How Long Will Telenovelas Go On?
Telenovelas have been very successful and followed for many years. I'm 21-years-old, and I remember watching telenovelas when I got home from school in 2010. My mom grew up watching telenovelas in the 1980's. But the world has changed a lot since the beginning of telenovelas - how much longer will they be around?
When telenovelas first started airing on television in the 1950's, the world was a much simpler place. It made sense for the concept of a telenovela to do well, because there wasn't as much going on. It was common for women and children to be at home while men worked, and the women and children needed something to fill their time. Scheduled programming with an exciting and turbulent plot was sure to do well when there was a huge audience ready to watch. And given that women and children were spending so much time at home, they could devote enough time to watch the great deal of episodes each telenovela would put out.
Today, it's far less common for women to stay home with their children while men serve as the main bread winners. In many families today, both parents are at least partially employed, and aren't able to spend as much time at home. Today, technology is also much more evolved than it was in the 1950's. It has been proven that technology affects the attention span of a human. In today's world, we are surrounded by technology and use it in excessive amounts. Humans can't devote as much attention to an hour-long episode of a telenovela than they used tom because of the effects technology has had on their brains. And if humans have less of an attention span, wouldn't it make sense for their devotion to long-episode telenovelas decline?
I have far less free time as a college student than I did a high school student. And as a high school student I had far less free time than I did when I was in elementary school. Next year, when I'm working a full-time job, I'll have far less free time than I do now. If I can barely make time to watch a 30-45 minute episode of a normal-length TV show, how am I supposed to find time to stay interested in and have the attention span to keep up with a telenovela series with episodes that are doubled in length and seasons that are tripled in size?
One of my favorite parts about watching telenovelas when I was younger was that they were a way for me to enjoy downtime and become invested in the lives of the characters. I've found that now, I have significantly less downtime, and I would rather spend it being social with friends than sitting behind a screen.
I may be alone in this, but if I'm not, how long will telenovelas continue to go on?
This was very interesting to ponder considering the article we read in class, yet they had far weaker points to support this theory. I believe adjustments to telenovelas will definitely need to be made as will there need to be in most medias. I could see them shortening episode length in the future, as well as having to coming up with far more creative and unique storylines. They have definitely done this already such as with The Clone, but stereotypical Cinderella stories and using outdated stereotypes. I imagine those are on the way out and telenovelas will actually wind up producing more modern/futuristic content (unless it is a period telenovela of course) while keeping a daily schedule, but perhaps having more daily releases on streaming platforms instead of live television. Overall I do think telenovelas will last, but not without definite changes to come to their structure.
ReplyDeleteCreo que desde un perspectivo histórico, las telenovelas no van a parar pronto. Son el equivalente del teatro en el tiempo de Shakespeare. Aunque los tiempos han cambiado y hay mucha gente que no tiene el tiempo para ver telenovelas, creo que siempre va a haber una razón para ver las. A los humanos nos gusta tener distracciones de la vida real, y creo que lo más estresante que se pone la vida, lo más que uno quiere hacer es algo en lo que no tienen que pensar. Las telenovelas son un descanso de la realidad donde uno puede ver algo enteramente ficcional o algo realístico con que pueden relacionarse. También, aunque un capítulo es una hora, sí la trama y los personajes de la telenovela están bien desarrollados, a uno no le importaría la duración, porque se puede sentir como si nada. Se que para mi, uso un capítulo de un drama coreano como incentivo para hacer mis trabajos y usarlo como un descansito. También creo que las telenovelas están caminando con su audiencia y si la gente ya no quiere ver las telenovelas como son, los que las hacen van a hacer todo en su poder para que las telenovelas no se hagan una cosa del pasado. Me interesó mucho leer sobre tus ideas porque no es algo que se me había ocurrido.
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