Beyond media imperialism: The challenges of theorizing global TV flows

Abstract

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 Department was willing to train me in Portuguese and send me there for three years. It discusses the great intellectual support I received for my research on Brazilian television, TV Globo and cultural dependency, from Prof. José Marques de Melo and others at ECA/USP, in which others like Carlos Eduardo Lins da Silva and Ana Maria Fadul were beginning to look at some of the same issues. It goes on to discuss how interesting and helpful the INTERCOM and ALAIC network of researchers was in learning about the great upswell in Brazilian and Latin American research that was taking place.