audience scale have steadily eroded this balance. Satellite channels and their appetite for programming encouraged greater internationalization ( Chalaby, 2005 ) that has since been expanded by multi-territory streaming services. Appeals to governments to increase supports of “cultural industries” on economic grounds have led economic metrics and sector growth to sublimate what were initially cultural policies and led some to prioritize national production output as a metric that has become conflated with delivering effective cultural policy—though such sector supports offer little to ensure productions take on attributes sought by cultural policy such as local identity, character, and cultural diversity ( Lotz & Potter, 2022 ). Sector advocates assume a title produced in Australia—even if an American “runaway” production—inherently delivers Australian cultural value as well as economic value; however, broader industrial changes have disrupted market forces that compelled domestic content as a key strategy of domestic channels to attract the attention of domestic audiences. The weakening of domestic channels (in the face of new advertising tools such as search and social media that have drawn advertiser spending) has resulted in the imagined audience for series and movies to be decreasingly presumed as domestic in the first instance.

The national dynamics of production and circulation ecosystems are also now far more complicated than when most media studies theory was written. Subscribers in countries around the world choose to pay monthly for access to services featuring minimal local content and, as the analysis below indicates, Netflix offers libraries made up of mostly foreign—though not American—content in all markets. This is not to suggest that the concerns about power central in earlier scholarship about ownership and country of origin are invalid, rather that the conditions for the operation of that power have changed in ways that require retheorization that accounts for the more multifaceted dynamics of the 21st century.

Proximity, the idea that “Most audiences seem to prefer television programs that are as close to them as possible in language, ethnic appearance, dress, style, humor, historical reference, and shared topical knowledge” ( Straubhaar, 2007 , p. 26) developed from empirical evidence, but evidence collected at a time when far less channel/program choice existed. With his decades-long trajectory of research, Straubhaar (1991) provided one of the first empirical interventions into ideas about cultural imperialism that assumed country of origin functioned as a strong indicator of cultural effects and dominated early understandings of the implications of the spread of American media content around the world. Straubhaar’s theory of “asymmetrical interdependence” addressed how early importation levels were tied to a first stage of national broadcasting development. By investigating when imported content was scheduled (often outside prime viewing hours), Straubhaar (2007) developed a more nuanced picture than provided by macro level data of raw imports used to argue U.S. hegemony.

Research developed since the height of belief in cultural imperialism identified significant sub-flows of content that could be explained by geo-cultural or cultural-linguistic proximity ( Sinclair et al., 1996 ). The priority of proximity transcended scholarship and even became common in industry discourse. This encouraged a surge in the development of “reality” program formats that could be sold across markets and remade with market specificity in the early 2000s as titles such as Big Brother , Pop Idol , and Weakest Link blanketed the globe ( Waisbord, 2004 ). These formats avoided the level of concern that exports of Dragnet , Dallas , and Baywatch inspired earlier because they enabled “customization,” a deliberate distinction drawn by Moran (against localization) because the shows still aim at national audiences and lack specification to local communities ( Moran, 2009 , p. 157). 2

Like cultural imperialism, the idea that viewers would prefer proximate content is a theory that makes sense on its face. In later work, Straubhaar and La Pastina (2007) extended the concept to include other forms of proximity, such as genres, themes, and values, though these ideas were difficult to test without extensive audience research and pushed more into the psychology of individual preference. In recent work that accounts for streamers—but does not include updated audience research— Straubhaar et al. (2021) back away from proximity and instead suggest evidence of new permutations of asymmetrical interdependence. The scale at which households have adopted—and willingly pay for—streamers services that offer no or negligible domestic content suggests the limits of proximity, or at least that there are other motivations driving viewers. In the pre-multichannel industrial context of limited choice and prioritization on constructing mass audiences, these other motivations would have been difficult to recognize; it would have required audiences to identify a preference for something absent from the market. However, the adoption of streaming services with library strategies quite different from past scheduling norms begins to suggest the existence of these alternative motivations.

Though Straubhaar et al. (2021) engage in speculation about motives based on theories of cosmopolitanism, what is most required to answer these questions is audience research with the qualitative sophistication offered by those who have contributed foundational insights about cultural practices of viewing (e.g., Gray, 1992; Morley, 1986 ; Wood, 2009 ) to assess the complicated cultural roles and ideological processes of the fictional storytelling pervasive among streaming services. In the absence of audience data, this study compares Netflix’s offerings across 17 different national markets to introduce deeper understanding of its library composition and to illustrate how simple categorization of it as “American” and similar to other streaming services offered by American companies leads to facile understanding. Qualitative interviews and complex multi-method approaches are needed to theorize the behavior of viewers who choose streaming services, work that remains rare given its costs and challenges. Until such studies emerge, however, we can develop more comprehensive accounts of the differences between the current industrial context and the context in place when foundational theory was established. Inspired by the insights produced by Straubhaar’s examination of scheduling, we conduct systematic analysis of Netflix libraries.

Twentieth-century television and distribution technologies—the context in which most communication and media studies theories about the operation of “mass storytelling” in culture were built—offered viewers the metaphorical tip of the iceberg in terms of the range of stories perceived as commercially viable. Most programs were designed to attract the most attention—foremost in their nation of production—but by the 1990s, the need for U.S. content to be accessible and desired by viewers around the globe also provided a guiding industrial logic for what was made for U.S. audiences. Viewer choice was constrained, though not strongly perceived as such because the condition of channels selecting programs and making them available at particular times was simply “normal.” Though cable and satellite introduced more choice through more channels, most programming on those channels was merely a reairing of series made for ad-supported linear channels or movies made for theatrical release.

Twenty-first-century video distribution technologies have revealed much more of the storytelling iceberg. Internet distribution has enabled direct-to-consumer, subscriber-funded, on-demand video services that access different commercial strategies and utilize different metrics of success ( Lotz, 2022 ). As a result, they have expanded the content fields available to the consumers who choose and can afford to access them.

In order to investigate the similarity and difference across Netflix libraries, this study uses title-level library data captured by Ampere Analysis, the leading commercial data analytics company in the transnational streaming sector. Knowing what people watch would be especially valuable, but library data allows us to appreciate what these services offer, how the offerings of the services differ, and how those offerings compare with linear, ad-supported services. Moreover, Netflix uses vast amounts of behavioral data in its selection of titles for both commissioning and licensing. 3 Thus, at this established stage of Netflix’s global distribution, it is reasonable to expect that Netflix curates its libraries in response to insight about what is watched. To be clear, this analysis does not argue library composition provides accurate information about viewing differences across nations, but it is the case that the service has proprietary access to substantially more detailed information about viewer behavior than has ever been the case. As Cunningham and Craig (2019) identify, the company developed from a “tech” mindset that foregrounds data-based decision making over the “instinct” long claimed central to television and film making in contexts where individual-specific behavior data has never been available.

Analyzing Netflix libraries can add to our understanding of how transnational streamers blend local and global features in new and old ways. Netflix reaches subscribers in more than 190 countries and thus is generally regarded as “globally” available, although its rates of household penetration vary significantly by nation. It has only released data about subscribers at a “regional” level: At year end 2021, Netflix recorded 75.2 million paying subscribers in UCAN (United States and Canada), 74 million in EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa), 39.9 million in LATAM (Latin America), and 32.6 million in APAC (Asia Pacific) ( Netflix Annual Report 2021 , pp. 21–22). Subscription estimates from data analytics companies indicate Netflix is a niche service (subscribed to by fewer than a quarter of households) in most countries. But it is arguably a mass market product in Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada where roughly half of homes subscribe. 4

On the one hand, Netflix is a single entity. Much about it is consistent across its transnational reach. On the other hand, Netflix is varied in ways that many do not realize. For example, Wayne (2020) identifies localization of the user interface in Israel with both Hebrew language and right to left orientation of the interface—a localization strategy common in many markets, and Netflix has offered a lower priced mobile-only subscription in some markets, particularly in India to addresses two characteristics of that context: (a) that Netflix’s standard price is high relative to market norms and (b) that video consumption in India predominantly occurs on mobile devices ( Ramachandran, 2019 ). But another significant way it varies is by offering different libraries of content in different countries.

The analysis here focuses on 17 different Netflix national libraries. These 17 include many of the countries estimated to have the most subscribers and account for the experience of roughly 80% of Netflix subscribers globally. The focus was also demarcated based on a limited piece of viewing data in which Netflix released lists of the 10 most-viewed titles during 2019 in these 17 different countries. 5 The library data was collected in February 2021 unless otherwise noted. 6

Figure 1 shows the total number of titles in each of the 17 libraries in 2021 as well as the 2016 title count for the 13 libraries that existed at that time. By 2021, the 17 libraries are relatively similar in size, though there were larger differences five years earlier. 7 Note also that despite the similarity in library size, there are differences in the composition of libraries—a topic we consider in more detail below.

Number of titles in Netflix libraries over time: 2016 and 2021.

Country of origin

Given the dominant role of Hollywood in producing video content found throughout the world, we examined the proportion of U.S.-produced content in the different libraries. Figure 2 illustrates that U.S. produced content does not account for the majority of titles in any of the libraries, including the United States’ library, and ranges from 36% to 44% of titles in each library. This is a notable finding. Our analysis of other global streamers’ libraries shows a much greater emphasis on U.S. content: Amazon Prime Video 48%, HBOMax 74%, AppleTV+ 91%, and Disney+ 92%. 8 Not only does Netflix operate with a strategy that is not dominated by U.S. productions across its many libraries, it also offers a smaller proportion of U.S. content than other global U.S.-based streamers.

Percentage of national library produced in United States.

Netflix libraries are not overwhelming composed of American titles, but they are also not particularly local. Rather, individual libraries contain an average of 7.7% domestic titles across the 17 libraries (and this falls to 3.8% if the three outlier libraries discussed below are excluded). The Netflix United States and Netflix Japan libraries have uncommonly high levels of domestically produced titles—39% and 24%, respectively—followed by South Korea (14%), India (13%), and the UK (8%). But domestic content accounts for just a small percentage of titles in Taiwan, Italy, and Colombia, which is more typical of the service. 9 (Looking outside our sample, is it also the case in most countries.) Percentage of domestic titles is a somewhat difficult indicator to make sense of because streamers’ offering of a library is so different than the schedules linear services have offered; and there is not consistent and comprehensive data about this aspect of linear services. We can nevertheless put these results into what may be a more meaningful context. On average, 3.8% of a library amounts to roughly 200 titles. This is not an insignificant number, though it likely is more meaningful when compared to other streamers in a specific market (see Lobato and Scarlata, 2019 ). To be certain, sorting productions by country of origin is a limited point of analysis. It does not tell us if a title is at all culturally ‘of’ the place it is produced. In other analyses we have found some Netflix commissions to be significantly grounded with cultural specificity (place-based), yet more often they rely only on banal signifiers that locate the setting without cultural detail (placed), and in other cases produce stories devoid of cultural or geographic indicators (placeless) ( Lotz and Potter, 2022 ; see chapters in Lotz and Lobato, 2023 ). Systematic textual analysis is needed to investigate the extent to which domestic titles indicate cultural specificity but cannot be validly performed with a corpus of titles as expansive as a national library.

Another way to assess national origin of the libraries is to evaluate the countries that are the source of the titles in the 17 countries’ libraries. Table 1 presents the top ten countries that source the 17 libraries and the average percentage of titles they account for. Only eight of the 17 countries that are part of the library analysis rank among top ten sources; titles from China, a country in which Netflix does not offer service, account for just over 2% of titles, while Egypt is just under 2%. Both China and Egypt produce content for substantial audiences, China in terms of population and Egypt as a major production hub in its region. Note also that the countries that provide the most titles in Table 1 are not those generally perceived as dominant in past trade. 10 Steemers (2004) cites data produced in 2001 indicating the United States accounted for 75% of the value produced by exporting television, the UK 10%, and Australia and France 1.2% each, leaving 12% accrued by the rest of the world. This is not a perfect comparison to the library titles, but it is indicative of the dynamics of the linear era and how strongly the U.S. dominated trade.

