The Transnationalization of the Telenovela Industry,Territorial References,and the Production of Markets and Representations of Transnational Identities

Abstract

This article examines the process of the transnationalization of the telenovela industry from a perspective that seeks to articulate economic and cultural analysis. Several objectives guide this analysis: first, studying an industry of great importance in the daily life of hundreds of millions of human beings; second, criticizing through a case study the a priori assumptions that globalization processes are both “homogenizing” and “deterritorialized.” The case of the telenovela industry shows that while certain differences are erased from the productions, new ones appear, and that not only do old territorial references continue to be meaningful but that new territorial references emerge (e.g., the city of Miami); third, discussing some tensions underlying the production of telenovelas as a sector of television and other entertainment industries, with particular attention to the tensions related to the production of markets and of representations of identities, especially to the construction of a transnational “Hispanic” identity.