The Edutainment in Soap Operas
Keywords:
Cultural Studies, Media Communication, Technology, Telenovelas, Educational EntertainmentAbstract
Telenovela is a dramatic and visual genre, widely popular in Spanish-speaking countries, and with a booming audience in other countries such as United States. Despite the enormous television market, and the high media recognition for its major actors, telenovela productions have been submitted to a condescending and paternalistic criticism by many scholars, who constrain them either to be mere instruments to indoctrinate society to escape its problems and conform with its living circumstances, or to accompany the feminine leisure time and entertain the popular and working classes. Nevertheless, less reductionist critics such as Trejo Silva, Martínez Zarandona, Guerra, Martín-Barbero or Tufte have made emphasis on the transforming and educational effect of their most recent plots, focusing especially on the change generated by the evolution of characters and situations. "Por ella soy Eva" (best 2013 telenovela by Mexican Award Association TVyNovela), depicts new and less asphyxiating genre roles for women and deals, with a very critical stand, with the existing sexism in Mexican society. Through the concept of educational entertainment, this novel paves the way for a revitalizing future for a genre that for many it was simply a copy of the 19th century melodramatic and serialized novel.
References
Allen, R.C. (1995). Introducción. En R.C. Allen. (Ed.), To be continued…Soap operas around the world (pp.1-26). New York, United States: Routledge.
Casas Pérez, M. (2005). Cultural Identity: Between Reality and Fiction. A Transformation of Genre and Roles in Mexican Telenovelas . Television & New Media . 6 (4), 407-414.
Covarrubias, K., Bautista, M., y Uribe, B.A. (1994). Cuéntame en qué se quedó . México D.F., México: Editorial Trillas.
Fuenzalida, V. (1994). La apropiación educativa de la telenovela . Santiago, Chile: CPU.
Greig, Tamsin. (2012). Soap operas. Art Imitating Life. BBC World Service. The Documentary. Recuperado de http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00qpj7g
Gubern, R. (1997). Fabulación audiovisual y mitogenia. En E. Verón y L. Escudero. (Eds.), Telenovela. Ficción popular y mutaciones culturales (pp.29-36). Barcelona, España: Gedisa.
Guerra, I. (2013). La telenovela: arquetipos dramáticos, publicidad y propaganda. Monografías.Com. Arte y Cultura . Recuperado de http://www.monografias.com/trabajos22/telenovelas/telenovelas.shtml#ixzz2Wowa0eMV
Hegarty, S. (2012). How Soap Operas Changed the World. BBC News Magazine. Recuperado de http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-17820571
Kondoloyi, A. (2013). ‘Por Ella Soy Eva’ Finale Reaches 8.8 Million Viewers and Makes Univision No.1 Network among Adults 18-49 and Adults 18-34. TV by the Numbers . Recuperado de http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2013/03/11/por-ella-soy-eva-finalereaches-8-million-viewers-and-makes-univision-no-1-network-among-adults-18-49-and-adults-18-34/172970/
Lacayo, V., Singhal, A., Shiley, S., y Holt Marston E. (2011). Medios que mueven: Entretenimiento Educativo para el Cambio Social . Oxfam Novib KIC.
La Pastina, A.C., Rego, C. M., y Straubhaar, J.D. (2003). The centrality of telenovelas in Latin America’s everyday life: Past tendencies, current knowledge, and future research. Global Media Journal. 2 (2), 1-15.
López, A.M. (1995). Our welcomed guests: Telenovelas in Latin America. En R.C. Allen. (Ed.), To be continued… Soap operas around the world (pp.256-275). New York, United States: Routledge.
Martín-Barbero, J. (1995). Memory and form in the Latin America soap opera. En R.C. Allen. (Ed.), To be continued…Soap operas around the world (pp.276-284). New York, United States: Routledge.
Martínez Zarandonza, I. (2004). Usos educativos de la telenovela: un recurso más en la educación de adultos. Decisio, 9, 39-42.
Mazziotti, N. (1996). La industria de la telenovela: la producción de ficción en América Latina. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Paidós.
Orozco Gómez, G. (2002). La televisión en México. En Historias de la televisión en América Latina. Barcelona: Gedisa.
Orozco Gómez, G. (2006). La telenovela en México: ¿de una expresión cultural a un simple producto de mercadotecnia? Nueva época, 6, 11-35.
Roura, A. (1993). Telenovelas, pasiones de mujer. El sexo del culebrón . Barcelona, España: Gedisa.
Sadlier, D. J. (2009). Introduction: A Short History of Film Melodrama in Latin America. En D. J. Sadlier. (Ed.), Latin American Melodrama. Passion, Pathos, and Entertainment (pp.1-18). Urbana and Chicago, United States: University of Illinois Press.
Singhal, A. y Rogers, E. (1999). Entertainment-Education. A Communication Strategy for Social Change. New York, United States: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Trejo Silva, M. (2011). La telenovela mexicana. Orígenes, características, análisis y perspectivas. México D.F., México: Editorial Trillas.
Tufte, T. (2004). Telenovelas, Culture and Social Change: from Polisemy, Pleasure and Resistance to Strategic Communication and Social Development. En M. I. Vassalo de Lopes. (Ed.) International Perspectives on Telenovelas . Sao Paulo, Brasil: Loyola.
Uribe, A. B. (2009). Mi México imaginado. Telenovelas, televisión y migrantes. México D. F., México: Miguel Ángel Porrúa.
Vink, N. (1988). The Telenovela and Emancipation — A Study on TV and Social Change in Brazil. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Royal Tropic Institute.
