Joseph Straubhaar

University of Texas at Austin | UT · School of Journalism and Media

This paper applies intersectionality theory to analyze the challenges and successes of vulnerable communities in developing techno-capital—a form of cultural capital that influences individuals’ technology adoption and usage. Through ethnographic methods, such as participant observations and interviews among a group of working-class US Latinas in c...

This article reviews the intellectual journey that led me to study the development of television in Brazil. It discusses how I came to study how media were developing in countries of the global South as part of a Ph.D. in International Relations. It led me to get particularly interested in Brazil, particularly when I discovered that the US State De...

This article explores three seemingly promising theories to explain the television preferences of upper-middle-class and elite audiences in Latin America. We discuss how ideas on cultural distinction, cosmopolitanism, and cultural omnivores aid the understanding of elite audiences, from their use of satellite and cable TV to their growing use of st...

Until now, discussions of theories of media and society or media and the state in the North American literature have been limited. The four theories of the press advanced by Fred Siebert, Wilbur Schramm, and Theodore Peterson cover the main approaches of Western liberal society, the libertarian and social responsibility models, and some aspects of...

This chapter explores some of the reasons why upper-middle-class and elite audiences in Latin America have turned increasingly to U.S., European, and other outside television programs and services like Netflix, and pay-TV channels like HBO. This chapter examines several theoretical arguments and tries to empirically examine the evidence for them fr...

This chapter examines two trends that reinforced and increased viewing of U.S. television in Latin America: a growing middle class and increased penetration of pay-TV channels via satellite and cable, which sifted from very low penetration rates by global standards until 2000 to higher rates of pay-TV subscription until the mid-2010s. This is analy...

This chapter examines a contradictory trend, the continuing popularity of foreign, particularly U.S. television among Latin American audiences, and strength of the influence of U.S. television on Latin America. It theorizes this preference in terms of U.S. economic influence, models, and trade that pervaded the region since the early 1800s, and spe...

This chapter introduces and reviews some of the key historical aspects of Latin American television. It examines the role of US influence as well as Iberian colonial influences. It reviews some of the major theories that have been applied to Latin American TV, particularly those developed in Latin America itself, such as dependency, dependent devel...

The Conclusion focuses on several key issues. First is the strong role of national program preferences in facilitating the build of strong and productive national television industries, first in some of the larger countries, like Brazil and Mexico, gradually throughout much of the region. Second is how those industries exported not only within Lati...

This chapter looks at the era of streaming television in Latin America so far. Although it is limited by who has access to broadband Internet, the use of streaming has expanded rapidly since Netflix entered the region in 2011. Most of the catalogue presented by Netflix in Latin America is from the U.S., which raises issues of unbalanced flow and me...

This chapter examines the rise of national television production in Latin America and the growing audience preference for it after the 1960s. It theorizes this national preference in terms of cultural proximity and examines the growth of regional flows of television, particularly telenovelas, in terms of cultural-linguistic or geo-cultural regions...

Reunião de depoimentos em homenagem ao pesquisador Jesús Martín-Barbero, realizados por Isabel Ferin Cunha, Margarita Ledo Andión, Manuel Pinto e Joseph Straubhaar.

A decade after Google Fiber promised faster, cheaper internet connections in selected American cities, few studies have investigated its adoption, let alone in disadvantaged urban communities. Drawing on a household survey of public housing communities in Austin, Texas, a major Google Fiber city, we examine how relational, technological and communi...

This book is about television in Latin America. Its national and regional industries create most television programming there within genres developed over time in the region. However, part of the programming has always come from the U.S., Europe and elsewhere. With cable, satellite and now streaming TV, that inflow of foreign programming has increa...

The increasing presence of advanced information and communication technologies (ICTs) across various fields of our lives has elevated the significance of individuals’ capability to utilize these ICTs substantially. Although scholars have underscored the importance of understanding such capabilities in terms of skills that are multidimensional, few...

O objetivo do trabalho é mapear os países produtores de títulos originais e exclusivos do catálogo brasileiro da Netflix e verificar qual a participação da América Latina nesta constituição. Os resultados apontam para o investimento da Netflix na diversificação dos países produtores, apesar de ainda não ser suficiente para conter uma tendência à ma...

