Watching from the other side: Latin American <italic>telenovelas</italic> and Latina audiences.

Abstract

This dissertation explores the interaction between Latina audiences and Spanish-language soap operas or <italic>telenovelas</italic>. Spanish-language television programming offers its viewers particular images of Latina/o identity. These portrayals are driven by the political economy of U.S. commercial broadcasting, which is behind Spanish-language networks' desire to frame the Latina/o audience as a homogeneous ethnic market. By focusing on transnational <italic> telenovela</italic> texts, I will explore how specifically situated Latina viewers incorporate their experiences as ethnic and gendered subjects into negotiations with the models of acceptable Latinidad and femininity featured in <italic>telenovelas</italic>. Expressions of ethnic subjectivity vary with viewers' nativity/immigration history and class position. Similarly, women from dissimilar socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds construct and enact gendered identities differently. Drawing on cultural studies, communication studies and Chicana feminist theories, this project explores the multiple interpretations differently located female ethnic audiences make of the same text.