W hat allows a reality show, telenovela, or game show to become a
W hat allows a reality show, telenovela, or game show to become a
transnational hit? The concept of cultural proximity (Straubhaar, 1991, this volume) and previous success in the national market are precon ditions but not completely accurate predictors of transnational success. As discussed in Chapter 2, the nature of cultural-linguistic markets (Sinclair,
Jacka, & Cunningham, 1 996; Wilkinson, 1 995) helps explain some of the success of programs like the telenovela within Latin America, but not into new markets. Another useful idea is the emergence of subgenres within
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This chapter is coauthored by J. Straubhaar and A. C. La Pastina. Parts of this chapter are adapted from A. C. La Pastina and J. Straubhaar,
"Multiple Proximities Between Television Genres and Audiences: The Schism Between Telenovelas' Global Distribution and Local Consumption," Gazette, 67(3), 271-288 (2005) . Used with permission from Sage Publications.
1 96 Chapter 8 the telenovela that speak to different audiences within both national and
regional cultural-linguistic audiences (Hernandez, 200 1 ) .
How could a Mexican telenovela, produced i n a foreign market, be more attractive to viewers than a national product that has better produc tion values and a subtext that deals with important issues within the nation ? This seems to be the dilemma of reception of transnational prod ucts. Most of the data indicates that viewers prefer locally produced pro grams to foreign imports (a line of inquiry started by de Sola Pool in the 1970s, which Straubhaar articulated as cultural proximity in 199 1 ) . Nevertheless, some o f the transnational success of Brazilian (and Latin American) telenovelas seems to indicate a trend that could challenge this truism. Some of these programs were successful in spite of abundant local production in the receiving country-for example the Brazilian telenovela Terra Nostra in Italy.
We argue that audience preferences are indeed formed as part of the overall trend toward cultural proximity within both national and cultural linguistic boundaries. However, as lwabuchi (2002) pointed out, cultural proximity must be seen not as an essential quality of culture or audience orientation but rather as a shifting phenomenon in dialectical relation to other cultural forces. Within the logics of cultural proximity and cultural attraction in cultural-linguistic spaces, many other forces also apply. In this chapter, we examine several. First is the attraction or proximity of genres, from the virtually worldwide attraction of melodrama as an overall or macro genre (Martin-Barbero, 1 993), to subgenres within the telenovela
(already a subgenre of melodrama). Genres and subgenres can exert attrac tions to specific audiences that cross and even contradict the overall logic of cultural proximity, although genres tend to work within cultural proximity most of the time. Second is the sense of shared historical experience of specific groups within nations. For example, contemporary audiences in south ern Italy seem to share a specific sense of cultural proximity to parts of Brazilian history defined by Italian immigrants who largely came from southern Italy. So those southern Italians might choose against their cultural proximity to national Italian production, preferring imported Brazilian telenovelas that focus on their shared history of emigration (from Italy) and immigration (to Brazil).
This study examines the interplay of several forces in international tele vision. The primary focus is various competing, seemingly contradictory trends in television production and flow. Although many countries create more and more of their own television programs ( Chapter 6), television programs continue to flow between countries (Chapter 7). Those flows
Choosing Between National, Transnational, Global Television 197 include increasing numbers of telenovelas and other genres flowing to
unusual cultural spaces and markets, beyond those predicted by a strict appeal to cultural similarity or proximity (Straubhaar, 1 991). In this chapter,
we also examine some of the complex, even contradictory forms and audi ence appeals of other kinds of proximity: genre proximity, value proxim
ity, and thematic proximity. These theoretical categories for television flow are then considered within the context of an ongoing hybridization of television genres, which implies an underlying hybridization among their
appeals to their audiences as well. To understand these new, more complex flows requires exploring and understanding multiple forms of proximity
between the cultures-global, regional, and national-represented in imported television programs and the audiences that choose to watch them. Cultural
and other proximities must be understood in terms of their relationship to cultural capital, so we explore these ideas both theoretically and empiri
cally via interviews in Brazil. Another major focus of this chapter is indeed the critical role of cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1 9 84, 1986) in structuring interests and choices of tele vision audiences. Reception of television is guided by various individual
and cultural proximities to local and national cultures, values, and so on. But those proximities are structured by a variety of situations in which
people find themselves. To paraphrase an often quoted line of Marx's 1 8th Brumaire, "People make choices but not in the circumstances of their choos ing. " 1 As in earlier sections of this book, Bourdieu's forms of capital, cul tural, economic, and social are useful ways to represent the ways in which people's agency and choices work with resources and constraints based in class and other social formations. We will explore those ideas via a case study of Brazil.