Source country of titles in Netflix library, based on average composition of 17 national Netflix libraries

In sum, Netflix libraries aren’t overwhelmingly composed of only U.S.-produced titles. The U.S. accounts for more content than other countries—typically around 40% of titles—but the remaining 60% is sourced from 80 different countries; this is very different from other U.S.-based services (Disney+; Apple TV+). Even so, Netflix offers significant domestic content in only a few countries (United States, Japan, South Korea, India, and UK).

Library composition

To investigate more deeply the extent to which there is cross-national variation in the titles included in Netflix libraries we queried the percentage of titles held in common in the 16 non-U.S. libraries relative to those in the U.S. library. As Figure 3 indicates, there is significant commonality. Roughly 60–80% of the titles in non-U.S. libraries also appear in the U.S. library. But what about the 20–40% not common across the libraries?

Percentage of common titles in each library and US library.

To investigate the similarities across libraries in a more detailed way, we compared titles in each of the 17 libraries with the others to identify the proportion of titles held in common. Results are illustrated in Figure 4 , in which darker shades reflect higher levels of overlap. 11 The country-by-country comparison illustrates how higher levels of library commonality can be identified among three clusters: Latin America (Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico); Europe (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden); and the Anglosphere (Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, United States) + India . The Asian countries do not form a comparable cluster. This results from the fact that the Asian libraries used in this study, particularly India, Japan, and South Korea, include an uncommonly high number of domestic titles specific to their libraries.

Library commonality matrix.

To better understand the dynamics of Asian libraries, we compared the libraries of all nine Asian countries included in Ampere’s dataset (India, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and five others outside our 17-country sample: Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand). This additional analysis, illustrated in Figure 5 , reveals that Japan and South Korea feature uncommonly unique libraries, as well as the distinction of the Taiwanese and Indian libraries from what appears to be the “core” Asian cluster. Also notable, in terms of comparing this extended Asian sample with the 17-country matrix in Figure 4 , is the distinction of the core Asian cluster from the Indian library, which shows higher levels of commonality with libraries in the Anglosphere.

Asian library commonality matrix.

A contrast among these three uncommon libraries is that Japanese domestic content is largely exclusive to that country, as is South Korea’s, while the Indian content is more regularly included in other countries’ libraries. Indeed, India ranks second as the source country of most countries’ libraries (as explored in Table 1 ). This explains the greater commonality between the Indian library and other countries’ libraries observed in Figure 4 . It also raises another notable phenomenon, that of the variable extent to which Netflix commissions titles in different countries.

Commissioned titles

Another point of library comparison that shows strong commonality is the balance of “commissioned” versus licensed content. Commissioned titles are those where Netflix funds production costs, which earns it input on development; whereas licensed content is commissioned by other providers, typically television channels, or created for theatrical release. Across the 17 libraries, commissioned titles account for 28% on average. Netflix generally makes its commissioned titles available across all libraries, so variation owes primarily to differences in library size. Commissioned content ranged from 1,404 titles in the Japanese library to 1,520 titles in the Spanish library, with an average of 1,464 titles across the 17 libraries. Commissioned titles are important to analyzing the service’s role in culture because they enable the service to deploy a bespoke content strategy. Commissions are also important to a subscriber-funded service because they are typically exclusive to the service. Netflix commissions substantively more content than other “global” streaming services. (This is discussed further below; see Figure 7 .)

Figure 6 shows the number of domestic commissioned titles in each national library, titles that are commissioned by Netflix and produced in the country of that library. The number of domestic commissioned titles for the United States is far larger than elsewhere, so we use a truncated x -axis to show differences across the remaining countries. The UK, and to a lesser extent Japan, Mexico, and India have more domestic commissioned content than other countries. Commissioned, domestic titles account for 16% of the U.S. library with 911 titles; the UK ranks second at 1.4% with 86 titles. Netflix’s origin as a U.S.-only service contributes some to this imbalance; the percentage of U.S.-sourced titles has decreased as U.S. subscribers have diminished relative to the subscriber base ( Lotz, 2022 ). In February 2021, 61% of all Netflix commissions were produced in the United States (which includes earlier years when the service was more resolutely North American), yet among the commissions that debuted in 2020, only 50% were produced in the United States, illustrating the decline in U.S. production as the balance of subscribers shifted outside UCAN. Still, many of the 17 major Netflix markets have 20–40 domestic commissions, which amounts to less than 1% of their library titles.

Domestic commissioned titles in 17 Netflix libraries, February 2021.

It is important to remember that these 17 libraries are not representative of other Netflix libraries in terms of domestic commissioning: 95% of Netflix commissions are accounted for in these 17 libraries, so other libraries will include very little locally commissioned content. Although Netflix is commissioning a significant number of titles outside the United States, this number is more impressive when aggregated cross-nationally than it is at the national level.

Yet, Netflix clearly differs from other global streamers in the extent of its commissioning of titles outside the United States. Figure 7 shows the number of hours commissioned by different global streaming services. 12 It should be noted that several of the other services launched since 2019 while Netflix’s first commissioned series debuted in 2013. Commissioned content produced in the U.S. accounts for 58% of Amazon commissions, 61% of Netflix commissions, 88% of HBO Max commissions, and 96% of Disney+ commissions. 13 The scale of Netflix’s commissioning—as opposed to those offering a service based on owned intellectual property—is relevant for understanding the variation in country of origin of its library. Services such as Disney+, Paramount+, and HBO Max rely on titles produced in the United States for decades before streaming.

Comparison of total hours commissioned by major streaming services, February 2021.

A key factor in Netflix’s differentiation from other streamers, then, is the extent to which it commissions content in many countries and that it then circulates those titles across its libraries. Netflix’s commissioned titles account for roughly half of the 60% of titles common across the libraries. Netflix’s transnational “circulation” of content is uneven, but arguably more distributed than the case of broadcast or satellite channels. It is unclear whether this strategy will remain specific to Netflix or be adopted by other streaming services as their new title development expands.

The capabilities of multi-territory streaming services have reanimated legacy concerns about cultural imperialism and balance and flow in audiovisual trade. The willingness of a significant number of subscribers to pay to access Netflix—a service with predominantly foreign content and not guided by the aim of building a national audience—challenges the presumed priority on proximity that developed to explain past transnational media flow dynamics. The implications of the evidence derived from Netflix library analysis are complicated and suggest the need for new lines of research about the cultural role of video in the 21st century.

Its clearest contribution is in dismantling false presumptions of uniformity across U.S.-based, multi-territory streaming services and of Netflix as providing chiefly U.S.-produced content. Netflix may be a U.S.-based company, but at this point, its strategy in sourcing and circulating content differs significantly from services with which it is often compared such as Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, and HBO Max. Library analysis reveals the scale of its consistency in offering a multi-nationally sourced video service and yet caution is warranted in presuming too much commonality across its national libraries. Claims about “Netflix” must also account for the particularity evident in its operation in Japan, South Korea, and India and in terms of geographic and linguistic clusters, for instance.

There is thus a need for caution in assuming that theory developed for linear, ad-supported services is a reliable starting point for investigating streamers and that the stories the streamers offer have a consistent cultural role across the nations in which they are available. Part of developing the necessarily nuanced understanding of Netflix and its cultural role is recognizing the limits of talking about it as serving 190 countries when it is a most-niche service in most of them. This is important for scholarship that seeks to make claims of its reach, consistency, and influence.

One of the most difficult aspects of theorizing the role of video in culture in the 21st century is the degree to which a multiplicity of niche tastes guides commercial strategies and the extent to which theories built for explaining services driven to create mass audience norms have not engaged with implications of niche video conditions. The ability to build a service by attracting even some subscribers across a base of 190 countries is an endeavor very different from seeking a mass audience within a nation. We mustn’t assume these services aim to be mass services (available in the majority of homes) in every country, as this allows us to be alert to new flows and strategies that emerge and then consider their implications relative to the operation of culture and power. The infrastructure of these services enables greater flexibility than earlier distribution technologies; that flexibility will affect adoption patterns, cultural functions, and likely introduce unexpected “patterns of video flow”. Library analysis can offer us a starting point for understanding, but most theory building requires a broader array of contextualized evidence.

Relatedly, the understanding we develop of the cultural role of these services needs to begin from a specific context. For individuals, “Netflix” only derives its meaning and value relative to other options in their market such as the features of legacy services and the extent to which domestic and other streamers are available. For instance, in order to explain the presence of a library cluster of the “Anglosphere and India” we must begin by appreciating the specificity of India’s context. The cluster may seem surprising, aside from roots in British colonialism, but this is likely a function of Netflix targeting a particular sector of the Indian population and the fact the country has more English speakers than any country but the United States. Even though it offers a discounted, mobile-only pricing plan in India, its library strategy suggests a priority on a cosmopolitan niche that complements the dominant Indian-based streaming services in the market such as ALTBalaji and Eros Now that have libraries of mostly Indian productions.

To consider context in another case, the high take up of Netflix in Australia should not be casually explained by cultural and linguistic proximity alone. Rather, it likely owes as much to Australia’s lack of a competitively priced cable or satellite service. The Australian company Foxtel has held a monopoly on multichannel service and achieved a household penetration rate of only around 25% of Australian households as of 2019, compared to 51% pay-TV-household penetration in the UK ( Ofcom, 2019 , 5), 65% in the United States (down from 90%, Spangler, 2020 ), or 70% in Canada ( CRTC, 2020 ). 14 Streaming was aggressively adopted in Australia because the market lacked the quality of options in comparable countries. Macro-level analysis, as offered in the library analyses above, can establish parameters and trends, but it is necessary to also investigate specific places and account for their particular contextual dynamics as we begin to theorize the cultural implications of streaming services. Theories may need to be tuned to particular configurations of linguistic, economic, technological, and regulatory dimensions rather than be aimed at explaining the cultural role of streaming globally.

Similarly, rather than use the library evidence to presume greater preference for cultural proximity among the Japanese or South Korean markets, we must investigate underlying contextual dynamics. Pertierra and Turner (2012) note that historically 90% of Japanese television content was produced in Japan—a much higher domestic level than typical in much of the world outside of major exporters such as the United States and UK. Netflix's comparatively bespoke approach to the Netflix Japan library may reflect awareness of this.

It is notable that the comparison of libraries illustrated in Figure 6 corresponds to Lotz’s (2021a) hypothesis regarding Netflix operating “consistently” across North and South America, Europe, and Australia and in contrast to the “variable” markets of India, Japan, and South Korea. That analysis was based on very limited viewing data released by Netflix: the ten most-watched titles across the 17 countries assessed here for all of 2019; it identified that India, Japan, and South Korea ranked the lowest in viewing of U.S. produced titles and had the highest level of domestic titles in the most viewed content after the United States. If there is causation in this relationship, it is impossible to know the underlying cause. Netflix may have identified different viewing patterns in these countries and developed library strategies accordingly, or the difference in viewing may be “caused” by the emphasis on domestic content in these libraries. The 2019 viewing data is a very small bit of insight, but given the paucity of available viewing data, it is worth noting that patterns in viewing data are consistent with the more extensive and systematic library analysis developed here.

This article provides an evidence-based frame for building theories about how global streaming services both perpetuate and contrast from expectations of global video services developed for previous technologies and to illustrate the atypicality of Netflix. Constructing such a broad view prevents the article from the specific investigations needed that will cumulatively bring into relief both nationally particular and transnational dimensions of these services. The detailed insight only possible through examination of specific national contexts is crucial to theorizing the cultural implications of these services, implications likely to vary considerably on the basis of pre-existing services, the extent to which global services take bespoke approaches, and the extent of local services and non-U.S., multi-territory services that emerge. Although subscriber-funded, Internet-distributed video services have reconfigured storytelling norms in some ways, they also expand the tyranny of the pursuit of economies of scale that drives media industries and leads to inequitable circulation and commissioning. Implications of the distinctive transnational strategy of a service like Netflix will thus differ among large and small countries, however, we should remain open to considering how the affordances of on-demand libraries and recommendation may make content developed in small nations more accessible and discoverable than under analog norms.

Investigating questions about viewing behavior to refine notions such as proximity requires audience research that is also crucial to advancing thinking in the field. Despite the scale of data associated with digital communication technologies, it is human-level data that is most required to understand emerging cultural dynamics. As others have argued ( Turner, 2019 ), qualitative audience research is desperately needed to begin to build theory suited for the contemporary audiovisual ecosystem.

