Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1974. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

This thesis examines the issues behind the Mexican government's decision to privatize television in the 1950s. It will be argued that a private system was thought to respond best to Mexico's economic, social, political and cultural conditions. The president's personal interest in this industry together with his power to do his will strongly influenced his decision to encourage a commercial system. There were other factors that accelerated this process: the structure of the radio industry, which was (and still is) characterized by its commercial tone and the fact that it was highly monopolized and centralized; the government's encouragement of private investment in communications-related ventures; the president's belief that commercial television would best promote the consumption of domestic goods; the relation of reciprocal cooperation established early between the government and the private broadcasters, which turned out to be highly convenient for both sides; and the broadcasters' successful lobbying to establish commercial television. The roles of the government, private initiative and society in the development of media are also studied.

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This dissertation investigates the dynamics of production surrounding United States Spanish-language television by analyzing the strategies followed by newcomer Azteca America in it attempts to become an attractive television option for Latinos. Given the scarcity of research on the production approach of U.S. Latino media, this study interrogates the site of production of Spanish-language Television--that is, the site in which professional routines and presumably legitimate knowledge about audiences are the basis for the reproduction of particular representations of Latinos in the United States. The incursion of Azteca America into this realm allows me to reflect on the structural and complex relationship between the U.S. Latino and Mexican television industries. Azteca America's process of creating a network identity, along with strategies of production, representations, and distribution reveal longstanding assumptions about television's formulas of success, which are the result of the way in which U.S. Latinos are imagined by the corporation. My analysis is informed by the cultural economy perspective that evaluates corporate practices as relevant cultural objects with economic value; it is also informed by Pierre Bourdieu's theory of logic of practice, which allows me to situate the corporation as a social space as I evaluate its corporate routines as a site of the expression of larger social dynamics. A global approach gives me the theoretical tools to think about the transnational character of the U.S. Latino industry, its audiences, and the crossborder nature of Azteca America's venture. The presence of Azteca America in U.S. broadcasting television reaffirms, on some level, the ways in which Latin Americans claim "authentic" knowledge regarding the programming and representations delivered to Latino audiences. This process is possible because of the fluid identity with attendant flexible meanings that accompanies the hybrid and multilayered identities of the Latina/o population in the U.S. / text