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

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.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Communications and Media

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2020

Author dc:creator

• Prieto Nanez, Fabian Mauricio

Contributors dc:contributor

• Ciafone, Amanda M
• McCarthy, Cameron
• Hay, James
• Chan, Anita S.

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

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2019 Fabian Prieto Nanez

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

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

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/106161