Engines and Hinges: The Latin America Indie Producers’ Role in the Network Cities of System of Telenovela Production

• In Event: Grounding Transnational Communication Flows in Global Contexts: Emerging Research From Metropolitan Miami

Abstract

The expansion into Latin America of the U.S. Latino-oriented television industries, with Miami as commanding center, is characterized by a web of television corporate relationships with the purpose of exploiting the creativity, professional and cultural resources in key sites of media production across the region. A network cities system for telenovela production for hemispheric audiences has emerged in which national network and local independent house productions have been incorporated as key players to effectively appeal to Latina/o audiences at regional levels. Indies are engines of innovation, but at the same time also hinges through which global media strategies are articulated at local levels. In the process a new division of labor arises at a hemispheric level while specific cultural traits, Latina/o national identities, linguistic accents, and landscapes are privileged and other erased.

Author

• Juan Pinon, New York U