Abstract

ZAPATA CORTES, DIANA CATALINA. Historicizing telenovelas in Latin America. Approaches and perspectives from the social science. memorias [online]. 2025, n.56, pp.94-123.  Epub May 13, 2025. ISSN 1794-8886.  https://doi.org/10.14482/memor.56.987.428.

This article reviews how the social sciences have incorporated telenovelas into their scope of interest since the early 1990s. It argues that the influence of a specific and reductionist interpretation from communication studies has inhibited the historical problematization of telenovelas beyond understanding their mechanisms of signification as a television genre. Based on a critical review of the most influential academic literature in the region, this study identifies recurring interpretative patterns, analytical tensions, and gaps in scholarly production on the subject. The need to integrate historical approaches into these industrialized audiovisual narratives suggests possible avenues of research from a more material and spatial understanding of 20th-century media.

Keywords : history of mass media; telenovelas; social sciences; Latin America; television.

        · abstract in Spanish     · text in Spanish     · Spanish ( pdf )