Reframing Media, Technology, and Culture in Latin/o America – serie

Telling Migrant Stories explores how contemporary documentary film gives voice to Latin American immigrants whose stories would not otherwise be heard. Contributors analyze films including Harvest of Empire, Sin País, The Vigil, De Nadie, Operation Peter Pan: Flying Back to Cuba, Abuelos, La Churona, and Which Way Home as well as internet documentaries distributed via platforms like YouTube. They examine the ways these films highlight the individual agency of immigrants as well as the global systemic conditions that lead to mass migrations from Latin American countries to the United States and Europe.

The Insubordination of Photography is the first book to analyze how various collectives, organizations, and independent media used photography to expose and protest the crimes of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet's regime. Featuring never-before-seen photos and other archival material, this book reflects on the integral role of images in public memory and issues of reparation and justice.

As digital media and technologies transform the study of the humanities around the world, this volume provides the first hemispheric view of the practice of digital humanities in the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking Americas. These essays examine how participation and research in new media have helped configure identities and collectivities in the region.Featuring case studies from throughout Latin America, including the United States Latinx community, contributors analyze documentary films, television series, and social media to show how digital technologies create hybrid virtual spaces and facilitate connections across borders. They investigate how Latinx bloggers and online activists navigate governmental restrictions in order to connect with the global online community. These essays also incorporate perspectives of race, gender, and class that challenge the assumption that technology is a democratizing force. Digital Humanities in Latin America illuminates the cultural, political, and social implications of the ways Latinx communities engage with new technologies. In doing so, it connects digital humanities research taking place in Latin America with that of the Anglophone world. A volume in the series Reframing Media, Technology, and Culture in Latin/o America, edited by Héctor Fernández L'Hoeste and Juan Carlos Rodríguez

In the years since his death in 1993, Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar has become a globally recognized symbol of crime, wealth, power, and masculinity. In this long-overdue exploration of Escobar's impact on popular culture, Aldona Bialowas Pobutsky shows how his legacy inspired the development of narcoculture—television, music, literature, and fashion representing the drug-trafficking lifestyle—in Colombia and around the world.Pobutsky looks at the ways the "Escobar brand" surfaces in bars, restaurants, and clothing lines; in Colombia's tourist industry; and in telenovelas, documentaries, and narco memoirs about his life, which in turn have generated popular interest in other drug traffickers such as Griselda Blanco and Miami's "cocaine cowboys." Pobutsky illustrates how the Colombian state strives to erase his memory while Escobar's notoriety only continues to increase in popular culture through the transnational media. She argues that the image of Escobar is inextricably linked to Colombia's internal tensions in the areas of cocaine politics, gender relations, class divisions, and political corruption and that his "brand" perpetuates the country's reputation as a center of organized crime, to the dismay of the Colombian people. This book is a fascinating study of how the world perceives Colombia and how Colombia's citizens understand their nation's past and present.A volume in the series Reframing Media, Technology, and Culture in Latin/o America, edited by Héctor Fernández L'Hoeste and Juan Carlos Rodríguez

In the most comprehensive history of Spanish-language television in the United States to date, Craig Allen traces the development of two prominent yet little-studied powerhouses, Univision and Telemundo. Allen tells the inside story of how these networks fought enormous odds to rise as giants of mass communication within an English-dominated society.The book begins in San Antonio, Texas, in 1961 with the launch of the first Spanish-language station in the country. From it rose the Spanish International Network (SIN), which would later become Univision. Conceived by Mexican broadcasting mogul Emilio Azcárraga Vidaurreta and created by unsung American television pioneers, Unvision grew to provide a vast amount of international programming, including popular telenovelas, and was the first U.S. network delivered by satellite. After Telemundo was founded in the 1980s by Saul Steinberg and Harry Silverman, the two networks battled over audiences and saw dramatic changes in leadership. Today, Univision and Telemundo are multibillion-dollar television providers that equal ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox in scale and stature. While Univision remains a beacon of U.S. television's internationalization, Telemundo—owned by NBC—is a worldwide leader in producing Spanish-language programs.Using archival sources and original interviews to reconstruct power struggles and behind-the-scenes intrigue, Allen uses this exciting narrative to question monolingual and Anglo-centered versions of U.S. television history. He demonstrates the endurance, innovation, and popularity of Spanish-language television, arguing that its story is essential to understanding the Latinx history of contemporary America.