Digital-inclusion policy in the United States has historically emphasized home broadband access as both its policy priority and goal. Supplying households with broadband access may not do much to improve the ability of individuals to make meaningful use of the Internet, however, since it provides Internet access with little social context beyond th...

This article explores how socioeconomic status and level of education relate to the retention or change of media habits, such as cable or satellite television viewing, in periods of a stagnant or declining economy. Particularly, we explore two of the most important markets in the Latin American region (i.e., Brazil and Mexico), which went through s...

This research conceptualizes the continuous structuring of our lives by technology as a technological embeddedness construct between a sense of competence and dependance, whereby individuals mobilize information to meet life goals. Accordingly, a framework using digital capability and technological experience factors was investigated concerning inf...

In the context of international flows of media products, this article offers an exploration of pay TV and the prospects for streaming television usage in the Latin American region. Based on audience preference data gathered by Kantar Media, the article offers an overview of how the pre-Netflix era looked like in the region. Drawing on the theories...

Building on and expanding Myria Georgiou's theory of “hybrid imagined communities” and multilayered belonging, and the related concept of multilayered identities (Straubhaar, 2008), this chapter examines qualitatively the impact of media on identity construction in several diasporic populations in Austin, Texas. Specifically, it investigates the im...

Este trabajo explora la combinación del aprendizaje formal e informal junto con los principios de los medios locativos; hemos observado el potencial de este tipo específico de medios para reforzar y expandir los objetivos de aprendizaje fuera del tiempo de clase, dotando a los estudiantes de actitudes de aprendizaje permanente. Presentamos los hall...

In this article, we draw on extensive qualitative data to analyse the specific case of a digital inclusion program launched by the non-profit organisation River City Youth Foundation, located in Central Texas. The case is particularly interesting because the organisation, which is primarily a youth centre, realised they needed to start including pa...

O livro discute as representações da deficiência física adquirida, com ênfase nas vivências da intimidade da mulher. Tendo como objeto empírico a telenovela Viver a Vida, cuja narrativa abordou a temática por meio da personagem Luciana, apresenta uma análise interdisciplinar e interseccional que envolve questões como o cuidado, o corpo e a sexualid...

Within the ongoing theorization of active audiences, this article analyzes the concept of a new Internet-based social audience for TV and online scripted fiction through the social media buzz generated by 72 Spanish scripted fiction programs. The investigation is focused on the comments posted by fans and, partly, community managers after the relea...

As the Internet penetration in the United States increases, many digital divide researchers have delved into the parent–child dynamics regarding family digital access and use. However, little attention has been paid to digital parenting in terms of monitoring, guiding, and regulating children’s digital lives, especially in the context of disadvanta...

Little attention has been given to how members of economically, socially, and digitally disadvantaged groups experience privacy. Using a door-to-door paper-and-pencil household census of public housing communities in a major American city, this study examined three layers of digital privacy experiences among public housing residents—privacy concern...

div> The purpose of the present study is to determine the cultural and social barriers that are preventing Laredoans from accessing the digital world. This multigenerational study examines how three generations within 16 families relate culturally and socially to technology. Three members from the same family were invited to voluntarily participat...

This paper explores motivations and strategies for fostering the production of locative storytelling among underserved communities, specifically the demographic group of Latinos facing the legacy of racial segregation in central Texas. We report on the findings from ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the context of a community computer training pr...

Second screening is widespread worldwide, particularly in younger populations. We analyze a survey of college students in Brazil and the United States to compare second screening frequency, types, platforms, and motivations between the two countries. Despite lower Internet penetration, Brazilians second screen significantly more than Americans, a r...

This study will examine how rapidly changing social class structures in Latin America in the last ten years have impacted television viewing. Subscription to cable or pay television has increased enormously in Brazil and Mexico in the last 6-7 years as effects of the substantial growth of the middle class in the last 10-15 years has begun to become...

This piece examines the historical construction of a Lusophone cultural-linguistic media space and market that spans portions of Europe, Africa, and South America. Beginning with the Portuguese colonization of Brazil and Lusophone Africa in the 17th century and continuing to the contemporary moment, our discussion examines how a combination of poli...

