Latin American Telenovelas: Affect, Citizenship and Interculturality. (original) (raw)

2015, In M. Alvarado, M. Buonanno, H. Gray, & T. Miller (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of television Studies. (pp. 245-269). London: SAGE

This chapter examines how the study of telenovelas in Latin America has been largely determined by the specificity of the field of media and cultural studies in the region. Firstly, it sketches how some theoretical approaches to the study of popular culture, -particularly the cultural place of melodrama in everyday life- have set the foundations for a heterogeneous and complex field of study on televisual melodrama. I argue that the specific configuration of media and cultural studies in Latin America is essential to the understanding of both the conditions in which the study of telenovelas emerged, and the subsequent results of these studies in relation to questions about the politics of TV production, consumption, economics and aesthetics. To illustrate my argument the most relevant examples of telenovelas research in Latin America are critically reviewed. Finally, I contend that such field of study has produced sophisticated insights about media and culture that needs yet to be fully recognised in Anglo-Saxon academia, while I also point out some urgent questions regarding the future of this rich intellectual tradition. Keywords: Telenovelas, Latin America, Melodrama, Politics, Economics, Audiences, History, Citizenship, Globalization, Aesthetics.