In this book, Eli Carter explores the ways in which the movement away from historically popular telenovelas toward new television and internet series is creating dramatic shifts in how Brazil imagines itself as a nation, especially within the context of an increasingly connected global mediascape. For more than half a century, South America's largest over-the-air network, TV Globo, produced long-form melodramatic serials that cultivated the notion of the urban, upper-middle-class white Brazilian. Carter looks at how the expansion of internet access, the popularity of web series, the rise of independent production companies, and new legislation not only challenged TV Globo's market domination but also began to change the face of Brazil's growing audiovisual landscape. Combining sociohistorical, economic, and legal contextualization with close readings of audiovisual productions, Carter argues that a fragmented media has opened the door to new voices and narratives that represent a more diverse Brazilian identity. A volume in the series Reframing Media, Technology, and Culture in Latin/o America, edited by Héctor Fernández L'Hoeste and Juan Carlos Rodríguez.

The triumph of the Cuban Revolution gave the Communist Party a monopoly over both politics and the mass media. However, with the subsequent global proliferation of new information and communication technologies, Cuban citizens have become active participants in the worldwide digital revolution. While the Cuban internet has long been characterized by censorship, high costs, slow speeds, and limited access, this volume argues that since 2013, technological developments have allowed for a fundamental reconfiguration of the cultural, economic, social, and political spheres of the Revolutionary project.The essays in this volume cover various transformations within this new digital revolution, examining both government-enabled paid public web access as well as creative workarounds that Cubans have designed to independently produce, distribute, and access digital content. Contributors trace how media ventures, entrepreneurship, online marketing, journalism, and cultural e-zines have been developing on the island alongside global technological and geopolitical changes.As Cuba continues to expand internet access and as citizens challenge state policies on the speed, breadth, and freedom of that access, Cuba's Digital Revolution provides a fascinating example of the impact of technology in authoritarian states and transitional democracies. While the streets of Cuba may still belong to Castro's Revolution, this volume argues, it is still unclear to whom Cuban cyberspace belongs.

This volume presents examples of how digital technologies are being used by people of African descent in South America and the Caribbean, a topic that has been overlooked within the field of digital humanities. These case studies show that in the last few decades, Black Latinx communities have been making themselves visible and asserting longstanding claims and rights through digital tools and platforms, which have been essential for enacting discussions and creating new connections between diverse groups.Afro-Latinx Digital Connections includes both research articles and interviews with practitioners who are working to create opportunities for marginalized communities. Projects discussed in this volume range from an Afrodescendant digital archive in Argentina, blog networks in Cuba, an NGO dedicated to democratizing technology in Brazilian favelas, and the recruitment of digital media to fight racism in Peru. Contributors demonstrate that these tools need not be state-of-the-art to be effective and that they are often most useful when employed to sustain a resilience that is deep and historically grounded.Digital connections are shown here as a means to achieve social justice and to create complex self-representations that challenge racist images of Afrodescendant peoples and monolithic conceptions of humanity. This volume expands the scope of digital humanities and challenges views of the field as a predominantly white discipline.

The Lost Cinema of Mexico is the first volume to challenge the dismissal of Mexican filmmaking during the 1960s through 1980s, an era long considered a low-budget departure from the artistic quality and international acclaim of the nation's earlier Golden Age. This pivotal collection examines the critical implications of discovering, uncovering, and recovering forgotten or ignored films.This largely unexamined era of film reveals shifts in Mexican culture, economics, and societal norms as state-sponsored revolutionary nationalism faltered. During this time, movies were widely embraced by the public as a way to make sense of the rapidly changing realities and values connected to Mexico's modernization. These essays shine a light on many genres that thrived in these decades: rock churros, campy luchador movies, countercultural superocheros, Black melodramas, family films, and chili westerns.Redefining a time usually seen as a cinematic "crisis," this volume offers a new model of the film auteur shaped by productive tension between highbrow aesthetics, industry shortages, and national audiences. It also traces connections from these Mexican films to Latinx, Latin American, and Hollywood cinema at large.

An incisive analysis of contemporary crime film in Brazil, this book focuses on how movies in this genre represent masculinity and how their messages connect to twenty-first-century sociopolitical issues. Jeremy Lehnen argues that these films promote an agenda in support of the nation's recent swing toward authoritarianism that culminated in the 2018 election of far-right president Jair Bolsonaro.Lehnen examines the integral role of masculinity in several archetypal crime films, most of which foreground urban violence, including Cidade de Deus, Quase Dois Irmãos, Tropa de Elite, O Homem do Ano, and O Doutrinador. Within these films, Lehnen finds representations that criminalize the poor, marginalized male; emasculate the civilian middle-class male intellectual, casting him as unable to respond to crime; and portray state security as the only power able to stem increasing crime rates.Drawing on insights from masculinity studies, Lehnen contends that Brazilian crime films are ideologically charged mediums that assert and normalize the presence of the neo-authoritarian male within society. This book demonstrates how gendered scripts can become widely accepted by audiences and contribute to very real power structures beyond the sphere of cinema.

