South Africa, Dec. 30 -- Wunpini Fatimata Mohammed, Cornell University

Finally, west Africa's creativity and brilliance would be formally recognised on the world stage. Netflix Naija's purpose was to produce local content for Netflix just like Netflix South Africa and later Netflix Kenya.

Some film-makers have been wary of US cultural imperialism happening through the market dominance of Netflix and other US streamers. Others have rushed to the streamer to sign deals that will gain their films and TV shows a global audience.

Netflix's interest in African stories comes with a colonial power dynamic that research and scholarship has not fully explored. As a scholar of media and communication, I recently examined the effect US streamers a...