Abstract

The increasing number of digital platforms for distribution of audiovisual content has stimulated local indie production of cinema, television, and the internet. This chapter speculates about possible connections between telenovelas and internet-distributed series. The chapter also brings up data on access to the internet. While telenovelas’ ratings have decreased, in a segmented contemporary world, this genre is still able to bridge gaps. This chapter considers Brazil Avenue in order to suggest that certain telenovelas share some of the cinematic features recent television studies have found in United States series, such as inter-textual references, intermedia references, non-naturalistic performances, reflexive lines of dialogue, sharp dialogue, cinematic decoupage. There is also a feuilleton mode that entails industrial feedback processes, and promotes a combination of melodrama and references to contemporary politics, times, and places that encompasses contemporary transnational series.