The Lost Cinema of Mexico is the first volume to challenge the dismissal of Mexican filmmaking during the 1960s through 1980s, an era long considered a low-budget departure from the artistic quality and international acclaim of the nation's earlier Golden Age. This pivotal collection examines the critical implications of discovering, uncovering, and recovering forgotten or ignored films.This largely unexamined era of film reveals shifts in Mexican culture, economics, and societal norms as state-sponsored revolutionary nationalism faltered. During this time, movies were widely embraced by the public as a way to make sense of the rapidly changing realities and values connected to Mexico's modernization. These essays shine a light on many genres that thrived in these decades: rock churros, campy luchador movies, countercultural superocheros, Black melodramas, family films, and chili westerns.Redefining a time usually seen as a cinematic "crisis," this volume offers a new model of the film auteur shaped by productive tension between highbrow aesthetics, industry shortages, and national audiences. It also traces connections from these Mexican films to Latinx, Latin American, and Hollywood cinema at large.

In the media, migrants are often portrayed as criminals; they are frequently dehumanized, marginalized, and unable to share their experiences. Telling Migrant Stories explores how contemporary documentary film gives voice to Latin American immigrants whose stories would not otherwise be heard.The essays in the first part of the volume consider the documentary as a medium for Latin American immigrants to share their thoughts and experiences on migration, border crossings, displacement, and identity. Contributors analyze films including Harvest of Empire, Sin país, The Vigil, De nadie, Operation Peter Pan: Flying Back to Cuba, Abuelos, La Churona, and Which Way Home, as well as internet documentaries distributed via platforms such as Vimeo and YouTube. They examine the ways these films highlight the individual agency of immigrants as well as the global systemic conditions that lead to mass migrations from Latin American countries to the United States and Europe.The second part of the volume features transcribed interviews with documentary filmmakers, including Luis Argueta, Jenny Alexander, Tin Dirdamal, Heidi Hassan, and María Cristina Carrillo Espinosa. They discuss the issues surrounding migration, challenges they faced in the filmmaking process, the impact their films have had, and their opinions on documentary film as a force of social change. They emphasize that because the genre is grounded in fact rather than fiction, it has the ability to profoundly impact audiences in a way narrative films cannot. Documentaries prompt viewers to recognize the many worlds migrants depart from, to become immersed in the struggles portrayed, and to consider the stories of immigrants with compassion and solidarity.Contributors: Ramón Guerra, Lizardo Herrera, Jared List, Esteban Loustaunau, Manuel F. Medina, Ada Ortúzar-Young, Thomas Piñeros Shields, Juan G. Ramos, Lauren Shaw, Zaira Zarza. A volume in the series Reframing Media, Technology, and Culture in Latin/o America, edited by Héctor Fernández L'Hoeste and Juan Carlos Rodríguez

