A residual infrastructure. The rise and obsolescence of big satellite television dishes in Colombia

Prieto Nanez, Fabian Mauricio

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/106161 Copy

Description

Title

A residual infrastructure. The rise and obsolescence of big satellite television dishes in Colombia

Author(s)

Prieto Nanez, Fabian Mauricio

Issue Date

2019-09-26

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

• Ciafone, Amanda M
• McCarthy, Cameron

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

Ciafone, Amanda M

Committee Member(s)

• Hay, James
• Chan, Anita S.

Department of Study

Inst of Communications Rsch

Discipline

Communications and Media

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

Infrastructures, Television, informality, Colombia, satellite, community, surdesarrollo

Abstract

The first satellite dish arrived in the South American country of Colombia in 1970. Two decades later, hundreds of them covered the roofs of apartment buildings, community centers, and town halls all around the country. This dissertation follows the trajectory of big satellite dishes by looking at a network that connects amateurs in the United States and traders in Miami and Medellín to populations living in urban and rural Colombia. In a timescale of forty years, big satellite dishes changed not only technologically, but also in how government agents, businesses, and users conceived of them. Grounded in infrastructure studies of media and Latin American communication and science and technology studies, this dissertation looks at three particular aspects: the role of informal infrastructures in the development of technological modernity, the labor and knowledge of local technicians needed in transitions in media technologies, and the participation of media infrastructures in the production of culture. Despite considered stable and finished, infrastructure design and maintenance reveal an important set of values connecting culture and technology. In the case of television, the dissertation explores a network of actors, objects and practices that impacted urban and rural spaces and shaped understanding of intellectual property in a Latin American Country.

Graduation Semester

2019-12

Type of Resource

text

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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/106161

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2019 Fabian Prieto Nanez

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