Abstract
John Sinclair and Joseph Straubhaar have accomplished a major, comprehensive, and integrated review and analysis of Latin American television industries. They not only pay special attention to the major markets of Mexico and Brazil, but also provide fascinating historical accounts of lesser known industries of other Latin American nations—in each case identifying commonalities and distinctive differences with respect to the region as a whole. Mexico’s Televisa is found to have dominated its domestic market more consistently and intensely, even, than Brazil’s Globo.
Sinclair is an Honorary Professorial Fellow in the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne, and Straubhaar is Professor of Communications at the University of Texas at Austin. They examine Latin American television export markets, in particular those they describe as Iberoamerica and Lusophone spaces that they consider are dominated by Mexico and Brazil in much the same way the United States dominates English-speaking markets. Mexico has eclipsed Spain and Brazil has eclipsed Portugal in their global television influence. Principles of cultural proximity and cultural discount are invoked to help explain export and import flows, although in addition to similarities of language there are commonalities of theme and genre that further extend export opportunities. Language and culture are found to be primary “market forces.” Of great significance is the fact that U.S. Hispanic networks have traditionally imported programming from the major producing countries of Latin America, even as Miami has become a major production center for both Latin America and the U.S. Hispanic networks. The capacity to cross borders is enhanced with digitization of programming and transmission.
The authors include a chapter on what they consider to be the overriding national character of Latin American television, albeit one with complex historical and dialectical ties to local, regional, and global influences. The authors confirm the overwhelmingly private, commercial and advertising-driven character of Latin American television, a U.S. model that was adopted and popularized by local entrepreneurs. Local entrepreneurs prized U.S. support for this choice of business model because the United States provided the counterweight to what local businesses feared might be interference from their own governments. U.S. influence “south of the border” has always been significant but reached its peak in the 1950s and 1960s in the supply of equipment, technical, and managerial assistance. U.S. influence has since been contained primarily by the market reality of local audience preference for local production. The authors moderate their appreciation of the importance of local entrepreneurs with detailed examination of periods in which governments (militaristic, autocratic, or democratic) have controlled or significantly influenced (e.g., through granting of licenses, supply of advertising and credit, and censorship) Latin American television. They also supply detailed and colorful examples of a distinctive Latin pattern of family commercial empires. Indeed, in different national settings and at various historical stages, Latin American television, they note, has readily adapted to traditional political cultures of corporatism, patronage, and populism.
Lest this be interpreted to suggest a thoroughly conservative bent, the authors find considerable evidence of innovation and entrepreneurship, including, for example, a Brazilian adaptation of a Japanese standard for interactive digital television that has been accepted by most of the rest of Latin America. Arguably, television is one industry in which the goal of import substitution has worked well for developing economies. On the downside, these trends have been accomplished in most countries by means of strongly monopolistic and oligopolistic tendencies, including the integration of production and distribution. Latin American networks that have risen to dominance in their domestic markets, note the authors, have always produced their own programming. Yet free-to-air mass audience national television remains the dominant continental mode of delivery (with the exception of Argentina) even in face of a growth in pay-TV, cable, and satellite services that still primarily serve the wealthier social classes. Local audiences for the most part have been slow to show capacity or interest in expenditure of scarce disposable income on proliferating sources of television supply. This may change with the convergence between telecommunications and television industries, which introduces triple-play packages of telephone, cable, or pay-TV and Internet access. Televisa has had more initial success in positioning itself in this market than Globo, but both corporations are likely to remain domestic and regional giants into the foreseeable future.
At various points in their analysis, the authors return to the phenomenon of telenovelas (among other genres) concluding that these have become fundamentally national adaptations, hybridizations, of global and regional influences. These demonstrate, they say, how global capitalism can support cultural production that has a very strong connection to both national and regional cultures. There is plenty of evidence of importation from outside the continent, most of it from major global format exporters, but tweaked by national networks to render a culturally proximate look and feel. In addition, there is a great deal of exchange and hybridization on a lateral, intra-regional basis, including the selling of scripts, that exploit linguistic and cultural proximities.
This book is a major contribution to the literature on Latin American media and is likely to remain so for quite some time. Its inflection toward the political-economy tradition of analysis does not impede ample and insightful discussion of (primarily entertainment) content, nor even of the generally copasetic relationship between Latin television content, consumerism, and neoliberalism.