The triumph of the Cuban Revolution gave the Communist Party a monopoly over both politics and the mass media. However, with the subsequent global proliferation of new information and communication technologies, Cuban citizens have become active participants in the worldwide digital revolution. While the Cuban internet has long been characterized by censorship, high costs, slow speeds, and limited access, this volume argues that since 2013, technological developments have allowed for a fundamental reconfiguration of the cultural, economic, social, and political spheres of the Revolutionary project.The essays in this volume cover various transformations within this new digital revolution, examining both government-enabled paid public web access and creative workarounds that Cubans have designed to independently produce, distribute, and access digital content. Contributors trace how media ventures, entrepreneurship, online marketing, journalism, and cultural e-zines have been developing on the island alongside global technological and geopolitical changes.As Cuba continues to expand internet access and as citizens challenge state policies on the speed, breadth, and freedom of that access, Cuba’s Digital Revolution provides a fascinating example of the impact of technology in authoritarian states and transitional democracies. While the streets of Cuba may still belong to Castro’s Revolution, this volume argues that it is still unclear to whom Cuban cyberspace belongs.Contributors:Larry Press | Edel Lima Sarmiento | Olga Khrustaleva | Alexei Padilla Herrera | Eloy Viera Cañive | Marie Laure Geoffray | Ted A. Henken | Sara Garcia Santamaria | Anne Natvig | Carlos Manuel Rodríguez Arechavaleta | Mireya Márquez-Ramírez, Ph.D.| Abel Somohano Fernández | Rebecca Ogden | Jennifer Cearns | Walfrido Dorta | Paloma DuongPublication of the paperback edition made possible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Latin American Studies Association Visual Culture Section Best Book PrizeLatin American Studies Association Historia Reciente y Memoria Section Best Book PrizeThe role of documentary photography in exposing and protesting the crimes of a dictatorship. After Augusto Pinochet rose to power in Chile in 1973, his government abducted, abused, and executed thousands of his political opponents. The Insubordination of Photography is the first book to analyze how various collectives, organizations, and independent media used photography to expose and protest the crimes of Pinochet’s authoritarian regime.Ángeles Donoso Macaya discusses the ways human rights groups such as the Vicariate of Solidarity used portraits of missing persons in order to make forced disappearances visible. She also calls attention to forensic photographs that served as incriminating evidence of government killings in the landmark Lonquén case. Donoso Macaya argues that the field of documentary photography in Chile was challenged and shaped by the precariousness of the nation’s politics and economics and shows how photojournalists found creative ways to challenge limitations imposed on the freedom of the press.In a culture saturated by disinformation and cover-ups and restricted by repression and censorship, photography became an essential tool to bring the truth to light. Featuring never-before-seen photographs and other archival material, this book reflects on the integral role of images in public memory and issues of reparation and justice. A volume in the series Reframing Media, Technology, and Culture in Latin/o America, edited by Héctor Fernández L’Hoeste and Juan Carlos Rodríguez Publication of the paperback edition made possible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

How an overlooked film industry became a cinematic forceThe first book in English dedicated to the study of Central American film, this volume explores the main trends, genres, and themes that define this emerging industry. The seven nations of the region have seen an unprecedented growth in film production during the twenty-first century with the creation of over 200 feature-length films compared with just one in the 1990s. This volume provides a needed overview of one of the least explored cinemas in the world. In these essays, various scholars of film and cultural studies from around the world provide insights into the continuities and discontinuities between twentieth- and twenty-first-century cinematic production on the isthmus. They discuss how political, social, and environmental factors, along with new production modes and aesthetics, have led to a corpus of films that delve into issues of the past and present such as postwar memory, failed revolutions, trauma, migration, popular culture, minority populations, and gender disparities. From Salvadoran documentaries to Costa Rican comedies and Panamanian sports films, the movies analyzed here demonstrate the region’s flourishing film industry and the diversity of approaches found within it. The Rise of Central American Film in the Twenty-First Centurypays homage to an overlooked cultural phenomenon and shows the importance of regional cinema studies. A volume in the series Reframing Media, Technology, and Culture in Latin/o America, edited by Héctor Fernández L’Hoeste and Juan Carlos Rodríguez. Publication of this work made possible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The first history of Spanish-language television in the United StatesIn the most comprehensive history of Spanish-language television in the United States to date, Craig Allen traces the development of two prominent yet little-studied powerhouses, Univision and Telemundo. Allen tells the inside story of how these networks fought enormous odds to rise as giants of mass communication within an English-dominated society.The book begins in San Antonio, Texas, in 1961 with the launch of the first Spanish-language station in the country. From it rose the Spanish International Network (SIN), which would later become Univision. Conceived by Mexican broadcasting mogul Emilio Azcárraga Vidaurreta and created by unsung American television pioneers, Unvision grew to provide a vast amount of international programming, including popular telenovelas, and was the first U.S. network delivered by satellite. After Telemundo was founded in the 1980s by Saul Steinberg and Harry Silverman, the two networks battled over audiences and saw dramatic changes in leadership. Today, Univision and Telemundo are multibillion-dollar television providers that equal ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox in scale and stature. While Univision remains a beacon of U.S. television’s internationalization, Telemundo—owned by NBC—is a worldwide leader in producing Spanish-language programs.Using archival sources and original interviews to reconstruct power struggles and behind-the-scenes intrigue, Allen uses this exciting narrative to question monolingual and Anglo-centered versions of U.S. television history. He demonstrates the endurance, innovation, and popularity of Spanish-language television, arguing that its story is essential to understanding the Latinx history of contemporary America.A volume in the series Reframing Media, Technology, and Culture in Latin/o America, edited by Héctor Fernández L’Hoeste and Juan Carlos Rodríguez

