From Telenovelas To Netflix Transnational Transverse Television In Latin America

This book is about television in Latin America. Its national and regional industries create most television programming there within genres developed over time in the region. However, part of the programming has always come from the U.S., Europe and elsewhere. With cable, satellite and now streaming TV, that inflow of foreign programming has increased substantially. While many in the audience still prefer national or regional programs for their cultural proximity, an increasing number among the upper-middle and middle classes, particularly the young, are turning to the new foreign services, like Netflix, Amazon and Disney for class distinction, cosmopolitanism or other motives. Among the television industries, global, regional and national actors are creating a variety of programs and channels (broadcast, pay-TV and streaming) to segment and appeal to different parts of the audience.

This book presents the Cultural Transduction framework as a conceptual tool to understand the processes that media and cultural products undergo when they cross cultural and national borders. Using a series of examples from pop culture, including films, television series, video games, memes and other digital products, this book provides the reader with a wider understanding of the procedures, interests, roles, assumptions and challenges, which foster or hinder the travels of media and cultural products. Compiling in one single narrative a series of case studies, theoretical debates and international examples, the book looks at a number of exchanges and transformations enabled by both traditional media trade and the internet. It reflects on the increase of cultural products crossing over regional, national and international borders in the form of video games and TV formats, through music and video distribution platforms or via digital social media networks, to highlight discussions about the characteristics of border-crossing digital production. The cultural transduction framework is developed from discussions in communication and media studies, as well as from debates in adaptation and translation studies, to map out the travels of media and cultural products from an interdisciplinary perspective. It provides a tool to analyse the markets, products, people and processes that enable or constrain the movement of products across borders, for those interested in the practical aspects that underlie the negotiation and transformation of products inserted into different cultural market settings. This volume provides a new framework for understanding the travels of cultural products, which will be of use to students and scholars in the area of media industry studies, business studies, digital media studies, international media law and economics.

This book examines the process of transnationalization of Latin American television industries. Drawing upon six representative case studies spanning the subcontinent’s vast and diverse geo-political and cultural landscape, the book offers a unique exploration of the ongoing formation of interrelated cultural, technological, and political landscapes, from the mid-1980s to the present. The chapters analyse the international circulation of the genres and formats of entertainment television across the subcontinent to explore the main driving forces propelling the production and consumption of television contents in the region, and what we can learn about the cultural and social identities of Latin American audiences following the journey of genres, formats, and media personalities beyond their own national borders. Taking a contemporary interdisciplinary approach to the study of transnational television industries, this book will be of significant interest to scholars and students of television and film studies, communication studies, Latin American studies, global media studies, and media and cultural industries.

This book examines the nexus of East Asian media, culture, and digital technologies in the early 21st century from a Global South perspective. Providing an empirically rich analysis of the emergence of Asian culture, histories, texts, and state policies as they relate to both Asian media and global media, the author discusses relevant theoretical frameworks as East Asian popular culture and media have shifted the contours of globalization. After overviewing Western media/cultural theories and histories, the book explores the ways in which East Asia-focused analytical frameworks are able to shift people’s understanding of globalization and media, drawing upon examples from different East Asian countries to illustrate how current cultural flows have influenced and have been influenced by a handful of dimensions. Offering an important contribution to understanding the historical trajectory and recent developments of East Asia media, this book will interest students and scholars of media, communication, popular culture, cultural studies, Asian studies, politics and sociology.

An international team of experts explores how streaming services are disrupting traditional storytelling. The rise of streaming has dramatically transformed how audiences consume media. Over the last decade, subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) services, including Netflix, Prime Video, and Disney+, have begun commissioning and financing their own original movies and TV shows, changing the way and the rate at which content is produced across the globe, from Mexico City to Mumbai. Streaming Video maps this international production boom and what it means for producers, audiences, and storytellers. Through eighteen richly textured case studies, ranging from original Korean dramas on Netflix to BluTV’s experimental Turkish series, the book investigates how streaming services both disrupt and maintain storytelling traditions in specific national contexts. To what extent, and how, are streamers expanding norms of television and film storytelling in different parts of the world? Are streamers enabling the creation of content that would not otherwise exist? What are the implications for different viewers, in different countries, with different tastes? Together, the chapters critically assess the impacts of streaming on twenty-first century audiovisual storytelling and rethink established understandings of transnational screen flows.

This concise book provides an accessible overview of the history of the telenovela in Latin America within a pan-Latino context, including the way the genre crosses borders between Latin America and the United States. Telenovelas, a distinct variety of soap operas originating in Latin America, take up key issues of race, class, sexual identity and violence, interweaving stories with melodramatic romance and quests for identity. June Carolyn Erlick examines the social implications of telenovela themes in the context of the evolution of television as an integral part of the modernization of Latin American countries.

Soap opera speaks a universal language, presenting characters and plots that resonate far beyond the culture that creates them. Latin American soap operas—telenovelas—have found enthusiastic audiences throughout the Americas and Europe, as well as in Egypt, Russia, and China, while Mexican narco-dramas have become highly popular among Latinos in the United States. In this first comprehensive analysis of telenovelas and narco-dramas, Hugo Benavides assesses the dynamic role of melodrama in creating meaningful cultural images to explain why these genres have become so successful while more elite cultural productions are declining in popularity. Benavides offers close readings of the Colombian telenovelas Betty la fea (along with its Mexican and U.S. reincarnations La fea más bella and Ugly Betty), Adrián está de visita, and Pasión de gavilanes; the Brazilian historical telenovela Xica; and a variety of Mexican narco-drama films. Situating these melodramas within concrete historical developments in Latin America, he shows how telenovelas and narco-dramas serve to unite peoples of various countries and provide a voice of rebellion against often-oppressive governmental systems. Indeed, Benavides concludes that as one of the most effective and lucrative industries in Latin America, telenovelas and narco-dramas play a key role in the ongoing reconfiguration of social identities and popular culture.

This book is based on a mixed-method, longitudinal study of the transmission, production, and reception of Spanish- and Portuguese-language television in four global cities with expanding Latinx diasporic populations. The author tracks and analyzes the production practices of Spanish-language broadcasters, the highlights of news and cultural affairs coverage, changes in the shooting locations and sociocultural discourses of telenovelas (both imported from Latin America and domestically produced), the presence of SLTV in the national political sphere, and the modes of media access and opinions of over 400 viewers in Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami, and Madrid. The possibilities created by SLTV and PLTV for achieving a sense of enfranchisement are explored. Intended for a general, as well as academic reading audience. Catherine L. Benamou is Associate Professor in the Department of Film & Media Studies and the Ph.D. Program in Visual Studies at the University of California, Irvine, USA.