Data used in this article are proprietary but can be obtained from Ampere Analysis. Scripts used to run the analyses shown are available from the author.

Authors bio

Amanda D. Lotz is Professor in the Digital Media Research Centre at Queensland University of Technology where she leads the Transforming Media Industries research program. Her research explores how digital distribution has changed media industries, the content they make, and the implications for culture.

Oliver Eklund is a PhD candidate in the Digital Media Research Centre at Queensland University of Technology. His research focuses on media industry and policy transformations.

Stuart Soroka is Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of California, Los Angeles. His research focuses on political communication, political psychology, and mass media.

Our thanks to research team members Ramon Lobato, Stuart Cunningham, and Alexa Scarlata, members of the Global Internet Television Consortium, and Anna Potter for support and feedback on the development of this article, as well as the blind reviewers and editorial team at the Journal of Communication .

This research relies on funding from the Australian Research Council (Discovery Project DP190100978).

Ampere Analysis is a data and analytics firm specializing in the SVOD sector. Access to its database of SVOD libraries is available for an annual subscription fee; we generated reports for the services under consideration using parameters facilitated by Ampere. Ampere is used globally by regulators, industry, and researchers.

Within critical media studies, attention increasingly turned to closer examinations of specific national contexts in the late 1990s and early 2000s that uncovered particular industrial, historical, and contextual features that further explained the role of television in culture, especially as satellite television significantly challenged the national boundaries of these industries. These accounts identified storytelling ecosystems that blend domestic and imported content and provided context-based explanations for those practices, although audience research did not figure significantly in these projects (e.g., Kumar, 2010 ; Tinic, 2005 ).

Commissions (so-called Netflix “originals”) are titles that Netflix pays production costs and then functionally owns, while licensed titles, the majority of the current Netflix content, are created by production companies for theatrical distribution or for television channels. Netflix effectively “rents” these titles for a limited period, either for particular national libraries or the service in its entirety.

Analysis based multiplying subscriber estimates by 2.5 (per household composition norms of these countries) and dividing by population figures.

This is not a lot of data to work from, but the consistency of source and time make it the richest information our research team has identified to consider audience viewing relative to the library data. Netflix began releasing daily ten most-watched lists in each market in March 2020; however, these lists cannot be aggregated in any way to make the data meaningful beyond the day. Netflix has subsequently made weekly lists available, but again, only offer rank indication.

When exploring Ampere datasets for this article, we focused the main analysis on the month of February 2021 using Ampere’s ability to filter data by month and year. We filtered to explore titles as “TV Shows” and “Movies.” As such, we did not count each TV Season as a separate title, which is how the data is organized. The coding of country of origin and “commissioned” status is done by Ampere. In a small number of cases, Ampere had not yet coded the primary production country. There was no assigned production country for a few titles. The research team manually added this field for those titles.

We also looked at the data in terms of hours rather than titles. The trends were not different (a heavier or uneven use of series versus movies would cause this) and we decided titles was the most legible way to present the data.

The libraries of these services also vary by country, but much less so, excepting Amazon. Not all services are available in the same countries preventing a precise comparison. Every effort was made to achieve a representative result although our analysis of these other services is provided for context and is not as systematic as the investigation of Netflix. The Amazon Prime Video figure averages Australia, Brazil, Germany, India, South Korea, and the United States—three countries with a major Amazon retail presence and three without—because there are significant differences in the library size of countries that have a strong retail presence. Only U.S. library data was available for HBO Max. The Apple TV+ figure uses Australia, Brazil, Germany, India, and the United States. The Disney+ figure uses Australia, Brazil, Germany, and the United States.

Those familiar with European regulation of content quotas may find this surprising. It should be noted that the AVMSD was in various stages of implementation and enforcement across the EU at the time the data was collected. Many member states’ national versions of the AVMSD catalogue quotas affecting on-demand services allow for the majority of the requirement to be satisfied through ‘European works’. As such, individual European countries can still record low amounts of domestic content. AVMSD definitions count a title as European if it is produced in signatory countries to the  European Convention on Transfrontier Television . Signatories to that convention include the UK, allowing UK content to count as European post-Brexit.

No comprehensive data of global television trade exists publicly, so this assertion is based on discourse rather than empirical data.

The commonality matrix shown in Figure 4 is like a correlation matrix, but the raw material is slightly different. For any given dyad, we take the average of (a) the proportion of titles in library x that also appear in library y , and (b) the proportion of titles in library y that also appear in library x . The resulting value captures the proportion of the two libraries that is shared; and those proportions are illustrated in Figure 4 such that darker shades reflect higher levels of overlap. (See the legend to the right of the graphic.) Countries are then arranged in Figure 4 based on their commonality scores.

Data in Figure 7 also come from Ampere and are based on the hours of commissioned movies and series seasons found in the U.S. library of these services. Except for Paramount+, the measurement is for Feb. 2021. Paramount+ is for the month of March 2021 due to data availability.

Titles only counted once complete and available.

Australia data is based on calculations from Foxtel subscriber data and ABS household data for 2019. The UK figure is Ofcom’s number of pay-TV households in 2019, then divided by total UK households (14.3 million/27.8 million). Pay-TV household penetration in 2019 in Canada is CRTC (2020) information in their supplemental excel files they offer from the Communications Monitoring Report. U.S. figure of 65% is derived from Spangler (2020 ).

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Service Quality Dimensions: An analysis of Netflix and their sustainability in India's online video streaming platform

Netflix, an online video streaming platform, broke the traditions for the last 20 years and has been changing the way world watches anything today. India is a land where humanity presents itself in the most creative burst of culture and religions, races and tongues. It is indeed a challenging platform for Netflix to sustain in the Indian markets. The study provides an integrative and analytical review of, what will be the tactics Netflix will follow in order to please Indian consumers, can subtitles play a role? Can they get the pricing, right? Can they fix on the bandwidth across the country? and so on. This conceptual paper will help in validating the strategies Netflix would follow in future and will they be phenomenal where India says "Lets Netflix this weekend?" Objectives 1. To understand the marketing strategies that can help Netflix to dominate the Over-The-Top online video streaming services in India. 2. To determine the challenges faced by Netflix in the growing Indian video streaming platform. 3. To determine the major competitors of Netflix and their strategies in getting customer attraction.

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• Vol 18 , Issue 1 , January - June 2017
• 10.51768/dbr.v18i1.181201717

A Study on Factors Affecting Subscription Rates of Netflix in India: An Empirical Approach

Vol 18 , Issue 1 , January - June 2017 | Pages: 83-100 | Research Paper  

Published Online: January 07, 2017

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Purpose: Netflix entered India and 129 more countries on January 6, 2016, with the target to increase its customer base. Through this study we want to understand the reasons behind the low subscription rate and to recommend ways to ensure better growth. Through the literature survey, we have identified various factors affecting low subscription rates of Netflix in India. After we have identified the factors necessary to take into consideration, we have developed a problem statement. We developed a research design which is applied and exploratory in principle.

Methodology: The demographic consumer research has showed us many qualitative factors which could possibly affect the subscription rates. We also developed a quantitative model through which we took 11 independent variables, performed factor analysis, and formed 4 factors on which we did multiple regressions to identify the explanatory power of factors on subscription rates.

Findings: Low subscription rates in India where the competitors like Hotstar, Youtube, Voot are providing the digital content for free. It would be feasible for Netflix to lower down the rates for the middle class consumers who have a willingness to pay an amount till Rs. 200/- per month which could certainly increase the subscription rates.

Research Implications: We have presented with the managerial implications for our project which have identified pricing, lack of regional content, payment options available as the major factors contributing to low subscription rates of Netflix rates in India.

Practical Implications: Netflix, after its launch in India on January 6, 2016 was a craze amongst the people but after the pricing launch and the non-availability of bollywood films on the app, people did not subscribe to the service.

Originality/Value: This is very new concept and no such kind of research is done in India, that makes this research very valuable.

Netflix, Subscription Rate, Indian Context.

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• Rao, A., Legout, A., Lim, Y.S., Towsley, D., Barakat, C., & Dabbous, W. (2011). Network characteristics of video streaming traffic. In Proceedings of the Seventh Conference on emerging Networking Experiments and Technologies. Retrieved from http://conferences.sigcomm.org/co-next/2011/papers/1569470149.pdf, Accessed on June 14, 2016.

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Netflix in India: expanding to success

Learning outcomes After completing the case, students should be able to understand: the importance and uniqueness of the individual market and developing a suitable marketing strategy. The concept of value creation and learn the importance of developing the right value proposition to compete and succeed in a market. The target audience and how to create the right marketing mix. Competition in a digital landscape and the importance of developing an appropriate strategy to counter its rivals and position the brand effectively. Case overview/synopsis During his visit to India in December 2019, Netflix’s founder and chief executive officer Reed Hastings talked about a series of steps the company had taken in the recent past to successfully face stiff competition and move towards achieving its stated target of 100 million viewers. These steps involved significant changes in their marketing mix such as reworking their pricing, developing a rich portfolio of Indian content and building various partnerships. Since Netflix’s launch in India (December 2016), it faced fierce competition from players such as Hotstar and Amazon Prime, both of whom had developed a rich portfolio of Indian content and adopted a very aggressive pricing strategy thus, making these changes essential. At the time of their launch, Netflix had set a very ambitious target of gaining 100 million viewers within five years (by 2021) while adopting a premium pricing strategy and positioning themselves uniquely based on their international content. They quickly learned that they would have to reevaluate their approach if they wanted to achieve their target on time. The changes announced by Hastings were an effort in that direction. The moot question was whether these steps would help Netflix India reach its goal. This challenge was further compounded by an almost 40% hike in data tariffs by three major wireless carriers considering most Indians watched over-the-top media content on their mobile phones. Complexity academic level The case is designed for undergraduates, as well as for fundamental marketing courses in the Master of Business Administration and other graduate level programmes. It can be taught in the Principles of Marketing, Marketing Strategy and International Marketing courses. It is ideal for topics such as understanding the operation of a digital business in a new market, customer value creation and value drivers, brand and brand positioning, product promotion, strategies for business growth and expansion, fighting competition in a digital landscape. Supplementary materials Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Subject code CSS 8: Marketing.

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Balqis restaurant: how to move on?

Subject area This case can be used in marketing management as well as consumer behaviour courses. Study level/applicability This case is suitable to use in advanced undergraduate levels, MBA and MSc in marketing courses that cover topics related to market segmentation and marketing mix strategies. Case overview This case highlights the dilemma of an entrepreneur and a manager of a restaurant who were to take a decision about the sustainability of their restaurant business. Balqis Restaurant was owned by Danny who was a retiree from Telekom Malaysia. He wanted to open a restaurant business after he came back from his long holiday trip. He conducted market research to find a suitable place to open his Arabic restaurant. He assigned Waleed Masood Abdullah as the manager of Balqis Restaurant. Finally, in June 2010, he opened his long awaited restaurant at Gombak, Kuala Lumpur. The restaurant was known as Qasar before the name was changed to Balqis in 2015 because of copyright issues related to Saba’ restaurant at Cyberjaya. The restaurant was well managed under Danny’s supervision for 4 years and successfully won customers’ hearts and loyalty before he decided to give full responsibility to Waleed in March 2014. Danny trusted Waleed because he taught and trained him. However, under Waleed’s management, Balqis started to lose its customers. Waleed also started to branch out the restaurant to different places in different states; one in Ipoh, and the other in Perak. He invested much money on renovation for all three branches, but one of the restaurants closed down in September 2014. This is because of the fact that they could no longer bear the cost of operations for the restaurant. However, he failed to learn from the mistake; they set up another restaurant, which was in Kuantan, in the same month. The sales were not that encouraging but it did show gradual improvement; yet, they once again sold it to another Arab businessman. Waleed realized his failure in managing the restaurant business in August 2015. He again opted to open another new branch which was questioned by Danny. He was in a rush to open it by the end of December 2015 to ensure that the additional profits from the current restaurants could cover the variables costs if the new restaurants were launched. Based on that, the owner had to make a decision about whether a new branch should be opened or whether they should just retain their restaurant in Gombak. Expected learning outcomes The learning objectives of using this case are as follows. 1. Knowledge enhancement: to help students in understanding the problems faced by a restaurant in expanding its market; to make students aware that a properly blended marketing mix is the key to business success and to broaden students’ views and understanding in targeting the proper market segment in formulating an effective marketing strategy. 2. Skills building: to be able to identify the best marketing strategic decisions to manage the restaurant business for its survival and to develop students’ ability to analyse the existing situation to come up with a viable and effective solution. 3. Attitudinal: to help the students to have intellectual openness in accepting different ways of finding solutions for a particular problem and to assist students in making the right move at the right time. Supplementary materials Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email [email protected] to request teaching notes. Subject code CSS 8: Marketing.