A hemispheric view of the practice of digital humanities in the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking AmericasAs digital media and technologies transform the study of the humanities around the world, this volume provides the first hemispheric view of the practice of digital humanities in the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking Americas. These essays examine how participation and research in new media have helped configure identities and collectivities in the region.Featuring case studies from throughout Latin America, including the United States Latinx community, contributors analyze documentary films, television series, and social media to show how digital technologies create hybrid virtual spaces and facilitate connections across borders. They investigate how Latinx bloggers and online activists navigate governmental restrictions in order to connect with the global online community.These essays also incorporate perspectives of race, gender, and class that challenge the assumption that technology is a democratizing force. Digital Humanities in Latin America illuminates the cultural, political, and social implications of the ways Latinx communities engage with new technologies. In doing so, it connects digital humanities research taking place in Latin America with that of the Anglophone world.Contributors: Paul Alonso | Morgan Ames | Eduard Arriaga | Anita Say Chan | Ricardo Dominguez | Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo | Héctor Fernández L’Hoeste | Jennifer M. Lozano | Ana Lígia Silva Medeiros | Gimena del Río Riande | Juan Carlos Rodríguez | Isabel Galina Russell | Angharad Valdivia | Anastasia Valecce | Cristina VenegasA volume in the series Reframing Media, Technology, and Culture in Latin/o America, edited by Héctor Fernández L’Hoeste and Juan Carlos Rodríguez

This volume is the first to provide a comprehensive Latin American perspective on the role of humor in the Spanish- and Portuguese-language internet, highlighting how the production and circulation of online humor influence the region’s relation to democracy and civil society and the production of meaning in everyday life.Several case studies consider memes, including discussions of political cartoons in Mexico and imagery that portrays the mismanagement of natural disasters in Puerto Rico. Essays on Brazil examine how memes are shared on WhatsApp by Jair Bolsonaro supporters and how the Instagram account Barbie Fascionista offers memes as political commentary. Other case studies consider video content, including the sketches of Argentinian comedian Guillermo Aquino, the short-form material of Chilean vlogger Germán Garmendia, and a satirical YouTube column created by journalists in Colombia. Contributors also offer new methodologies for studying the laughable on social media, including a model for analyzing fake Twitter accounts.Internet, Humor, and Nation in Latin America demonstrates that internet humor can generate novel means of public interaction with the political and cultural spheres and create greater expectations of governmental accountability and democratic participation. This volume shows the importance of paying serious attention to humorous digital content as part of contemporary culture.Contributors: Eva Paulina Bueno | Juan Poblete | Alberto Centeno-Pulido | Damián Fraticelli | Juan Carlos Rodríguez | Viktor Chagas | Paul Alonso | Ulisses Sawczuk da Silva | Héctor Fernández L'Hoeste | Alejandra Nallely Collado Campos | R. Sánchez-Rivera | Mélodine Sommier | Fábio Marques de Souza

How an overlooked film industry became a cinematic forceThe first book in English dedicated to the study of Central American film, this volume explores the main trends, genres, and themes that define this emerging industry. The seven nations of the region have seen an unprecedented growth in film production during the twenty-first century with the creation of over 200 feature-length films compared with just one in the 1990s. This volume provides a needed overview of one of the least explored cinemas in the world. In these essays, various scholars of film and cultural studies from around the world provide insights into the continuities and discontinuities between twentieth- and twenty-first-century cinematic production on the isthmus. They discuss how political, social, and environmental factors, along with new production modes and aesthetics, have led to a corpus of films that delve into issues of the past and present such as postwar memory, failed revolutions, trauma, migration, popular culture, minority populations, and gender disparities. From Salvadoran documentaries to Costa Rican comedies and Panamanian sports films, the movies analyzed here demonstrate the region’s flourishing film industry and the diversity of approaches found within it. The Rise of Central American Film in the Twenty-First Centurypays homage to an overlooked cultural phenomenon and shows the importance of regional cinema studies. A volume in the series Reframing Media, Technology, and Culture in Latin/o America, edited by Héctor Fernández L’Hoeste and Juan Carlos Rodríguez. Publication of this work made possible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

