Negotiated visibility under governance-as-interface: Platformized minzu discourse in the Tibetan New Wave cinema on iQIYI

In China’s platform dominated media landscape, streaming services like iQIYI have become critical venues for minority cinema while also introducing new forms of visibility politics. This chapter examines the platformization of minzu (ethnic minority) discourse in Tibetan New Wave cinema on iQIYI through the theoretical lens of ‘negotiated visibility’ and ‘governance-as-interface.’ It conceptualizes the platform interface as an active site of governance that regulates which cultural content becomes visible, arguing that Tibetan filmmakers must continuously negotiate their films’ visibility under algorithmic constraints. Within this governance-as-interface framework, minority media attain only a negotiated visibility --a precarious presence shaped by platform algorithms and state imperatives. The chapter’s case study is Snow Leopard (2023), a Tibetan-language film by Pema Tseden co-produced by iQIYI. This example illustrates how interface level constraints delimit the visibility of minority narratives, and highlights the narrative strategies deployed to navigate and subvert these algorithmic visibility filters. Situated at the intersection of postcolonial theory and platform studies, the analysis reveals that digital infrastructures function as gatekeepers of minority representation. The chapter offers a critical insight that while streaming media open new avenues for underrepresented voices, they simultaneously enforce new forms of control over cultural visibility. Ultimately, it argues that minority visibility on platformized media is not given but must be continually negotiated through creative and tactical engagements with the platform’s governing interfaces. Streaming media emerge as contested sites of cultural governance, where the boundaries of minority representation are renegotiated.