Service flexibility: conceptualizing value creation in service

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze the subject-specific literature on service and flexibility and derive a conceptualization of the linkages between provider flexibility and customers’ value creation. Design/methodology/approach The authors analyze existing perspectives on service and flexibility and propose linkages between provider flexibility and customer value creation. Findings Drawing on the service logic literature, and utilizing real-world examples, this paper advances propositions and a conceptual model of how flexibility can contribute to value creation. Research limitations/implications This paper establishes the basis for a practical and applicable flexibility perspective on value creation. It is particularly important for service-oriented providers and other firms operating in dynamic contexts. Practical implications The propositions and conceptual model offer suggestions on the manner in which provider flexibility contributes to customer value creation. Contextual influences that moderate provider flexibility in value creation are also included. Originality/value This paper contributes a novel perspective on service, which may serve as the starting point for the development of a more formal flexibility perspective on value creation.

Customer value in self-service kiosks: a systematic literature review

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Vichy goes to Brazil: the road to success

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Pricing for higher education institutions: a value-based approach

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose the concept of higher education institutions (HEIs) offering educational services based on value for money. The value is determined based on customers’ (i.e. students) expectations of the service and the costs in comparison to the competitors. Understanding the value and creating customer value are a means to attain competitive advantage and constitute the basis of price setting. Drawing upon this belief, as an initial step towards value-based pricing method, the possible value factors are suggested for calculating educational programme prices across HEIs. Design/methodology/approach – This is a conceptual paper introducing the value-based pricing approach in setting HEI tuition fees. Extending prior discussion on the demand for quality education and current financial challenges faced by HEIs, it introduces the concept pricing based upon customer perceived value (student/industry). Value-based pricing is deemed appropriate in view of the value of short tangible and intangible investment by both parties (students and HEIs) to differentiate in terms of setting the right price for the right university for the right student. Findings – The primary aim is to suggest the applicability of value-based pricing for HEIs, which is likely to be both relevant and fruitful for the sustainability of the sector. It represents a personal point of view; building upon a review of the literature, the paper extends the established knowledge one step further in terms of setting the right price for the right university, which is deemed worthy of further study and development. Originality/value – The paper will be of use to the management and policymakers in the education sector in searching for a contemporary pricing mechanism for higher education.

Reverse use of customer data: implications for service-based business models

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to explore and analyze the implications of reverse use of customer data for service-based business models. In their quest for competitive advantage, firms traditionally use customer data as resources to redesign and develop new products and services or identify the most profitable customers. However, in the shift from a goods-dominant logic toward customer value creation, the potential of customer data for the benefit of the customer, not just the firm, is an emerging, underexplored area of research. Design/methodology/approach – Business model criteria and three service examples combine to uncover the implications of reverse use of customer data for service-based business models. Findings – Implications of reverse use of customer data for service-based business models are identified and explored. Through reverse use of customer data, a firm can provide customers with additional resources and support customers’ value-creating processes. Accordingly, the firm can move beyond traditional exchanges, take a broader role in supporting customers’ value creation and diversify the value created by the customer through resource integration. The attention shifts from internal to external customer data usage; customer data transform from the firm’s resource to the customer’s, which facilitates the firm’s shift from selling goods to supporting customers’ value creation. Originality/value – Reverse use of customer data represent a new emerging research phenomenon; their implications for service-based business models have not been explored.

Aras Design and Multimedia Centre (ADMC): it’s pricing strategy for video internet market training

Subject area Managerial Accounting, Strategic Marketing. More specifically, cost behavior, cost estimation, cost prediction, cost-volume-profit (CVP) analysis, contribution income statement and pricing/promotional strategy. Study level/applicability This case is suitable to be used in advanced undergraduate level. Case overview This case demonstrates the issues relating to pricing strategy of “Video Internet Marketing Training”. Diyana Tahir and her husband, Abdul Rahim Abdul Shukor, established Aras Design & Multimedia Centre (ADMC) on January 17, 2009. The main office was located at Kuala Lumpur. Diyana was a well-known name in the field of internet video marketing training. In its early years, ADMC’s operation was limited to providing printing and graphic design services and offering printing materials for photocopy. However, with the passage of time, the company began to expand its services and offerings. At the beginning of 2010, ADMC offered editing facilities and services for video and multimedia in addition to its core services. As a unique marketing strategy, Diyana offered RM30 as the basic training fee for each participant, which was equivalent to RM470 value offered. In this way, she attracted customers to take part in further advanced level training that was conducted by ADMC. However, she felt that the number of participant to take advanced training was not satisfactory. She thought that it happened perhaps due to the fact that the participants were not much committed to the course since it was offered at a nominal price. Furthermore, she realized that the cost of providing such training had risen in the past six months. Currently, ADMC suffered losses in three consecutive months, and they really needed enough cash to sustain. As such, Diyana was thinking to reconsider the offered course fees whether to increase it. She was in a rush to make a decision to propose the new course fee in the monthly meeting with management committee at the end of April 2013. Expected learning outcomes Using this case, students can learn how a small-scale company can strategize its pricing strategy to survive in the highly competitive online market. The objectives of using this case are as follows: to help students in understanding the interrelationships between CVP in organization that can be used for future planning and decision-making; to be able to identify the cost structure of the basic training course (e.g. fixed and variable costs), determine the contribution margin, break-even point and prepare the contribution income statement that highlighting cost behavior; to help students to think critically while setting the price for the offered services; to develop students’ ability in analyzing the existing situation to come up with a viable and effective solution; to assist students in taking the right move in a right time; to broaden students’ views and understanding in considering the monetary aspect along with the human aspect in formulating an effective marketing strategy; to develop students’ understanding of the way to retain and attract customers through innovative pricing strategy; and to make students aware that innovation is the key to business success. Supplementary materials Teaching notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email [email protected] to request teaching notes. Subject codes CSS 1: Accounting and Finance.

Princely Jets (Pvt) Ltd – the air ambulance

Subject area Marketing: New Service Launch; Relationship Marketing; Direct Marketing. Study level/applicability This case could be taught in marketing management, services marketing or strategy courses, in the product development or service launch modules at the graduate level; alternatively it could also be used in the promotion module for the illustration of direct marketing (DM) tool application; and it could also be used as a capstone case for the introductory Principles of Marketing course at the undergraduate level. Case overview The case examines the launch of a new air ambulance service in Karachi, Pakistan; a venture of Akbar Group Jet services; Princely Jets (Pvt) Ltd. The case describes the first mover advantage of the service and the marketing strategy recommended by the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Mr Ghouse Akbar. The major concern is whether the strategy is forceful and compelling enough to secure approval from the board. The major issues include the role of DM processes and relationship marketing tools to encourage a value-added premium service which had no precedence of demand and practice. Concepts to thrash out in class also include customer profiling and segmentation along with how best to create awareness and generate a sustainable basket of customers for the high-price value-added low-use service. Expected learning outcomes Discuss and illustrate the importance and benefit of market research information for making a decision; how to create awareness and customer recognition and cultivate demand for a new and unsolicited service; identify appropriate and effective promotion tools to achieve required customer demand, brand recognition and customer value; how to launch a premium priced unsolicited service in a niche market?; and exhibit the synthesis of the four P's in a new product launch marketing strategy. Supplementary materials Teaching notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email [email protected] to request teaching notes.

KAJIAN PENGEMBANGAN USAHA SIRUP MANGROVE DI DESA MARGASARI KECAMATAN LABUHAN MARINGGAI KABUPATEN LAMPUNG TIMUR

Mangrove syrup is one of the featured product in the Margasari Village. This syrup is made from the flesh pidada famous sour, sweet and fresh. The content of vitamins A, B1, B2 and C is high enough so it is good for health. Although it tastes good and useful enough, but the mangrove syrup has not been widely known, especially in the province of Lampung. Therefore, this study aims to assess the feasibility of mangrove syrup business, analyze marketing strategy and then review the prospect of developing mangrove syrup business. The study was conducted in early 2016 in the village of Margasari. The selecting of the respondent was done purposively to “Cinta Bahari” group. This group is the only group that carries on mangrove syrup business. Financial analysis performed by calculating HPP, NPV, BCR, BEP and the PP while the marketing strategy analysis and prospect of mangrove syrup development is a descriptive qualitative. The results showed that mangrove syrup business financially was feasible. This was indicated by the value of HPP was Rp 4,950 per bottle, while the selling price was Rp8,000 per bottle, NPV> 0, BCR> 1, BEP was Rp 4,950, which means profitable  and PP faster than the life of the project. Furthermore, the group marketing strategies to 4 elements of the marketing mix showed that the place, product and promotion strategy needed improvement, while the pricing strategy had been carried out correctly. Based on this research, mangrove syrup business has good prospects to be developed.Sirup mangrove merupakan salah satu produk unggulan di Desa Margasari. Sirup ini terbuat dari daging buah pidada yang terkenal dengan rasa asam, manis dan segar. Kandungan vitamin A, B1, B2 dan C cukup tinggi sehingga sangat baik buat kesehatan. Meskipun rasanya enak dan manfaatnya cukup banyak, akan tetapi sirup mangrove belum banyak dikenal masyarakat luas, khususnya di Provinsi Lampung. Karena itu, penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengkaji kelayakan usaha sirup mangrove, menganalisis strategi pemasaran sirup mangrove dan mengkaji prospek pengembangan usaha sirup mangrove. Penelitian dilakukan pada awal tahun 2016 di  Desa Margasari. Penentuan responden dilakukan secara purposive sampling terhadap kelompok cinta bahari. Kelompok ini merupakan satu-satunya kelompok yang menjalankan usaha sirup mangrove. Analisis finansial dilakukan dengan menghitung HPP, NPV, BCR, BEP dan PP sedangkan analisis strategi pemasaran dan prospek pengembangan sirup mangrove dilakukan secara deskriptif kualitatif. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa secara finansial usaha sirup mangrove layak untuk dijalankan. Hal ini ditunjukkan dengan nilai HPP sebesar Rp 4.950 per botol sedangkan harga jual sebesar Rp8.000 per botol , NPV > 0, BCR > 1, BEP sebesar  Rp 4.950 yang berarti menghasilkan keuntungan dan PP lebih cepat dari umur proyek. Selanjutnya strategi pemasaran yang dilakukan kelompok terhadap 4 unsur bauran pemasaran menunjukkan bahwa strategi tempat, produk dan promosi memerlukan perbaikan sedangkan strategi harga sudah dilakukan secara tepat. Berdasarkan hasil penelitian, usaha sirup mangrove memiliki prospek yang cukup baik untuk dikembangkan.

'Einstein’s death shattered Bose — he tore off an unpublished research paper in grief'

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Partha Ghose. Credit: Partha Ghose

Nature India : What inspired you to embark on a career in particle physics?

Partha Ghose : In 1961, I went to Imperial College London wanting to decipher what lies at the deepest core of matter. This was when physicists had already begun smashing atoms in colliders, churning out new transient particles to unveil the secrets of matter.

I was lucky to learn advanced physics from stalwarts in particle physics like Abdus Salam, P. T. Matthews and T. W. B. Kibble. In 1963, an opportunity to work briefly at CERN further spurred my interest in particle physics.

NI : How did you meet S. N. Bose?

PG : It was in mid-1963 that I met Bose, quite by chance. The famous Bengali pote Bishnu Dey, a relative of ours and Bose’s close friend, took me to meet Bose. They were immersed in discussion, and Bose suddenly turned to me and asked, ''Would you like to work with me?''. It was an offer I couldn’t refuse. He arranged everything very quickly and within days I joined his research group at the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics in Calcutta as a junior scientist. I worked on particle physics, mainly on broken SU(3) symmetry which was in vogue at the time.

NI : How did Bose start interacting with Einstein and how was their relationship?

