ABSTRACT
This chapter pursues a theme running throughout the book: the relationship between the U.S. industry and Spanish-language television production, distribution and consumption in Latin America. During the 1980s, accelerated development of new communication technologies coincided with significant realignment of existing communication industries even as new industry sectors emerged. Media “convergence” became a buzzword for these technological and organizational shifts (Baldwin, 1996). At the same time, neoliberal economic reforms reduced governments’ support of and regulatory influence over media-related industries while encouraging greater private sector participation in the creation and dissemination of cultural products (Lewis & Miller, 2003). Although the attention here is on the 1990s, an important period of growth and change, Latin American, especially Mexican, influence has persisted throughout the U.S. industry’s past, as revealed in prior chapters. That influence extended into the first two decades of the 2000s and will continue into the foreseeable future.