PurposeThis study examines whether open Wi-Fi systems in Austin, Texas, have much effect in expanding digital inclusion. These systems were hailed a decade ago as means to provide low-cost access to disadvantaged groups, but these claims were also met with some skepticism. Methodology/approachThis study uses secondary data analysis of a survey cond...

The way we talk, work, learn, and think has been greatly shaped by modern technology. These lifestyle changes have made digital literacy the new written literacy, where those who are not able to use computers are unable to function and perform everyday tasks. The Handbook of Research on Comparative Approaches to the Digital Age Revolution in Europ...

How are marginalized peoples and places framed in their dominant national media? Framing theory applied through a comparative narrative analysis of 313 news articles, 291 photos and 1051 telenovela scenes allowed Brazilian media representations of a marginalized people, favelados, and marginalized, contested spaces, favelas, to be juxtapositioned....

Digital-inclusion policy in the United States has historically emphasized home broadband access as both its policy priority and goal. Supplying households with broadband access may not do much to improve the ability of individuals to make meaningful use of the Internet, however, since it provides Internet access with little social context beyond th...

This volume has surveyed a broad swath of the impacts of what is one of the largest technological transformations in human history, the Internet. The Internet has changed the way people communicate: among their friends and families, at school and work, and how they meet new people, within and across cultures. It has changed how companies conduct th...

The recent decade has seen an explosive change in media trends around the world and Latin America has been a particular cradle for the growth of television. Fueled by a once in a lifetime economic boom that lifted millions out of poverty in the region, multichannel television has proliferated more than ever. But beyond the basic economics, what wer...

This research adopts a repertoire approach to examine the concept of a health information repertoire defined as a set of sources through which people get health information. Drawing on a random sample survey in Austin, TX, it borrows the concepts of cultural omnivores and univores to investigate how health information repertoire are related to soci...

Telenovelas have been considered the predominant popular genre on television, the most widely available and popular national medium, in Brazil, for more than 30 years (Straubhaar, 1982). However, we argue in this article that although telenovelas do indeed have this remarkable penetration and popularity in Brazil, their reception is mediated by aud...

Community technology centers and libraries have been crucial components of public policy initiatives to reduce the digital divide. Using theories of structuration and the social construction of technology, this paper examines the gender dynamics of the digital divide at public access points in Austin, TX over 10 years. Using extensive participant o...

Latina/o students are one of the least likely populations to access technology and possess the techno-capital necessary to succeed in postsecondary education. This phenomenological qualitative research study used interviews with 20 Latina/o college students in Central Texas to examine how techno-capital and techno-disposition interact in complex wa...

John Sinclair and Jospeh D. Straubhaar provide a comprehensive account of television production, distribution and reception in Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking Latin American countries, showing how Mexican and Brazilian programmes have dominated in the region, and placing regional output in the context of the global television industry.

The role of language and linguistic assimilation among Latinos has a direct impact on both education and occupation in terms of social mobility. The relationship can be examined with a generational context as language usage changes from first generation immigrants to third generation immigrants. The specific question being addressed herein is wheth...

In this article we intend to highlight the emergence of a new informative paradigm marked by the development of a set of mobile handsets of which it becomes possible to emphasize smartphones and tablets. These devices, along with the development of broadband Internet 4G, promise to transform the informative consumption and how to produce informatio...

The literature on public, educational, and government (PEG) access channels has focused on production rather than audience analysis, which hinders our understanding whether such channels remain relevant forums for public expression and a source of community information in an increasingly digitized and converging media landscape. To address this gap...

This paper explores the sedimentation of multiple levels of media use and identity as a key element of the changing cultural geography of globalization. In this paper, we examine the relationship between processes of hybridization of identity and culture over time and the sedimentation or buildup, maintenance, and defense of multilayered identities...

A ten-year longitudinal study of the impact of national, state, and local programs that address issues of digital divide and digital inclusion in Austin, Texas.

Significant public investments in rural broadband internet service authorized by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act raise new questions regarding the impacts of broadband on rural residents and communities. The results of a natural field experiment involving broadband internet projects funded by the Community Connect program of the Rural Ut...

*Since when is Fran Drescher Jewish?* This was Chiara Francesca Ferrari's reaction when she learned that Drescher's character on the television sitcom The Nanny was meant to be a portrayal of a stereotypical Jewish-American princess. Ferrari had only seen the Italian version of the show, in which the protagonist was dubbed into an exotic, eccentric...