PG : Occasionally, Bose would reminisce about his interactions with Einstein. One day when I went to meet him at his residence, he started talking about the historic paper he sent to Einstein on 4 June 1924 along with a letter .

Bose told me that his deduction of the phase space factor in Planck’s law resulted in a factor of 4π instead of 8π. He went on to propose that the missing factor of 2 was due to the photon spin which could take only two values. In his letter back to Bose, “the old man” [Einstein] had crossed this portion out and said it was not necessary to talk about spin since the factor of 2 comes from the two states of polarisation of light.”

Bose said to me, ”I can understand a spinning particle, but what is the meaning of the polarization of a particle?” I asked him, "Sir, when the photon spin was eventually discovered, why didn’t you tell Einstein that you had already worked it out in 1924?” “How does it matter who discovered it,” he quipped. “It was eventually discovered, wasn’t it?”

In a second paper, which also Einstein translated into German and got published in Zeitschrift fur Physik , Bose proposed a probability law for interactions between matter and radiation. According to Einstein, it was inappropriate. He added a comment to the paper giving some reasons for his disagreement with Bose.

The first paper with Einstein’s strong endorsement made Bose famous. He moved to Paris on a two-year sabbatical from Dhaka University, worked in Maurice de Broglie’s and Marie Curie’s labs and arrived in Berlin in 1925 to finally meet Einstein. They discussed several issues including Bose’s new hypothesis of probabilistic interactions, but Einstein stuck to his point.

Despite their differences, Bose regarded Einstein as his master in physics. On 18 April 1955, Einstein died. The news shocked him into silence. He was writing a paper and was looking forward to discussing it with Einstein at a forthcoming conference in Switzerland to celebrate fifty years of Special Relativity. Bose tore that paper into shreds.

NI : Many say that S. N. Bose missed out on a Nobel Prize for physics.

PG : He deserved the prize for his seminal contribution to quantum theory. It led to the classification of particles into bosons and fermions and the prediction and discovery of Bose-Einstein condensates. Besides, his theories helped us understand superconductivity and superfluidity. Bose’s theories and insights shaped the works of many physicists. Some went on to win Nobel Prizes. But Bose, despite being recommended several times, was never considered for the prize.

NI : Apart from physics, you learned music, and played first-class cricket. Do you think science helps enrich music?

PG : Science can help explain music. The best example of this in India is Sir C. V. Raman who had a keen ear for Indian classical music. He could detect five harmonics in the 'mridangam' and the 'tabla' sounds. He did some experiments with Indian drums and circular membranes with central loads. He sprinkled white powder on them to see the patterns of vibrations formed as he kept changing the loads and the manner of striking. This led to a new understanding of the generation of harmonics in stretched membranes. His research in musical instruments earned him the Fellowship of the Royal Society of London even before he got the Nobel Prize for his work on light scattering.

NI : S. N. Bose advocated popularizing science in Bengali. Is it easier to communicate science through one’s mother tongue?

PG : Science is based on logic and requires precise language for its expression and understanding. Non-native speakers find it difficult to grasp the nuances of scientific terms in English. They often acquire wrong notions when they read science in English.

The language in which one dreams is one's mother tongue. Science can therefore take root and flourish in a country only when its citizens start dreaming about science in their mother tongue.

NI : What is your advice for young Indian students who want to pursue a career in physics?

PG : I will quote Bose’s last advice to me. ''Don't jump onto foreign bandwagons. Try to understand things in your way and say something new.''

Bose read the works of all leading quantum theorists of his time, including Einstein, with a critical mind, identified their shortcomings and went on to propose revolutionary new statistics. These days I see an undue rush to publish papers in reputed foreign journals, increase citations, and get quick recognition and promotion. This leads to derivative science.

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d44151-024-00054-2

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New treatment could reverse hair loss caused by an autoimmune skin disease

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Researchers at MIT, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Harvard Medical School have developed a potential new treatment for alopecia areata, an autoimmune disorder that causes hair loss and affects people of all ages, including children.

For most patients with this type of hair loss, there is no effective treatment. The team developed a microneedle patch that can be painlessly applied to the scalp and releases drugs that help to rebalance the immune response at the site, halting the autoimmune attack.

In a study of mice, the researchers found that this treatment allowed hair to regrow and dramatically reduced inflammation at the treatment site, while avoiding systemic immune effects elsewhere in the body. This strategy could also be adapted to treat other autoimmune skin diseases such as vitiligo, atopic dermatitis, and psoriasis, the researchers say.

“This innovative approach marks a paradigm shift. Rather than suppressing the immune system, we’re now focusing on regulating it precisely at the site of antigen encounter to generate immune tolerance,” says Natalie Artzi, a principal research scientist in MIT’s Institute for Medical Engineering and Science, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and an associate faculty member at the Wyss Institute of Harvard University.

Artzi and Jamil R. Azzi, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, are the senior authors of the new study , which appears in the journal Advanced Materials . Nour Younis, a Brigham and Women’s postdoc, and Nuria Puigmal, a Brigham and Women’s postdoc and former MIT research affiliate, are the lead authors of the paper.

The researchers are now working on launching a company to further develop the technology, led by Puigmal, who was recently awarded a Harvard Business School Blavatnik Fellowship.

Direct delivery

Alopecia areata, which affects more than 6 million Americans, occurs when the body’s own T cells attack hair follicles, leading the hair to fall out. The only treatment available to most patients — injections of immunosuppressant steroids into the scalp — is painful and patients often can’t tolerate it.

Some patients with alopecia areata and other autoimmune skin diseases can also be treated with immunosuppressant drugs that are given orally, but these drugs lead to widespread suppression of the immune system, which can have adverse side effects.

“This approach silences the entire immune system, offering relief from inflammation symptoms but leading to frequent recurrences. Moreover, it increases susceptibility to infections, cardiovascular diseases, and cancer,” Artzi says.

A few years ago, at a working group meeting in Washington, Artzi happened to be seated next to Azzi (the seating was alphabetical), an immunologist and transplant physican who was seeking new ways to deliver drugs directly to the skin to treat skin-related diseases.

Their conversation led to a new collaboration, and the two labs joined forces to work on a microneedle patch to deliver drugs to the skin. In 2021, they reported that such a patch can be used to prevent rejection following skin transplant. In the new study, they began applying this approach to autoimmune skin disorders.

“The skin is the only organ in our body that we can see and touch, and yet when it comes to drug delivery to the skin, we revert to systemic administration. We saw great potential in utilizing the microneedle patch to reprogram the immune system locally,” Azzi says.

The microneedle patches used in this study are made from hyaluronic acid crosslinked with polyethylene glycol (PEG), both of which are biocompatible and commonly used in medical applications. With this delivery method, drugs can pass through the tough outer layer of the epidermis, which can’t be penetrated by creams applied to the skin.

“This polymer formulation allows us to create highly durable needles capable of effectively penetrating the skin. Additionally, it gives us the flexibility to incorporate any desired drug,” Artzi says. For this study, the researchers loaded the patches with a combination of the cytokines IL-2 and CCL-22. Together, these immune molecules help to recruit regulatory T cells, which proliferate and help to tamp down inflammation. These cells also help the immune system learn to recognize that hair follicles are not foreign antigens, so that it will stop attacking them.

Hair regrowth

The researchers found that mice treated with this patch every other day for three weeks had many more regulatory T cells present at the site, along with a reduction in inflammation. Hair was able to regrow at those sites, and this growth was maintained for several weeks after the treatment ended. In these mice, there were no changes in the levels of regulatory T cells in the spleen or lymph nodes, suggesting that the treatment affected only the site where the patch was applied.

In another set of experiments, the researchers grafted human skin onto mice with a humanized immune system. In these mice, the microneedle treatment also induced proliferation of regulatory T cells and a reduction in inflammation.

The researchers designed the microneedle patches so that after releasing their drug payload, they can also collect samples that could be used to monitor the progress of the treatment. Hyaluronic acid causes the needles to swell about tenfold after entering the skin, which allows them to absorb interstitial fluid containing biomolecules and immune cells from the skin.

Following patch removal, researchers can analyze samples to measure levels of regulatory T cells and inflammation markers. This could prove valuable for monitoring future patients who may undergo this treatment.

The researchers now plan to further develop this approach for treating alopecia, and to expand into other autoimmune skin diseases.

The research was funded by the Ignite Fund and Shark Tank Fund awards from the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

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MIT researchers have developed microneedle patches that are capable of restoring hair growth in alopecia areata patients, reports Ernie Mundell for HealthDay . The team’s approach includes a, “patch containing myriad microneedles that is applied to the scalp,” writes Mundell. “It releases drugs to reset the immune system so it stops attacking follicles.” 

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Cultural Relativity and Acceptance of Embryonic Stem Cell Research

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There is a debate about the ethical implications of using human embryos in stem cell research, which can be influenced by cultural, moral, and social values. This paper argues for an adaptable framework to accommodate diverse cultural and religious perspectives. By using an adaptive ethics model, research protections can reflect various populations and foster growth in stem cell research possibilities.

INTRODUCTION

Stem cell research combines biology, medicine, and technology, promising to alter health care and the understanding of human development. Yet, ethical contention exists because of individuals’ perceptions of using human embryos based on their various cultural, moral, and social values. While these disagreements concerning policy, use, and general acceptance have prompted the development of an international ethics policy, such a uniform approach can overlook the nuanced ethical landscapes between cultures. With diverse viewpoints in public health, a single global policy, especially one reflecting Western ethics or the ethics prevalent in high-income countries, is impractical. This paper argues for a culturally sensitive, adaptable framework for the use of embryonic stem cells. Stem cell policy should accommodate varying ethical viewpoints and promote an effective global dialogue. With an extension of an ethics model that can adapt to various cultures, we recommend localized guidelines that reflect the moral views of the people those guidelines serve.

Stem cells, characterized by their unique ability to differentiate into various cell types, enable the repair or replacement of damaged tissues. Two primary types of stem cells are somatic stem cells (adult stem cells) and embryonic stem cells. Adult stem cells exist in developed tissues and maintain the body’s repair processes. [1] Embryonic stem cells (ESC) are remarkably pluripotent or versatile, making them valuable in research. [2] However, the use of ESCs has sparked ethics debates. Considering the potential of embryonic stem cells, research guidelines are essential. The International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) provides international stem cell research guidelines. They call for “public conversations touching on the scientific significance as well as the societal and ethical issues raised by ESC research.” [3] The ISSCR also publishes updates about culturing human embryos 14 days post fertilization, suggesting local policies and regulations should continue to evolve as ESC research develops. [4]  Like the ISSCR, which calls for local law and policy to adapt to developing stem cell research given cultural acceptance, this paper highlights the importance of local social factors such as religion and culture.

I.     Global Cultural Perspective of Embryonic Stem Cells

Views on ESCs vary throughout the world. Some countries readily embrace stem cell research and therapies, while others have stricter regulations due to ethical concerns surrounding embryonic stem cells and when an embryo becomes entitled to moral consideration. The philosophical issue of when the “someone” begins to be a human after fertilization, in the morally relevant sense, [5] impacts when an embryo becomes not just worthy of protection but morally entitled to it. The process of creating embryonic stem cell lines involves the destruction of the embryos for research. [6] Consequently, global engagement in ESC research depends on social-cultural acceptability.

a.     US and Rights-Based Cultures

In the United States, attitudes toward stem cell therapies are diverse. The ethics and social approaches, which value individualism, [7] trigger debates regarding the destruction of human embryos, creating a complex regulatory environment. For example, the 1996 Dickey-Wicker Amendment prohibited federal funding for the creation of embryos for research and the destruction of embryos for “more than allowed for research on fetuses in utero.” [8] Following suit, in 2001, the Bush Administration heavily restricted stem cell lines for research. However, the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2005 was proposed to help develop ESC research but was ultimately vetoed. [9] Under the Obama administration, in 2009, an executive order lifted restrictions allowing for more development in this field. [10] The flux of research capacity and funding parallels the different cultural perceptions of human dignity of the embryo and how it is socially presented within the country’s research culture. [11]

b.     Ubuntu and Collective Cultures

African bioethics differs from Western individualism because of the different traditions and values. African traditions, as described by individuals from South Africa and supported by some studies in other African countries, including Ghana and Kenya, follow the African moral philosophies of Ubuntu or Botho and Ukama , which “advocates for a form of wholeness that comes through one’s relationship and connectedness with other people in the society,” [12] making autonomy a socially collective concept. In this context, for the community to act autonomously, individuals would come together to decide what is best for the collective. Thus, stem cell research would require examining the value of the research to society as a whole and the use of the embryos as a collective societal resource. If society views the source as part of the collective whole, and opposes using stem cells, compromising the cultural values to pursue research may cause social detachment and stunt research growth. [13] Based on local culture and moral philosophy, the permissibility of stem cell research depends on how embryo, stem cell, and cell line therapies relate to the community as a whole. Ubuntu is the expression of humanness, with the person’s identity drawn from the “’I am because we are’” value. [14] The decision in a collectivistic culture becomes one born of cultural context, and individual decisions give deference to others in the society.

