This book investigates how telenovelas may be the key to the future of Brazilian television and how this content can survive in an interconnected media landscape. Recognised telenovela writer and scholar Rosane Svartman considers the particular characteristics of the telenovela format – number of episodes, melodrama influence, and influence of the audience on future writing – to explore how these can be preserved on multimedia platforms, and the challenges this change may present. Svartman further charts the transformations of the telenovela throughout its history and its major influences and unveils the main storytelling elements and writing processes. Chapters examine the business model of Brazilian corporate television within the current context of hypermedia and analyse how this relationship evolves as it is influenced by the new interactive tools and technologies that amplify the audience’s power. Merging empirical practices and theory, this book will be of great interest to scholars and students of transmedia storytelling, television studies, and Latin American media, as well as professionals working in these areas.

"This book investigates how telenovelas may be the key to the future of Brazilian television and how this content can survive in an interconnected media landscape. Recognised writer and scholar Rosane Svartman considers the particular characteristics of the telenovela format - number of episodes, melodrama influence, and influence of the audience on future writing - to explore how these can be preserved on multimedia platforms, and the challenges this change may present. Svartman further charts the transformations of the telenovela throughout its history and its major influences and unveils the main storytelling elements and writing processes. Chapters examine the business model of Brazilian corporate television within the current context of hypermedia and analyse how this relationship evolves as it is influenced by the new interactive tools and technologies that amplify the audience's power. Merging empirical practices and theory, this book will be of great interest to scholars and students of transmedia storytelling, television studies, and Latin American media, as well as professionals working in these areas"--

This concise book provides an accessible overview of the history of the telenovela in Latin America within a pan-Latino context, including the way the genre crosses borders between Latin America and the United States. Telenovelas, a distinct variety of soap operas originating in Latin America, take up key issues of race, class, sexual identity and violence, interweaving stories with melodramatic romance and quests for identity. June Carolyn Erlick examines the social implications of telenovela themes in the context of the evolution of television as an integral part of the modernization of Latin American countries.

Soap operas and telenovelas are watched by millions of people around the world every day. As cultural, social, and economic phenomena, examining them will further our understanding of the role of global media content in the digital age. Moreover, as these programs continue to be exported and transformed at regional levels, and through digitalization, it is more important than ever to analyze where the genre has been, where it is now, and where it is going. This collection brings together original scholarship from an international and trans-disciplinary perspective. Chapters address timely issues, theories, and debates that are inextricably linked to soap operas and telenovelas as global industries, as sites for new audiences, and as hybrid cultural products within the digital landscape. Bringing depth and originality to the subject area, each chapter demonstrates the richness of these genres and their long-term significance as the televisual landscape evolves and becomes increasingly reliant on technological and creative innovations.

Soap operas and telenovelas are watched by millions of people around the world every day. As cultural, social, and economic phenomena, examining them will further our understanding of the role of global media content in the digital age. Moreover, as these programs continue to be exported and transformed at regional levels, and through digitalization, it is more important than ever to analyze where the genre has been, where it is now, and where it is going. This collection brings together original scholarship from an international and trans-disciplinary perspective. Chapters address timely issues, theories, and debates that are inextricably linked to soap operas and telenovelas as global industries, as sites for new audiences, and as hybrid cultural products within the digital landscape. Bringing depth and originality to the subject area, each chapter demonstrates the richness of these genres and their long-term significance as the televisual landscape evolves and becomes increasingly reliant on technological and creative innovations.

This collection of forty new essays, written by the leading scholars in adaptation studies and distinguished contributors from outside the field, is the most comprehensive volume on adaptation ever published. Written to appeal alike to specialists in adaptation, scholars in allied fields, and general readers, it hearkens back to the foundations of adaptation studies a century and more ago, surveys its ferment of activity over the past twenty years, and looks forward to the future. It considers the very different problems in adapting the classics, from the Bible to Frankenstein to Philip Roth, and the commons, from online mashups and remixes to adult movies. It surveys a dizzying range of adaptations around the world, from Latin American telenovelas to Czech cinema, from Hong Kong comics to Classics Illustrated, from Bollywood to zombies, and explores the ways media as different as radio, opera, popular song, and videogames have handled adaptation. Going still further, it examines the relations between adaptation and such intertextual practices as translation, illustration, prequels, sequels, remakes, intermediality, and transmediality. The volume's contributors consider the similarities and differences between adaptation and history, adaptation and performance, adaptation and revision, and textual and biological adaptation, casting an appreciative but critical eye on the theory and practice of adaptation scholars--and, occasionally, each other. The Oxford Handbook of Adaptation Studies offers specific suggestions for how to read, teach, create, and write about adaptations in order to prepare for a world in which adaptation, already ubiquitous, is likely to become ever more important.

Drama! Excess! Men in bee suits! Often erroneously compared to soap operas of the United States, outside of the necessary and sometimes fantastical dramatic story arc, however, the telenovela differs greatly from U.S. soap operas and have regional and cultural distinctions throughout Latin America. In Telenovelas, Ilan Stavans has gathered over two-dozen essays covering the telenovela for readers to better understand the phenomenon and its myriad layers. Branching off from radionovelas, the telenovela was exported from pre-Castro Cuba during the 1950s. The essays found in Telenovelas covers a broad view of the genre, television's impact in Latino culture, as well as more in-depth discussions of specific telenovelas throughout the Spanish-speaking television audience in the North America. Also explored is how telenovelas depict stereotypes, respond to gender and class roles, and examines the differences in topic and thematic choices as well as production values unique to each country.