Representations of the South in audiovisual media, and their deconstruction: memes in Latin America

Abstract

This article addresses the relations between the southern hemisphere and the northern hemisphere from representations transmitted by audiovisual media. More precisely, it is about analyzing stereotyped images that concern imaginaries linked to Latin America. To the extent that television and film representations are reconfigured in new forms of expression originating on the Internet, in our case it is about analyzing memes that concern Latin America, since memes constitute the typical language of the Internet and its networks. According to a conception of stereotypes originated in the theoretical works of Pierre Klossowski (1970; 2012) and Roland Barthes (2010), their heuristic, social, and ideological dimensions appear more explicitly. The stereotypical representations that apply to so-called Latin America and that are conveyed in audiovisual cultures are experiencing a reappraisal thanks to the Internet. Whether they are empirically true or false matters less than the scope and effect of the stereotypes thus produced and conveyed. The question then becomes that of knowing what the presuppositions and foundations of certain Latin American memes are, to finally ask us what geopolitical and cultural relations are at work behind problematic representations of Latin America and its inhabitants.