This volume is the first to provide a comprehensive Latin American perspective on the role of humor in the Spanish- and Portuguese-language internet, highlighting how the production and circulation of online humor influence the region’s relation to democracy and civil society and the production of meaning in everyday life.Several case studies consider memes, including discussions of political cartoons in Mexico and imagery that portrays the mismanagement of natural disasters in Puerto Rico. Essays on Brazil examine how memes are shared on WhatsApp by Jair Bolsonaro supporters and how the Instagram account Barbie Fascionista offers memes as political commentary. Other case studies consider video content, including the sketches of Argentinian comedian Guillermo Aquino, the short-form material of Chilean vlogger Germán Garmendia, and a satirical YouTube column created by journalists in Colombia. Contributors also offer new methodologies for studying the laughable on social media, including a model for analyzing fake Twitter accounts.Internet, Humor, and Nation in Latin America demonstrates that internet humor can generate novel means of public interaction with the political and cultural spheres and create greater expectations of governmental accountability and democratic participation. This volume shows the importance of paying serious attention to humorous digital content as part of contemporary culture.Contributors: Eva Paulina Bueno | Juan Poblete | Alberto Centeno-Pulido | Damián Fraticelli | Juan Carlos Rodríguez | Viktor Chagas | Paul Alonso | Ulisses Sawczuk da Silva | Héctor Fernández L'Hoeste | Alejandra Nallely Collado Campos | R. Sánchez-Rivera | Mélodine Sommier | Fábio Marques de Souza

How writers and artists use science fiction to speak to the current moment in the CaribbeanExploring the remarkable recent increase in works of science fiction originating in Spanish-speaking parts of the Caribbean and their diasporas, Tropical Time Machines shows how writers, filmmakers, musicians, and artists are using the language of the genre to comment on the region’s history and present-day realities.Discussing how previous Caribbean literature and film has characterized places including Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic as “out of sync” with Western time, occupying a repeating or static space, Emily Maguire argues that science fiction breaks these cycles and resituates the region temporally and spatially. In chapters on cyberpunk, zombies, post-apocalyptic narratives, and the ab-real, Maguire shows how recent cultural production analyzes and critiques the ways globalization and national leadership have reinforced the region’s marginalization amid economic and climate crises.Art that employs the science fictional mode makes room for a new vision of the Caribbean, Maguire demonstrates--an alternate perspective in which the region has agency in shaping its own narratives and trajectories. The texts themselves are time machines, enabling creators to protest inequalities of the present from the point of view of an imagined, transformed future.A volume in the series Reframing Media, Technology, and Culture in Latin/o America, edited by Héctor Fernández L’Hoeste and Juan Carlos RodríguezPublication of this work made possible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities

How new media is ushering in a more diverse Brazilian national identityIn this book, Eli Carter explores the ways in which the movement away from historically popular telenovelas toward new television and internet series is creating dramatic shifts in how Brazil imagines itself as a nation, especially within the context of an increasingly connected global mediascape. For more than half a century, South America’s largest over-the-air network, TV Globo, produced long-form melodramatic serials that cultivated the notion of the urban, upper-middle-class white Brazilian. Carter looks at how the expansion of internet access, the popularity of web series, the rise of independent production companies, and new legislation not only challenged TV Globo’s market domination but also began to change the face of Brazil’s growing audiovisual landscape. Combining sociohistorical, economic, and legal contextualization with close readings of audiovisual productions, Carter argues that a fragmented media has opened the door to new voices and narratives that represent a more diverse Brazilian identity. A volume in the series Reframing Media, Technology, and Culture in Latin/o America, edited by Héctor Fernández L’Hoeste and Juan Carlos Rodríguez.

How creators of online video critique politics and society and amplify public discourse in Latin American countries   This book analyzes how digital-native audiovisual satire has become increasingly influential in national public debates within Latin America. Paul Alonso illuminates the role of online video in filling gaps in sociopolitical critique left by television, traditional journalism, and commercial entertainment while exposing some of the prevalent tensions of the region. Alonso draws on interviews and analyzes media content to consider some of the most representative and influential satirical shows born on the internet and produced in Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Mexico, and Latinx communities in the United States. He discusses YouTubers Chumel Torres, Malena Pichot, Guille Aquino, Joanna Hausmann, and El Cacash; the Enchufe.tv collective; and the video columnists Maria Paulina Baena from La Pulla and Mariángela Urbina from Las Igualadas. These creators use professional and non-mainstream practices and resources to dismantle fake news, highlight social tensions, and offer in-depth content that goes beyond confrontational attacks. In contexts of highly ideological polarization, Alonso argues, digital satire is a unique type of hybrid alternative media that can articulate nonpartisan interpretations of reality while also questioning, deconstructing, and subverting the authoritative role of media. Satiric voices can offer an informed, reflexive, argumentative, or historically rooted perspective that amplifies public discourse and shapes changing notions of journalism and political communication in democratic societies.   A volume in the series Reframing Media, Technology, and Culture in Latin/o America, edited by Héctor Fernández L’Hoeste and Juan Carlos Rodríguez   Publication of this work made possible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