Construído a partir de uma metodologia desenvolvida a apresentada em publicação de Straubhaar, Ferreira e Spence (2006), este artigo apresenta uma análise introdutória de tendências de utilização da base de dados do Programa Acessa SP. O Acessa SP é uma iniciativa do governo de São Paulo de inclusão digital que desde 2001 tem oferecido acesso gratu...

Even after they formally become independent, many developing countries still depend on the industrialized world for many resources, including technology, financing, models, and even media content, such as films or television programs. This is a structural legacy of imperialism, with which many countries with former colonies have struggled. Only a f...

Globalization-impacts of Satellite TV and the Internet There is a strong presumption by many that first satellite TV in the 1990s and now the Internet in the new millennium has begun to strongly globalize people's identities. Ho- wever, many questions lurk behind this surface of apparent change. What is truly easily available to people, not only in...

Even as geographic disparities in high speed Internet access narrow, an urban–rural broadband gap persists, pointing to the importance of individual differences in motivations to adopt broadband as the key to closing the gap. Diffusion of innovation is reconceptualized through contemporary perspectives of the digital divide and social cognitive the...

World Television: From Global to Local, a new assessment of the interdependence of television across cultures and nations brings together the most current research and theories on the subject. By examining recent developments in the world system of television as well as several theories of culture, industry, genre, and audience, author Joseph D. St...

How can a Mexican telenovela be more attractive to viewers in Brazil than a nationally produced telenovela? This seems to be the question posed by the increasing transnational flow of cultural products. Most of the data indicate that viewers prefer locally produced programs. Nevertheless, some of the transnational success of Latin American telenove...

In many countries, including Brazil, the electronic media are an increasingly complex system with powerful global and national players with hegemonic ambitions. There are global channels like CNN that reach a few people in almost every country, and there are media empires or global operations, like those of Rupert Murdoch, that reach a number of pe...

Drawing from the authors' current research programs, this essay explores the basic dimensions of online communities and the concomitant need for scholars to rethink the assumptions that undergrid historic paradigms about the nature of social interaction, social bonding, and empirical experience (Cerulo, 1997). In so doing, we argue that online comm...

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This paper analyzes some of the controversies in the literature on media imperialism by drawing on two revised concepts: the idea of assymetrical interdependence as a more precise and complex way to frame the imperialism issues, and the idea of audiences actively searching for cultural proximity in cultural goods, as a way to reincorporate the role...

THE VOICE OF AMERICA: FROM DETENTE TO THE REAGAN DOCTRINE by Laurien Alexandre (Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1989—no price given, ISBN 0-89391-465-7) VIDEOCASSETTE RECORDERS IN THE THIRD WORLD edited by Douglas A. Boyd, Joseph D. Straubhaar and John A. Lent (New York: Longman, 1989—price not given, ISBN 0-8013-0196-3) SPACEBRIDGES: TELEVISION AND US-SOVIET...

Home video cassette recorders (VCRs) are becoming increasingly popular in the Third World. Even among lower socioeconomic groups in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, VCRs are being acquired at what some government officials believe to be a disturbing rate. The study examines theoretical implications of media in the development process, explores th...

The rise of Brazilian television is reviewed here showing how TV Globo came to dominate, and how U.S. influences gradually diminished. This “Brazilianization” of television occurred largely due to commercial reasons, as TV Globo gained a virtual monopoly of national advertising in Brazil. Less important were national and international governmental...

This paper explores the multiplicity of levels of media use and identity as a key element of the changing cultural geography of globalization. The movement from traditional local life to modern interaction with mass media has produced identities that are already multilayered with cultural geographic elements that are local, regional, transnational...

This thesis examines the links between Bourdieu’s concept of the capitals and social mobility. By using interviews conducted with families who have imigrated to Austin from Latin American countries, patterns of social mobility are traced alongside the accumulation of capitals, such as cultural capital, social capital, economic capital, symbolic cap...

The Middle East saw much social change in recent tumultuous decades. On one hand, some communities embraced Westernness as part of the inevitable path to development and modernization. On the other hand, there were communities that resisted global trends that were mostly dominated by the West. The latter deemed these trends as a threat to native cu...