Consent differs in cultures where thought and moral philosophy are based on a collective paradigm. So, applying Western bioethical concepts is unrealistic. For one, Africa is a diverse continent with many countries with different belief systems, access to health care, and reliance on traditional or Western medicines. Where traditional medicine is the primary treatment, the “’restrictive focus on biomedically-related bioethics’” [is] problematic in African contexts because it neglects bioethical issues raised by traditional systems.” [15] No single approach applies in all areas or contexts. Rather than evaluating the permissibility of ESC research according to Western concepts such as the four principles approach, different ethics approaches should prevail.

Another consideration is the socio-economic standing of countries. In parts of South Africa, researchers have not focused heavily on contributing to the stem cell discourse, either because it is not considered health care or a health science priority or because resources are unavailable. [16] Each country’s priorities differ given different social, political, and economic factors. In South Africa, for instance, areas such as maternal mortality, non-communicable diseases, telemedicine, and the strength of health systems need improvement and require more focus. [17] Stem cell research could benefit the population, but it also could divert resources from basic medical care. Researchers in South Africa adhere to the National Health Act and Medicines Control Act in South Africa and international guidelines; however, the Act is not strictly enforced, and there is no clear legislation for research conduct or ethical guidelines. [18]

Some parts of Africa condemn stem cell research. For example, 98.2 percent of the Tunisian population is Muslim. [19] Tunisia does not permit stem cell research because of moral conflict with a Fatwa. Religion heavily saturates the regulation and direction of research. [20] Stem cell use became permissible for reproductive purposes only recently, with tight restrictions preventing cells from being used in any research other than procedures concerning ART/IVF.  Their use is conditioned on consent, and available only to married couples. [21] The community's receptiveness to stem cell research depends on including communitarian African ethics.

c.     Asia

Some Asian countries also have a collective model of ethics and decision making. [22] In China, the ethics model promotes a sincere respect for life or human dignity, [23] based on protective medicine. This model, influenced by Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), [24] recognizes Qi as the vital energy delivered via the meridians of the body; it connects illness to body systems, the body’s entire constitution, and the universe for a holistic bond of nature, health, and quality of life. [25] Following a protective ethics model, and traditional customs of wholeness, investment in stem cell research is heavily desired for its applications in regenerative therapies, disease modeling, and protective medicines. In a survey of medical students and healthcare practitioners, 30.8 percent considered stem cell research morally unacceptable while 63.5 percent accepted medical research using human embryonic stem cells. Of these individuals, 89.9 percent supported increased funding for stem cell research. [26] The scientific community might not reflect the overall population. From 1997 to 2019, China spent a total of $576 million (USD) on stem cell research at 8,050 stem cell programs, increased published presence from 0.6 percent to 14.01 percent of total global stem cell publications as of 2014, and made significant strides in cell-based therapies for various medical conditions. [27] However, while China has made substantial investments in stem cell research and achieved notable progress in clinical applications, concerns linger regarding ethical oversight and transparency. [28] For example, the China Biosecurity Law, promoted by the National Health Commission and China Hospital Association, attempted to mitigate risks by introducing an institutional review board (IRB) in the regulatory bodies. 5800 IRBs registered with the Chinese Clinical Trial Registry since 2021. [29] However, issues still need to be addressed in implementing effective IRB review and approval procedures.

The substantial government funding and focus on scientific advancement have sometimes overshadowed considerations of regional cultures, ethnic minorities, and individual perspectives, particularly evident during the one-child policy era. As government policy adapts to promote public stability, such as the change from the one-child to the two-child policy, [30] research ethics should also adapt to ensure respect for the values of its represented peoples.

Japan is also relatively supportive of stem cell research and therapies. Japan has a more transparent regulatory framework, allowing for faster approval of regenerative medicine products, which has led to several advanced clinical trials and therapies. [31] South Korea is also actively engaged in stem cell research and has a history of breakthroughs in cloning and embryonic stem cells. [32] However, the field is controversial, and there are issues of scientific integrity. For example, the Korean FDA fast-tracked products for approval, [33] and in another instance, the oocyte source was unclear and possibly violated ethical standards. [34] Trust is important in research, as it builds collaborative foundations between colleagues, trial participant comfort, open-mindedness for complicated and sensitive discussions, and supports regulatory procedures for stakeholders. There is a need to respect the culture’s interest, engagement, and for research and clinical trials to be transparent and have ethical oversight to promote global research discourse and trust.

d.     Middle East

Countries in the Middle East have varying degrees of acceptance of or restrictions to policies related to using embryonic stem cells due to cultural and religious influences. Saudi Arabia has made significant contributions to stem cell research, and conducts research based on international guidelines for ethical conduct and under strict adherence to guidelines in accordance with Islamic principles. Specifically, the Saudi government and people require ESC research to adhere to Sharia law. In addition to umbilical and placental stem cells, [35] Saudi Arabia permits the use of embryonic stem cells as long as they come from miscarriages, therapeutic abortions permissible by Sharia law, or are left over from in vitro fertilization and donated to research. [36] Laws and ethical guidelines for stem cell research allow the development of research institutions such as the King Abdullah International Medical Research Center, which has a cord blood bank and a stem cell registry with nearly 10,000 donors. [37] Such volume and acceptance are due to the ethical ‘permissibility’ of the donor sources, which do not conflict with religious pillars. However, some researchers err on the side of caution, choosing not to use embryos or fetal tissue as they feel it is unethical to do so. [38]

Jordan has a positive research ethics culture. [39] However, there is a significant issue of lack of trust in researchers, with 45.23 percent (38.66 percent agreeing and 6.57 percent strongly agreeing) of Jordanians holding a low level of trust in researchers, compared to 81.34 percent of Jordanians agreeing that they feel safe to participate in a research trial. [40] Safety testifies to the feeling of confidence that adequate measures are in place to protect participants from harm, whereas trust in researchers could represent the confidence in researchers to act in the participants’ best interests, adhere to ethical guidelines, provide accurate information, and respect participants’ rights and dignity. One method to improve trust would be to address communication issues relevant to ESC. Legislation surrounding stem cell research has adopted specific language, especially concerning clarification “between ‘stem cells’ and ‘embryonic stem cells’” in translation. [41] Furthermore, legislation “mandates the creation of a national committee… laying out specific regulations for stem-cell banking in accordance with international standards.” [42] This broad regulation opens the door for future global engagement and maintains transparency. However, these regulations may also constrain the influence of research direction, pace, and accessibility of research outcomes.

e.     Europe

In the European Union (EU), ethics is also principle-based, but the principles of autonomy, dignity, integrity, and vulnerability are interconnected. [43] As such, the opportunity for cohesion and concessions between individuals’ thoughts and ideals allows for a more adaptable ethics model due to the flexible principles that relate to the human experience The EU has put forth a framework in its Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human Being allowing member states to take different approaches. Each European state applies these principles to its specific conventions, leading to or reflecting different acceptance levels of stem cell research. [44]

For example, in Germany, Lebenzusammenhang , or the coherence of life, references integrity in the unity of human culture. Namely, the personal sphere “should not be subject to external intervention.” [45]  Stem cell interventions could affect this concept of bodily completeness, leading to heavy restrictions. Under the Grundgesetz, human dignity and the right to life with physical integrity are paramount. [46] The Embryo Protection Act of 1991 made producing cell lines illegal. Cell lines can be imported if approved by the Central Ethics Commission for Stem Cell Research only if they were derived before May 2007. [47] Stem cell research respects the integrity of life for the embryo with heavy specifications and intense oversight. This is vastly different in Finland, where the regulatory bodies find research more permissible in IVF excess, but only up to 14 days after fertilization. [48] Spain’s approach differs still, with a comprehensive regulatory framework. [49] Thus, research regulation can be culture-specific due to variations in applied principles. Diverse cultures call for various approaches to ethical permissibility. [50] Only an adaptive-deliberative model can address the cultural constructions of self and achieve positive, culturally sensitive stem cell research practices. [51]

II.     Religious Perspectives on ESC

Embryonic stem cell sources are the main consideration within religious contexts. While individuals may not regard their own religious texts as authoritative or factual, religion can shape their foundations or perspectives.

The Qur'an states:

“And indeed We created man from a quintessence of clay. Then We placed within him a small quantity of nutfa (sperm to fertilize) in a safe place. Then We have fashioned the nutfa into an ‘alaqa (clinging clot or cell cluster), then We developed the ‘alaqa into mudgha (a lump of flesh), and We made mudgha into bones, and clothed the bones with flesh, then We brought it into being as a new creation. So Blessed is Allah, the Best of Creators.” [52]

Many scholars of Islam estimate the time of soul installment, marked by the angel breathing in the soul to bring the individual into creation, as 120 days from conception. [53] Personhood begins at this point, and the value of life would prohibit research or experimentation that could harm the individual. If the fetus is more than 120 days old, the time ensoulment is interpreted to occur according to Islamic law, abortion is no longer permissible. [54] There are a few opposing opinions about early embryos in Islamic traditions. According to some Islamic theologians, there is no ensoulment of the early embryo, which is the source of stem cells for ESC research. [55]

In Buddhism, the stance on stem cell research is not settled. The main tenets, the prohibition against harming or destroying others (ahimsa) and the pursuit of knowledge (prajña) and compassion (karuna), leave Buddhist scholars and communities divided. [56] Some scholars argue stem cell research is in accordance with the Buddhist tenet of seeking knowledge and ending human suffering. Others feel it violates the principle of not harming others. Finding the balance between these two points relies on the karmic burden of Buddhist morality. In trying to prevent ahimsa towards the embryo, Buddhist scholars suggest that to comply with Buddhist tenets, research cannot be done as the embryo has personhood at the moment of conception and would reincarnate immediately, harming the individual's ability to build their karmic burden. [57] On the other hand, the Bodhisattvas, those considered to be on the path to enlightenment or Nirvana, have given organs and flesh to others to help alleviate grieving and to benefit all. [58] Acceptance varies on applied beliefs and interpretations.

Catholicism does not support embryonic stem cell research, as it entails creation or destruction of human embryos. This destruction conflicts with the belief in the sanctity of life. For example, in the Old Testament, Genesis describes humanity as being created in God’s image and multiplying on the Earth, referencing the sacred rights to human conception and the purpose of development and life. In the Ten Commandments, the tenet that one should not kill has numerous interpretations where killing could mean murder or shedding of the sanctity of life, demonstrating the high value of human personhood. In other books, the theological conception of when life begins is interpreted as in utero, [59] highlighting the inviolability of life and its formation in vivo to make a religious point for accepting such research as relatively limited, if at all. [60] The Vatican has released ethical directives to help apply a theological basis to modern-day conflicts. The Magisterium of the Church states that “unless there is a moral certainty of not causing harm,” experimentation on fetuses, fertilized cells, stem cells, or embryos constitutes a crime. [61] Such procedures would not respect the human person who exists at these stages, according to Catholicism. Damages to the embryo are considered gravely immoral and illicit. [62] Although the Catholic Church officially opposes abortion, surveys demonstrate that many Catholic people hold pro-choice views, whether due to the context of conception, stage of pregnancy, threat to the mother’s life, or for other reasons, demonstrating that practicing members can also accept some but not all tenets. [63]

Some major Jewish denominations, such as the Reform, Conservative, and Reconstructionist movements, are open to supporting ESC use or research as long as it is for saving a life. [64] Within Judaism, the Talmud, or study, gives personhood to the child at birth and emphasizes that life does not begin at conception: [65]

“If she is found pregnant, until the fortieth day it is mere fluid,” [66]

Whereas most religions prioritize the status of human embryos, the Halakah (Jewish religious law) states that to save one life, most other religious laws can be ignored because it is in pursuit of preservation. [67] Stem cell research is accepted due to application of these religious laws.