How creators of online video critique politics and society and amplify public discourse in Latin American countries   This book analyzes how digital-native audiovisual satire has become increasingly influential in national public debates within Latin America. Paul Alonso illuminates the role of online video in filling gaps in sociopolitical critique left by television, traditional journalism, and commercial entertainment while exposing some of the prevalent tensions of the region. Alonso draws on interviews and analyzes media content to consider some of the most representative and influential satirical shows born on the internet and produced in Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Mexico, and Latinx communities in the United States. He discusses YouTubers Chumel Torres, Malena Pichot, Guille Aquino, Joanna Hausmann, and El Cacash; the Enchufe.tv collective; and the video columnists Maria Paulina Baena from La Pulla and Mariángela Urbina from Las Igualadas. These creators use professional and non-mainstream practices and resources to dismantle fake news, highlight social tensions, and offer in-depth content that goes beyond confrontational attacks. In contexts of highly ideological polarization, Alonso argues, digital satire is a unique type of hybrid alternative media that can articulate nonpartisan interpretations of reality while also questioning, deconstructing, and subverting the authoritative role of media. Satiric voices can offer an informed, reflexive, argumentative, or historically rooted perspective that amplifies public discourse and shapes changing notions of journalism and political communication in democratic societies.A volume in the series Reframing Media, Technology, and Culture in Latin/o America, edited by Héctor Fernández L’Hoeste and Juan Carlos Rodríguez Publication of this work made possible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Exploring how Latin American print culture has informed global exchange   The first volume in English to focus on Latin American serialized print culture, Periodicals in Latin America assembles research on a diverse range of publications, including avant-garde reviews, comics, specialized journals, mass-market magazines, and political periodicals, from the late nineteenth century to the present day. In this book, scholars from a variety of disciplines examine both celebrated and little-known periodicals to demonstrate how publications supported emerging movements such as Indigenismo and feminism; undermined hegemonic conceptions of statehood and national identity; and questioned ideas about the relationship between the visual, literary, and political. Bringing Latin American print culture together with research and theories from the largely Anglophone field of periodical studies, this volume contests readings that discount the region’s periodicals, situating Latin America as a contributor to—not just a recipient of—global exchanges. Contributors also challenge the idea that periodicals are only useful for the insights they can offer into history, championing close attention to their material and materiality. The writers in this book reflect on the unique qualities and divergences of the region’s periodicals from those of other parts of the world and the need for different approaches to studying them. The volume bridges and brings into dialogue new research on print serials and their readers in the Spanish-, Portuguese-, and English-speaking worlds. Contributors:  Joanna Crow | María del Pilar Blanco | Héctor Fernández L'Hoeste | José Chávarry | Jorge Catalá | Isabella Cosse | M. Paula Bontempo | Sandra Szir | Camilla Sutherland | Luis Rebaza-Soraluz | Claire Lindsay | Valentino Gianuzzi | Juan Carlos Rodríguez | Sofía Mercader | Rielle Navitski | Luz Ainaí Morales Pino | Maria Chiara D’Argenio A volume in the series Reframing Media, Technology, and Culture in Latin/o America, edited by Héctor Fernández L’Hoeste and Juan Carlos Rodríguez

How writers and artists use science fiction to speak to the current moment in the CaribbeanExploring the remarkable recent increase in works of science fiction originating in Spanish-speaking parts of the Caribbean and their diasporas, Tropical Time Machines shows how writers, filmmakers, musicians, and artists are using the language of the genre to comment on the region’s history and present-day realities.Discussing how previous Caribbean literature and film has characterized places including Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic as “out of sync” with Western time, occupying a repeating or static space, Emily Maguire argues that science fiction breaks these cycles and resituates the region temporally and spatially. In chapters on cyberpunk, zombies, post-apocalyptic narratives, and the ab-real, Maguire shows how recent cultural production analyzes and critiques the ways globalization and national leadership have reinforced the region’s marginalization amid economic and climate crises.Art that employs the science fictional mode makes room for a new vision of the Caribbean, Maguire demonstrates--an alternate perspective in which the region has agency in shaping its own narratives and trajectories. The texts themselves are time machines, enabling creators to protest inequalities of the present from the point of view of an imagined, transformed future.A volume in the series Reframing Media, Technology, and Culture in Latin/o America, edited by Héctor Fernández L’Hoeste and Juan Carlos RodríguezPublication of this work made possible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities

How the legacy of Pablo Escobar inspired the development of narcoculture in Colombia and around the world In the years since his death in 1993, Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar has become a globally recognized symbol of crime, wealth, power, and masculinity. In this long-overdue exploration of Escobar’s impact on popular culture, Aldona Bialowas Pobutsky shows how his legacy inspired the development of narcoculture—television, music, literature, and fashion representing the drug-trafficking lifestyle—in Colombia and around the world.   Pobutsky looks at the ways the “Escobar brand” surfaces in bars, restaurants, and clothing lines; in Colombia’s tourist industry; and in telenovelas, documentaries, and narco memoirs about his life, which in turn have generated popular interest in other drug traffickers such as Griselda Blanco and Miami’s “cocaine cowboys.” Pobutsky illustrates how the Colombian state strives to erase his memory while Escobar’s notoriety only continues to increase in popular culture through the transnational media. She argues that the image of Escobar is inextricably linked to Colombia’s internal tensions in the areas of cocaine politics, gender relations, class divisions, and political corruption and that his “brand” perpetuates the country’s reputation as a center of organized crime, to the dismay of the Colombian people. This book is a fascinating study of how the world perceives Colombia and how Colombia’s citizens understand their nation’s past and present.   A volume in the series Reframing Media, Technology, and Culture in Latin/o America, edited by Héctor Fernández L’Hoeste and Juan Carlos Rodríguez.

How Black Latinx communities are using digital technology to achieve visibility and social justice This volume presents examples of how digital technologies are being used by people of African descent in South America and the Caribbean, a topic that has been overlooked within the field of digital humanities. These case studies show that in the last few decades, Black Latinx communities have been making themselves visible and asserting long-standing claims and rights through digital tools and platforms, which have been essential for enacting discussions and creating new connections between diverse groups.Afro-Latinx Digital Connections includes both research articles and interviews with practitioners who are working to create opportunities for marginalized communities. Projects discussed in this volume range from an Afrodescendant digital archive in Argentina, blog networks in Cuba, an NGO dedicated to democratizing technology in Brazilian favelas, and the recruitment of digital media to fight racism in Peru. Contributors demonstrate that these tools need not be state of the art to be effective and that they are often most useful when employed to sustain a resilience that is deep and historically grounded.Digital connections are shown here as a means to achieve social justice and to create complex self-representations that challenge racist images of Afrodescendant peoples and monolithic conceptions of humanity. This volume expands the scope of digital humanities and challenges views of the field as a predominantly white discipline.Contributors: Sandra AbdAllah-Álvarez Adebayo Adegbembo Maya Anderson-González Eduard Arriaga Silvana Bahia Yvonne Captain Monica Carrillo Yancy Castillo Alí Majul Maria Cecilia Martino Andrés VillarA volume in the series Reframing Media, Technology, and Culture in Latin/o America, edited by Héctor Fernández L’Hoeste and Juan Carlos Rodríguez

Analyzing how masculinity is portrayed in Brazilian crime film, connecting movie messages to twenty-first-century issues An incisive analysis of contemporary crime film in Brazil, this book focuses on how movies in this genre represent masculinity and how their messages connect to twenty-first-century sociopolitical issues. Jeremy Lehnen argues that these films promote an agenda in support of the nation’s recent swing toward authoritarianism that culminated in the 2018 election of far-right president Jair Bolsonaro.Lehnen examines the integral role of masculinity in several archetypal crime films, most of which foreground urban violence, including Cidade de Deus, Quase Dois Irmãos, Tropa de Elite, O Homem do Ano, and O Doutrinador. Within these films, Lehnen finds representations that criminalize the poor, marginalized male; emasculate the civilian middle-class male intellectual, casting him as unable to respond to crime; and portray state security as the only power able to stem increasing crime rates.Drawing on insights from masculinity studies, Lehnen contends that Brazilian crime films are ideologically charged mediums that assert and normalize the presence of the neo-authoritarian male within society. This book demonstrates how gendered scripts can become widely accepted by audiences and contribute to very real power structures beyond the sphere of cinema.A volume in the series Reframing Media, Technology, and Culture in Latin/o America, edited by Héctor Fernández L’Hoeste and Juan Carlos RodríguezPublication of this work made possible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.