ABSTRACT
The close alignment of television with local power structures explains why the internationalization of television flows since the deployment of satellite technology in 1965 set off anxieties about the pervasive presence of programming from different cultural latitudes. As a “particular cultural technology”, television has overhauled forms of public argument, discussion and entertainment, whilst breeding entirely new ones when it started to conquer the living rooms of middle-class families in the Americas. The reliance of these “media transnationals of the Third World” on technology, formats, commercialization models and capital from the US, however, were considered as evidence that their development was “associated-dependent”. While it is unquestionable that television cultures in the Americas have opened up to more diversity with respect to the sources of content, it remains to future empirical studies to assess the repercussion of the challenges for television cultures in the North and South.
