Author ORCID Identifier

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3130-6179

Date of Award

Fall 12-5-2022

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Moving Image Studies

First Advisor

Ethan Tussey

Second Advisor

Greg Smith

Third Advisor

Jade Petermon

Fourth Advisor

Joseph D. Straubhaar

Abstract

Mobility, Modernity, and the Middle Class: Transmediatization and Brazilian Television examines the process of transmediatization in Brazil as a failed process of digital modernity. Following the pattern of diverse modernities and cultures of convergence, this dissertation argues that there are also multiple regimes of transmediatization. This dissertation provides a framework for analyzing the Brazilian regime of transmediatization through mobility, participation, and expansion, using the Brazilian telenovela Cheias de Charme (2012, TV Globo) as an extensive case study. Through an analysis of the telenovela and its transmedia extensions, industrial discourse, and sociohistorical context, I illustrate how the telenovela functioned as a site of transmediatizing modernity. In doing so, I seek to bridge the gap between theories of modernity and studies of transmedia. With mobility, I refer to the rapid circulation of people, goods, and ideas in modernity. I connect this with audiences moving across platforms and devices with transmedia engagement as well as the potential for social mobility through transmediatization. Participation refers to the increasing potential for democracy in modernity, and I correlate this with the democratizing potential of transmediatization. Finally, with expansion I bring together the nation-building of modernity with world-building in transmedia. These dimensions of transmediatization are not independent of each other but are integrally connected. I argue that the regime of transmediatization in Brazil is an era fraught with paradox and ambivalence. The process of social mobility through transmediatization also became a process of class discrimination. While transmediatization functioned as a process of empowerment and national integration, it was also exploitative and disciplinary as participants were shaped into ideal viewers and ideal citizens.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.57709/32751507

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