Latin American Television makes English speakers aware of the dimensions, operation, and significance of the globalization of television in the Spanish-speaking world. Second only in scale to the market for English-language programming, the Spanish-language market embraces not just most nations of South and Central America but also Spain, and even the United States--the sixth largest Spanish-speaking country in the world. This intercontinental space is connected physically by satellite communication, and culturally by a common language and heritage which binds it as both a `geolinguistic region' and an `imagined community' which certain media corporations, Latin American and North American, seek to exploit. A similar phenomenon with regard to Brazil and the Portuguese-speaking world is also examined, with special attention to its comparable features and points of exchange with the Spanish-speaking world. The book chronicles and analyses the development and structure of the globalization of these markets as a `Latin world'.

This is a worthwhile book for readers interested in how television reaches audiences in the third largest language block in the world ... the book helps us break out of our own cultural-linguistic boundaries and learn what the other parts of the world are doing with the media. * Emile G. McAnany, Jnl of Communication, Winter 2000. *
Unlike a good many other authors of books on the global communication system ... Sinclair adds the cultural and linguistic dimension to the political and economic analysis of television. * Emile G. McAnany, Jnl of Communication, Winter 2000. *

Professor John Sinclair (co-author of the highly-praised New Patterns in Global Television: Peripheral Vision) is Associate Professor in International Communication, Sociology, and Cultural Studies, in the Faculty of Arts at Victoria University of Technology, Melbourne