Urban Cultural Events
in Latin America

In the chapter about "Urban Cultural Policies in Latin America" in the book Consumers and Citizens: Globalization and Multicultural Conflicts, Néstor García Canclini wrote:

The cohesion of national and urban cultures was generated and sustained, in part, because high and popular cultures provided specific iconographies to express local identities.  The tango, Jorge Luis Borges's writing, and Antonio Berni's painting represented the symbolic universe that made Buenos Aires distinctive (although its origins and influences obviously extended to other territories).  Mexico City was characterized by the films of Pedro Infante, the architecture of its historic center, and the music of Chava Flores (although the repercussions of and capacity for sociocultural representation of all of these cultural forms encompassed people from other regions.

What happens to the connections between certain cities and certain symbols when national musics are hybridized with those of other countries or when films are the result of international coproductions?  In order to reach wider audiences and make a profit, film and television favor spectacular plots that are easily understood by all cultures.  National references and local styles dissolve in those films, and paintings and television series increasingly resemble each other in São Paulo and Tokyo, New York and Mexico City, Paris and Buenos Aires ...

... Survey results showed that the institutionalized sector (i.e. film, theater, music and dance concerts) fell short of 10 percent of all cultural consumption.  Regular attendance at traditional, popular spectacles and feasts also failed to reach a higher market share.  That this situation holds in a country like Mexico, with strong ethnic and popular traditions and with greater state sponsorship than elsewhere, suggests that in other countries there is even less receptivity for local cultural fare.

We will now cite some survey data from the 2001 TGI Latina study, which consists of interviews with 26,420 persons between the ages of 12 and 64 years old in five Latin American countries.  According to this study, 7.8% of these people said that they had attended one or more cultural events in the past 3 months.  By comparison, almost all homes in the survey area have access to television and radio, and almost all persons watch television and listen to radio with some frequency.

In the next table, we show the geographical distributions of attendance at cultural events.  By comparing across the countries, we would say that the statement "That this situation holds in a country like Mexico, with strong ethnic and popular traditions and with greater state sponsorship than elsewhere, suggests that in other countries there is even less receptivity for local cultural fare" is in fact not true, though perhaps not by much.  Relatively speaking, attendance at cultural events are highest in the two most Europeanized capital cities --- Buenos Aires (Argentina) and Santiago (Chile).

The next table tells us just who these attendees of cultural events are --- they are younger, affluent and better educated.

Elsewhere, in the chapter titled "Mexico: Cultural Globalization in a Disintegrating City," Néstor García Canclini wrote:

Why does the general public attend shows so infrequently?  One explanation, consistent with international trends, is that participation in public cultural facilities (movie houses, theaters, dance spaces) is declining, while home delivery of culture (radio, television video) is on the rise.  Our survey, which revealed sparse attendance at shows involving collective use of urban space, also found that 95 percent of Mexico City's population regularly watches television, 87 percent listens to radio, and 52% of the city's families have videocassette players.

... Communications specialists and some anthropologists emphasized the retreat to domestically consumed culture, the replacement of theaters by radio, of movies houses by home video, and of attendance at stadiums by televised sports events.  

From the TGI Latina study, we will now show the attendance of cultural events cross-tabulated by the number of hours spent watching television.  The data from this table are somewhat unusual.  As the number of broadcast television viewing hours increases, the likelihood of attending cultural events decreases.  So far so good.  But when the number of cable/satellite television viewing hours increases, the likelihood of attending cultural events actually increases.  Obviously, the results are confounded by the fact that the presence of cable/satellite television service is positively correlated with socio-economic level.

If we proceed to restrict the preceding table to only the people in Socio-economic Level A (Top 10%), we obtain the next table.  

While the numerical values have changed, the qualitative pattern remains.  This does suggest that cable/satellite television is in fact qualitatively different from broadcast television.  Whereas broadcast television aims most often to capture the largest possible audience by programming to the lowest common denominator, cable/satellite television channels are often niche channels, including those that carry  global cultural programs that are otherwise inaccessible.

(posted by Roland Soong, 5/10/2001)

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