Carolina Acosta-Alzuru is an associate professor in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. A native of Caracas, Venezuela, Acosta-Alzuru has spent the last 10 years researching telenovelas. She is the author of the book “Venezuela es una Telenovela: Melodrama, Realidad y Crisis.”

Why did you choose telenovelas as your main object of study?
For two reasons. The first one is because my object of study is any object that allows me to understand the links between media culture and society. I have done other epicenters to study those links, but telenovelas have proven to be the most enduring place, the most fascinating place because it has so many aspects and facets to it. So that’s one reason – the purely academic reason. But there’s always the personal reason. I’m a Latin-American woman. I know exactly the place that telenovelas have in Latin-American culture. And I thought this is why it is so perfect to understand media culture and society, because it’s really at the center of everything.

Besides the obvious entertainment value of telenovelas, do you think they provide any social or political benefits?
There are plenty of examples of telenovelas that have tackled socioeconomic topics or political issues or health-related stories that have had an impact on the audience. That is why they keep being fascinating, because how do you write this story? This is entertainment. If people feel they’re being lectured, they’re going to turn off the TV or change the channel. So how do you put in that content so that the audience doesn’t feel lectured, still recognizes the telenovela genre, but reflects on that content?
Students in Venezuela have become politically activated after the president [Hugo Chavez] closed one of the television networks. [New series Libres como el viento] is the first time a telenovela actually includes that topic. Whether it includes it as just context, whether it actually tackles the issues of the student movement, you have to look at the telenovela more and more to see. But the fact is it is using that, and using the same symbols. For instance, the students used white hands and peace signs. Well, in the first two episodes of this telenovela, you could see the students with their white hands and their peace signs. That one tries to take the context from reality.

Can you compare Latin-American telenovelas to American soap operas?
Yes, there are similarities. They are both melodramatic serial genres. They both are consumed and despised at the same time. They’re both [aired] every day and they are both not governed by the season system. But there are huge differences, and the differences stem from the central difference, which is the telenovela ends; the soap opera doesn’t. General Hospital has been on the air for 50 years. Telenovelas have a number of episodes – 120 to 180 – but they will end. That difference brings about a bunch of other differences. For instance, the way an actor relates to a character. If you play the same character your whole life, it’s very hard for you to get out of that character. The other thing is that you have to recycle stories. People have the idea that telenovelas have the same story over and over again. Yes, it is the story of two lovers that can’t be together, that’s the story. But soap operas recycle the same stories also, because in 45 years, you recycle the same stories. Every three years, if you’re watching a soap opera you always see a story of addiction, a story of some health problem like cancer, a story of a trial, a murder and a whodunit and then the trial. In the telenovela you don’t have time to do that because you’re on the air six months and then comes the next one. You really have to think what you’re going to present in the telenovela. Yes, the love story and all that. Are you going to present other issues? Yes, but a trial? That’s been done already. You don’t have time to do it again.

You teach a course called Telenovelas, Culture and Society. What can a student in this class look forward to?
They will learn about Latin-American culture. They will learn about the different Latin-American societies, and in doing so they will learn about the American society and the U.S. culture and U.S. television, because by contrast, you learn. So they’re going to learn about a genre that is globally extremely successful and how that globalization – which is not typical: typical globalization goes from the United States to the other countries. Here we have a region of the world still considered third world, which is Latin-America, which has a product that is global. So how does that happen? What are the consequences of that happening? Does globalization also make an impact on the telenovela? Is globalization changing the way telenovelas are?

What is your personal favorite telenovela series?
My favorite telenovela is called “La Dueña”, (The Owner). It’s a Venezuelan telenovela that was done over 25 years ago. I think it shows that what is most important in a telenovela is the storyline.