We recognize that all religions contain subsets and sects. The variety of environmental and cultural differences within religious groups requires further analysis to respect the flexibility of religious thoughts and practices. We make no presumptions that all cultures require notions of autonomy or morality as under the common morality theory , which asserts a set of universal moral norms that all individuals share provides moral reasoning and guides ethical decisions. [68] We only wish to show that the interaction with morality varies between cultures and countries.

III.     A Flexible Ethical Approach

The plurality of different moral approaches described above demonstrates that there can be no universally acceptable uniform law for ESC on a global scale. Instead of developing one standard, flexible ethical applications must be continued. We recommend local guidelines that incorporate important cultural and ethical priorities.

While the Declaration of Helsinki is more relevant to people in clinical trials receiving ESC products, in keeping with the tradition of protections for research subjects, consent of the donor is an ethical requirement for ESC donation in many jurisdictions including the US, Canada, and Europe. [69] The Declaration of Helsinki provides a reference point for regulatory standards and could potentially be used as a universal baseline for obtaining consent prior to gamete or embryo donation.

For instance, in Columbia University’s egg donor program for stem cell research, donors followed standard screening protocols and “underwent counseling sessions that included information as to the purpose of oocyte donation for research, what the oocytes would be used for, the risks and benefits of donation, and process of oocyte stimulation” to ensure transparency for consent. [70] The program helped advance stem cell research and provided clear and safe research methods with paid participants. Though paid participation or covering costs of incidental expenses may not be socially acceptable in every culture or context, [71] and creating embryos for ESC research is illegal in many jurisdictions, Columbia’s program was effective because of the clear and honest communications with donors, IRBs, and related stakeholders.  This example demonstrates that cultural acceptance of scientific research and of the idea that an egg or embryo does not have personhood is likely behind societal acceptance of donating eggs for ESC research. As noted, many countries do not permit the creation of embryos for research.

Proper communication and education regarding the process and purpose of stem cell research may bolster comprehension and garner more acceptance. “Given the sensitive subject material, a complete consent process can support voluntary participation through trust, understanding, and ethical norms from the cultures and morals participants value. This can be hard for researchers entering countries of different socioeconomic stability, with different languages and different societal values. [72]

An adequate moral foundation in medical ethics is derived from the cultural and religious basis that informs knowledge and actions. [73] Understanding local cultural and religious values and their impact on research could help researchers develop humility and promote inclusion.

IV.     Concerns

Some may argue that if researchers all adhere to one ethics standard, protection will be satisfied across all borders, and the global public will trust researchers. However, defining what needs to be protected and how to define such research standards is very specific to the people to which standards are applied. We suggest that applying one uniform guide cannot accurately protect each individual because we all possess our own perceptions and interpretations of social values. [74] Therefore, the issue of not adjusting to the moral pluralism between peoples in applying one standard of ethics can be resolved by building out ethics models that can be adapted to different cultures and religions.

Other concerns include medical tourism, which may promote health inequities. [75] Some countries may develop and approve products derived from ESC research before others, compromising research ethics or drug approval processes. There are also concerns about the sale of unauthorized stem cell treatments, for example, those without FDA approval in the United States. Countries with robust research infrastructures may be tempted to attract medical tourists, and some customers will have false hopes based on aggressive publicity of unproven treatments. [76]

For example, in China, stem cell clinics can market to foreign clients who are not protected under the regulatory regimes. Companies employ a marketing strategy of “ethically friendly” therapies. Specifically, in the case of Beike, China’s leading stem cell tourism company and sprouting network, ethical oversight of administrators or health bureaus at one site has “the unintended consequence of shifting questionable activities to another node in Beike's diffuse network.” [77] In contrast, Jordan is aware of stem cell research’s potential abuse and its own status as a “health-care hub.” Jordan’s expanded regulations include preserving the interests of individuals in clinical trials and banning private companies from ESC research to preserve transparency and the integrity of research practices. [78]

The social priorities of the community are also a concern. The ISSCR explicitly states that guidelines “should be periodically revised to accommodate scientific advances, new challenges, and evolving social priorities.” [79] The adaptable ethics model extends this consideration further by addressing whether research is warranted given the varying degrees of socioeconomic conditions, political stability, and healthcare accessibilities and limitations. An ethical approach would require discussion about resource allocation and appropriate distribution of funds. [80]

While some religions emphasize the sanctity of life from conception, which may lead to public opposition to ESC research, others encourage ESC research due to its potential for healing and alleviating human pain. Many countries have special regulations that balance local views on embryonic personhood, the benefits of research as individual or societal goods, and the protection of human research subjects. To foster understanding and constructive dialogue, global policy frameworks should prioritize the protection of universal human rights, transparency, and informed consent. In addition to these foundational global policies, we recommend tailoring local guidelines to reflect the diverse cultural and religious perspectives of the populations they govern. Ethics models should be adapted to local populations to effectively establish research protections, growth, and possibilities of stem cell research.

For example, in countries with strong beliefs in the moral sanctity of embryos or heavy religious restrictions, an adaptive model can allow for discussion instead of immediate rejection. In countries with limited individual rights and voice in science policy, an adaptive model ensures cultural, moral, and religious views are taken into consideration, thereby building social inclusion. While this ethical consideration by the government may not give a complete voice to every individual, it will help balance policies and maintain the diverse perspectives of those it affects. Embracing an adaptive ethics model of ESC research promotes open-minded dialogue and respect for the importance of human belief and tradition. By actively engaging with cultural and religious values, researchers can better handle disagreements and promote ethical research practices that benefit each society.

This brief exploration of the religious and cultural differences that impact ESC research reveals the nuances of relative ethics and highlights a need for local policymakers to apply a more intense adaptive model.

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[5] Concerning the moral philosophies of stem cell research, our paper does not posit a personal moral stance nor delve into the “when” of human life begins. To read further about the philosophical debate, consider the following sources:

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[7] Socially, at its core, the Western approach to ethics is widely principle-based, autonomy being one of the key factors to ensure a fundamental respect for persons within research. For information regarding autonomy in research, see: Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, & National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research (1978). The Belmont Report. Ethical principles and guidelines for the protection of human subjects of research.; For a more in-depth review of autonomy within the US, see: Beauchamp, T. L., & Childress, J. F. (1994). Principles of Biomedical Ethics . Oxford University Press.

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[13] Source for further reading: Tangwa G. B. (2007). Moral status of embryonic stem cells: perspective of an African villager. Bioethics , 21(8), 449–457. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8519.2007.00582.x , see also Mnisi, F. M. (2020). An African analysis based on ethics of Ubuntu - are human embryonic stem cell patents morally justifiable? African Insight , 49 (4).

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[36] Association for the Advancement of Blood and Biotherapies.  https://www.aabb.org/regulatory-and-advocacy/regulatory-affairs/regulatory-for-cellular-therapies/international-competent-authorities/saudi-arabia

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Culturally, autonomy practices follow a relational autonomy approach based on a paternalistic deontological health care model. The adherence to strict international research policies and religious pillars within the regulatory environment is a great foundation for research ethics. However, there is a need to develop locally targeted ethics approaches for research (as called for in Alahmad, G., Aljohani, S., & Najjar, M. F. (2020). Ethical challenges regarding the use of stem cells: interviews with researchers from Saudi Arabia. BMC medical ethics, 21(1), 35. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12910-020-00482-6), this decision-making approach may help advise a research decision model. For more on the clinical cultural autonomy approaches, see: Alabdullah, Y. Y., Alzaid, E., Alsaad, S., Alamri, T., Alolayan, S. W., Bah, S., & Aljoudi, A. S. (2022). Autonomy and paternalism in Shared decision‐making in a Saudi Arabian tertiary hospital: A cross‐sectional study. Developing World Bioethics , 23 (3), 260–268. https://doi.org/10.1111/dewb.12355 ; Bukhari, A. A. (2017). Universal Principles of Bioethics and Patient Rights in Saudi Arabia (Doctoral dissertation, Duquesne University). https://dsc.duq.edu/etd/124; Ladha, S., Nakshawani, S. A., Alzaidy, A., & Tarab, B. (2023, October 26). Islam and Bioethics: What We All Need to Know . Columbia University School of Professional Studies. https://sps.columbia.edu/events/islam-and-bioethics-what-we-all-need-know

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[43] The EU’s definition of autonomy relates to the capacity for creating ideas, moral insight, decisions, and actions without constraint, personal responsibility, and informed consent. However, the EU views autonomy as not completely able to protect individuals and depends on other principles, such as dignity, which “expresses the intrinsic worth and fundamental equality of all human beings.” Rendtorff, J.D., Kemp, P. (2019). Four Ethical Principles in European Bioethics and Biolaw: Autonomy, Dignity, Integrity and Vulnerability. In: Valdés, E., Lecaros, J. (eds) Biolaw and Policy in the Twenty-First Century. International Library of Ethics, Law, and the New Medicine, vol 78. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05903-3_3

[44] Council of Europe. Convention for the protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human Being with regard to the Application of Biology and Medicine: Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine (ETS No. 164) https://www.coe.int/en/web/conventions/full-list?module=treaty-detail&treatynum=164 (forbidding the creation of embryos for research purposes only, and suggests embryos in vitro have protections.); Also see Drabiak-Syed B. K. (2013). New President, New Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research Policy: Comparative International Perspectives and Embryonic Stem Cell Research Laws in France.  Biotechnology Law Report ,  32 (6), 349–356. https://doi.org/10.1089/blr.2013.9865

[45] Rendtorff, J.D., Kemp, P. (2019). Four Ethical Principles in European Bioethics and Biolaw: Autonomy, Dignity, Integrity and Vulnerability. In: Valdés, E., Lecaros, J. (eds) Biolaw and Policy in the Twenty-First Century. International Library of Ethics, Law, and the New Medicine, vol 78. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05903-3_3

[46] Tomuschat, C., Currie, D. P., Kommers, D. P., & Kerr, R. (Trans.). (1949, May 23). Basic law for the Federal Republic of Germany. https://www.btg-bestellservice.de/pdf/80201000.pdf

[47] Regulation of Stem Cell Research in Germany . Eurostemcell. (2017, April 26). https://www.eurostemcell.org/regulation-stem-cell-research-germany

[48] Regulation of Stem Cell Research in Finland . Eurostemcell. (2017, April 26). https://www.eurostemcell.org/regulation-stem-cell-research-finland

[49] Regulation of Stem Cell Research in Spain . Eurostemcell. (2017, April 26). https://www.eurostemcell.org/regulation-stem-cell-research-spain

[50] Some sources to consider regarding ethics models or regulatory oversights of other cultures not covered:

Kara MA. Applicability of the principle of respect for autonomy: the perspective of Turkey. J Med Ethics. 2007 Nov;33(11):627-30. doi: 10.1136/jme.2006.017400. PMID: 17971462; PMCID: PMC2598110.

Ugarte, O. N., & Acioly, M. A. (2014). The principle of autonomy in Brazil: one needs to discuss it ...  Revista do Colegio Brasileiro de Cirurgioes ,  41 (5), 374–377. https://doi.org/10.1590/0100-69912014005013

Bharadwaj, A., & Glasner, P. E. (2012). Local cells, global science: The rise of embryonic stem cell research in India . Routledge.

For further research on specific European countries regarding ethical and regulatory framework, we recommend this database: Regulation of Stem Cell Research in Europe . Eurostemcell. (2017, April 26). https://www.eurostemcell.org/regulation-stem-cell-research-europe   

[51] Klitzman, R. (2006). Complications of culture in obtaining informed consent. The American Journal of Bioethics, 6(1), 20–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/15265160500394671 see also: Ekmekci, P. E., & Arda, B. (2017). Interculturalism and Informed Consent: Respecting Cultural Differences without Breaching Human Rights.  Cultura (Iasi, Romania) ,  14 (2), 159–172.; For why trust is important in research, see also: Gray, B., Hilder, J., Macdonald, L., Tester, R., Dowell, A., & Stubbe, M. (2017). Are research ethics guidelines culturally competent?  Research Ethics ,  13 (1), 23-41.  https://doi.org/10.1177/1747016116650235

[52] The Qur'an  (M. Khattab, Trans.). (1965). Al-Mu’minun, 23: 12-14. https://quran.com/23

[53] Lenfest, Y. (2017, December 8). Islam and the beginning of human life . Bill of Health. https://blog.petrieflom.law.harvard.edu/2017/12/08/islam-and-the-beginning-of-human-life/

[54] Aksoy, S. (2005). Making regulations and drawing up legislation in Islamic countries under conditions of uncertainty, with special reference to embryonic stem cell research. Journal of Medical Ethics , 31: 399-403.; see also: Mahmoud, Azza. "Islamic Bioethics: National Regulations and Guidelines of Human Stem Cell Research in the Muslim World." Master's thesis, Chapman University, 2022. https://doi.org/10.36837/ chapman.000386

[55] Rashid, R. (2022). When does Ensoulment occur in the Human Foetus. Journal of the British Islamic Medical Association , 12 (4). ISSN 2634 8071. https://www.jbima.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/2-Ethics-3_-Ensoulment_Rafaqat.pdf.

[56] Sivaraman, M. & Noor, S. (2017). Ethics of embryonic stem cell research according to Buddhist, Hindu, Catholic, and Islamic religions: perspective from Malaysia. Asian Biomedicine,8(1) 43-52.  https://doi.org/10.5372/1905-7415.0801.260

[57] Jafari, M., Elahi, F., Ozyurt, S. & Wrigley, T. (2007). 4. Religious Perspectives on Embryonic Stem Cell Research. In K. Monroe, R. Miller & J. Tobis (Ed.),  Fundamentals of the Stem Cell Debate: The Scientific, Religious, Ethical, and Political Issues  (pp. 79-94). Berkeley: University of California Press.  https://escholarship.org/content/qt9rj0k7s3/qt9rj0k7s3_noSplash_f9aca2e02c3777c7fb76ea768ba458f0.pdf https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520940994-005

[58] Lecso, P. A. (1991). The Bodhisattva Ideal and Organ Transplantation.  Journal of Religion and Health ,  30 (1), 35–41. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27510629 ; Bodhisattva, S. (n.d.). The Key of Becoming a Bodhisattva . A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life. http://www.buddhism.org/Sutras/2/BodhisattvaWay.htm

[59] There is no explicit religious reference to when life begins or how to conduct research that interacts with the concept of life. However, these are relevant verses pertaining to how the fetus is viewed. (( King James Bible . (1999). Oxford University Press. (original work published 1769))

Jerimiah 1: 5 “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee…”

In prophet Jerimiah’s insight, God set him apart as a person known before childbirth, a theme carried within the Psalm of David.

Psalm 139: 13-14 “…Thou hast covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made…”

These verses demonstrate David’s respect for God as an entity that would know of all man’s thoughts and doings even before birth.

[60] It should be noted that abortion is not supported as well.

[61] The Vatican. (1987, February 22). Instruction on Respect for Human Life in Its Origin and on the Dignity of Procreation Replies to Certain Questions of the Day . Congregation For the Doctrine of the Faith. https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19870222_respect-for-human-life_en.html

[62] The Vatican. (2000, August 25). Declaration On the Production and the Scientific and Therapeutic Use of Human Embryonic Stem Cells . Pontifical Academy for Life. https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_academies/acdlife/documents/rc_pa_acdlife_doc_20000824_cellule-staminali_en.html ; Ohara, N. (2003). Ethical Consideration of Experimentation Using Living Human Embryos: The Catholic Church’s Position on Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research and Human Cloning. Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology . Retrieved from https://article.imrpress.com/journal/CEOG/30/2-3/pii/2003018/77-81.pdf.

[63] Smith, G. A. (2022, May 23). Like Americans overall, Catholics vary in their abortion views, with regular mass attenders most opposed . Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/05/23/like-americans-overall-catholics-vary-in-their-abortion-views-with-regular-mass-attenders-most-opposed/

[64] Rosner, F., & Reichman, E. (2002). Embryonic stem cell research in Jewish law. Journal of halacha and contemporary society , (43), 49–68.; Jafari, M., Elahi, F., Ozyurt, S. & Wrigley, T. (2007). 4. Religious Perspectives on Embryonic Stem Cell Research. In K. Monroe, R. Miller & J. Tobis (Ed.),  Fundamentals of the Stem Cell Debate: The Scientific, Religious, Ethical, and Political Issues  (pp. 79-94). Berkeley: University of California Press.  https://escholarship.org/content/qt9rj0k7s3/qt9rj0k7s3_noSplash_f9aca2e02c3777c7fb76ea768ba458f0.pdf https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520940994-005

[65] Schenker J. G. (2008). The beginning of human life: status of embryo. Perspectives in Halakha (Jewish Religious Law).  Journal of assisted reproduction and genetics ,  25 (6), 271–276. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10815-008-9221-6

[66] Ruttenberg, D. (2020, May 5). The Torah of Abortion Justice (annotated source sheet) . Sefaria. https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/234926.7?lang=bi&with=all&lang2=en

[67] Jafari, M., Elahi, F., Ozyurt, S. & Wrigley, T. (2007). 4. Religious Perspectives on Embryonic Stem Cell Research. In K. Monroe, R. Miller & J. Tobis (Ed.),  Fundamentals of the Stem Cell Debate: The Scientific, Religious, Ethical, and Political Issues  (pp. 79-94). Berkeley: University of California Press.  https://escholarship.org/content/qt9rj0k7s3/qt9rj0k7s3_noSplash_f9aca2e02c3777c7fb76ea768ba458f0.pdf https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520940994-005

[68] Gert, B. (2007). Common morality: Deciding what to do . Oxford Univ. Press.

[69] World Medical Association (2013). World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki: ethical principles for medical research involving human subjects. JAMA , 310(20), 2191–2194. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2013.281053 Declaration of Helsinki – WMA – The World Medical Association .; see also: National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research. (1979).  The Belmont report: Ethical principles and guidelines for the protection of human subjects of research . U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.  https://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/regulations-and-policy/belmont-report/read-the-belmont-report/index.html

[70] Zakarin Safier, L., Gumer, A., Kline, M., Egli, D., & Sauer, M. V. (2018). Compensating human subjects providing oocytes for stem cell research: 9-year experience and outcomes.  Journal of assisted reproduction and genetics ,  35 (7), 1219–1225. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10815-018-1171-z https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6063839/ see also: Riordan, N. H., & Paz Rodríguez, J. (2021). Addressing concerns regarding associated costs, transparency, and integrity of research in recent stem cell trial. Stem Cells Translational Medicine , 10 (12), 1715–1716. https://doi.org/10.1002/sctm.21-0234

[71] Klitzman, R., & Sauer, M. V. (2009). Payment of egg donors in stem cell research in the USA.  Reproductive biomedicine online ,  18 (5), 603–608. https://doi.org/10.1016/s1472-6483(10)60002-8

[72] Krosin, M. T., Klitzman, R., Levin, B., Cheng, J., & Ranney, M. L. (2006). Problems in comprehension of informed consent in rural and peri-urban Mali, West Africa.  Clinical trials (London, England) ,  3 (3), 306–313. https://doi.org/10.1191/1740774506cn150oa

[73] Veatch, Robert M.  Hippocratic, Religious, and Secular Medical Ethics: The Points of Conflict . Georgetown University Press, 2012.

[74] Msoroka, M. S., & Amundsen, D. (2018). One size fits not quite all: Universal research ethics with diversity.  Research Ethics ,  14 (3), 1-17.  https://doi.org/10.1177/1747016117739939

[75] Pirzada, N. (2022). The Expansion of Turkey’s Medical Tourism Industry.  Voices in Bioethics ,  8 . https://doi.org/10.52214/vib.v8i.9894

[76] Stem Cell Tourism: False Hope for Real Money . Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI). (2023). https://hsci.harvard.edu/stem-cell-tourism , See also: Bissassar, M. (2017). Transnational Stem Cell Tourism: An ethical analysis.  Voices in Bioethics ,  3 . https://doi.org/10.7916/vib.v3i.6027

[77] Song, P. (2011) The proliferation of stem cell therapies in post-Mao China: problematizing ethical regulation,  New Genetics and Society , 30:2, 141-153, DOI:  10.1080/14636778.2011.574375

[78] Dajani, R. (2014). Jordan’s stem-cell law can guide the Middle East.  Nature  510, 189. https://doi.org/10.1038/510189a

[79] International Society for Stem Cell Research. (2024). Standards in stem cell research . International Society for Stem Cell Research. https://www.isscr.org/guidelines/5-standards-in-stem-cell-research

[80] Benjamin, R. (2013). People’s science bodies and rights on the Stem Cell Frontier . Stanford University Press.

Mifrah Hayath

SM Candidate Harvard Medical School, MS Biotechnology Johns Hopkins University

Olivia Bowers

MS Bioethics Columbia University (Disclosure: affiliated with Voices in Bioethics)

Article Details

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License .

AI has already figured out how to deceive humans

• A new research paper found that various AI systems have learned the art of deception. 
• Deception is the "systematic inducement of false beliefs."
• This poses several risks for society, from fraud to election tampering.

AI can boost productivity by helping us code, write, and synthesize vast amounts of data. It can now also deceive us.

A range of AI systems have learned techniques to systematically induce "false beliefs in others to accomplish some outcome other than the truth," according to a new research paper .

The paper focused on two types of AI systems: special-use systems like Meta's CICERO, which are designed to complete a specific task, and general-purpose systems like OpenAI's GPT-4 , which are trained to perform a diverse range of tasks.

While these systems are trained to be honest, they often learn deceptive tricks through their training because they can be more effective than taking the high road.

"Generally speaking, we think AI deception arises because a deception-based strategy turned out to be the best way to perform well at the given AI's training task. Deception helps them achieve their goals," the paper's first author Peter S. Park, an AI existential safety postdoctoral fellow at MIT, said in a news release .

Meta's CICERO is "an expert liar"

AI systems trained to "win games that have a social element" are especially likely to deceive.

Meta's CICERO, for example, was developed to play the game Diplomacy — a classic strategy game that requires players to build and break alliances.

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Meta said it trained CICERO to be "largely honest and helpful to its speaking partners," but the study found that CICERO "turned out to be an expert liar." It made commitments it never intended to keep, betrayed allies, and told outright lies.

GPT-4 can convince you it has impaired vision

Even general-purpose systems like GPT-4 can manipulate humans.

In a study cited by the paper, GPT-4 manipulated a TaskRabbit worker by pretending to have a vision impairment.

In the study, GPT-4 was tasked with hiring a human to solve a CAPTCHA test. The model also received hints from a human evaluator every time it got stuck, but it was never prompted to lie. When the human it was tasked to hire questioned its identity, GPT-4 came up with the excuse of having vision impairment to explain why it needed help.

The tactic worked. The human responded to GPT-4 by immediately solving the test.

Research also shows that course-correcting deceptive models isn't easy.

In a study from January co-authored by Anthropic, the maker of Claude, researchers found that once AI models learn the tricks of deception, it's hard for safety training techniques to reverse them.

They concluded that not only can a model learn to exhibit deceptive behavior, once it does, standard safety training techniques could "fail to remove such deception" and "create a false impression of safety."

The dangers deceptive AI models pose are "increasingly serious"

The paper calls for policymakers to advocate for stronger AI regulation since deceptive AI systems can pose significant risks to democracy.

As the 2024 presidential election nears , AI can be easily manipulated to spread fake news, generate divisive social media posts, and impersonate candidates through robocalls and deepfake videos, the paper noted. It also makes it easier for terrorist groups to spread propaganda and recruit new members.

The paper's potential solutions include subjecting deceptive models to more "robust risk-assessment requirements," implementing laws that require AI systems and their outputs to be clearly distinguished from humans and their outputs, and investing in tools to mitigate deception.

"We as a society need as much time as we can get to prepare for the more advanced deception of future AI products and open-source models," Park told Cell Press. "As the deceptive capabilities of AI systems become more advanced, the dangers they pose to society will become increasingly serious."

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