A Residual Infrastructure. the Rise and Obsolescence of Big Satellite Television Dishes in Colombia
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A RESIDUAL INFRASTRUCTURE. THE RISE AND OBSOLESCENCE OF BIG SATELLITE TELEVISION DISHES IN COLOMBIA BY FABIAN M. PRIETO-ÑAÑEZ DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Communications and Media in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2019 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Assistant Professor Amanda Ciafone, Chair Professor James Hay Professor Cameron McCarthy Associate Professor Anita Say Chan To Cata, ii ABSTRACT 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. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS In December 2012, Dr. Anita Chan contacted me to join a group of Faculty and graduate students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. That opportunity had changed my life in many ways, from learning about life in the Midwest to navigate the academic culture in the United States. I owe Dr. Chan this chance to meet a great group of people who during these years have supported me in many ways. First, I want to thank my committee members, Dr. Anita Chan, James Hay and Cameron McCarthy, and my advisor Dr. Amanda Ciafone. Each of them helped me to develop many ideas during the courses I took with them, and during the different conversations and feedback to presentation I had the opportunity to make at the Institute of Communication Research. I’m in debt with Dr. Ciafone support on my ideas, and in revising my writing in many opportunities. The Learning to see systems group, in which I participated during my first two years had a big impact in encouraging me to navigate different approaches to learning about the values of infrastructure. I want to thank Kevin Hamilton and Terri Weissman for their great advice and support at those early stages of my PhD. The Center of Latin American and Caribbean studies, CLACS funded my research twice. Angelina Cotler and Kasia Szremski, as associate directors helped me to accomplish my research through the institute. In the socialization of the results, I had the great opportunity to had feedback from Ellen Moodie, from the anthropology department, as well as from many CLACS researchers. As a member of the Society for Social Studies of Science, I had the opportunity to had Lilly Irani as a mentor during 2015. Not only her feedback on my early projects were great, but iv also she encouraged me to publish a “think piece” in the Annals of the history of computing. There, Bradley Fidler edited my piece, and gave a great advice on how to write for broader publics in the US. I want to them both. Also, as a member of the Society of the History of Technology, I met Colin Garvey, Alana Stati, Karsten Marhold, Ignasi Meda-Calvet, and Honghong Tinn who also helped me in thinking about my project. More recently, I had the opportunity to meet a group of scholars interested in ideas of maintenance and repair, who did not only inspire my work, but also became close peers. I want to thank Liliana Gil Sousa, Matthew Hockenberry, Andrew Russell and Lee Vinsel for opening a space for at The Maintainers. In my visits to Colombia, I had the opportunity to meet Lyda Deaza, who presented a paper at the IAMCR conference in Cartagena in 2017. Lyda inspired me to learn more about community television and to think about the history of these systems. Lyda also introduced me to Juan Manuel and Lorena Guerrero, who work at CIMAVISION, a community television channel nearby Bogota. Her father Juan Manuel kindly had a conversation with us, when he remembered his work as a satellite dish distributor in Bogota during the 1990s. Santiago Reyes, also helped me to navigate sources regarding the use of satellite dishes in different neighborhoods in Bogota. Adriana Hernández, from Biblioteca Luis Angel Arango helped me to create an environment for researching local sources. To all them, I want to express my gratitude. Sandra Sanchez and Jimena Zuluaga from Universidad de los Andes also helped me in a lot of ways. Mi gratitude also goes to my mentors and friends, Manuel Franco Avellaneda, Julio Arias Vanegas, Jaime Borja, Armando Castiblanco, Diego García, Franz Hensel, Diego Mazorra, Tania Perez-Bustos, Paula Ronderos, and Oscar Saldarriaga, Alvaro Santoyo and Monika Therrien, who also heard and commented about my research in my visits to Colombia. v In fall 2018 I participated in the Transregional Academies organized by the Forum Transregionale Studien (Berlin) and the Max Weber Foundation (Bonn) in Singapore. From this exchange I had the opportunity to meet great persons who discussed an early stage of my dissertation. I want to thank Norman Aselmayer, Jonathan Balls, Sarah Beringer, Somayeh Chitchian, Carrie Cushman, Meghan Downes, Mushahid Hussain, Dina Krichker, Busarin Lertchavalitsakul, Saikat Maitra, Jasnea Sarma, Mirza Zulfiqur Rahman, and Brijesh Chandra Tripathi for their ideas and conversation. My friends at University of Illinois had a central role in supporting me during these years. Thanks to David Aristizábal, Michael Atienza, Angela Barragan, Dilara Caliskan, Paulina Camacho, Ga Young Chun, Rodolfo Esparza, Brenda García, Grazzia Grimaldi, Ozan Kahraman, Lilah Leopold, Esteban Lopez-Ochoa, Ian Mondragon, Liz Moreno DooJae Park, Sergio Poo, Nari Shin, Jeongsu Shin, Cesar Uribe, and Hong-An (Ann) Wu. And special thanks to Ian Middleton, who helped me to discover my interest in satellite dishes, and Lina Zambrano for supporting that idea. The Institute of Communication Research will always be a mark in my academic life. Prof. Clifford Christians and James Hay always encouraged me to learn from the history of ICR. I want to thank Theresa Harris for all her help during these six years. I became close friends with other PhD students, and as such they supported my project at different levels. I want to thank my friends Susmita Das, Megan McSwain, Claudia Lagos, Diana León-Boys, David Carrillo, Anirban Mukhopadhyay, Jorge Rojas-Alvarez, and Anqi Peng. A special thank for supporting me at the last stage of my research to Yiran Gao, Jingyi Gu and Yeahin Pyo. For their kindness, understanding and for sharing these six years with me I want to thank my friends Youngkwan Ban and Chamee vi Yang. My family keep supporting me at a distance. I want to thank Maria Alejandra and Ana María Hernandez, and Maria Fernanda and Victoria Cabal. My sisters Maria Fernanda, Juliana and Daniela motivated me to continue my work, through my visits to Colombian and their messages through the internet. I could not express more satisfaction that having my parents visiting me at the last stage of my dissertation, and personally tell them how important they have been in my life. I dedicate this dissertation to Catalina, who encouraged me to continue my academic path. As always, she has inspired me to walk together and explore other territories. Thanks also to Rita Filomena, who supported me during the writing process. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER 1: SATELLITE TELEVISION AS AN INTERNATIONAL PROJECT .......... 22 CHAPTER 2: SATELLITE DISHES IN THE CARIBBEAN ............................................. 60 CHAPTER 3: BUILDING AN INFORMAL INFRASTRUCTURE ................................... 95 CHAPTER 4: THE PUBLIC DISPLAY OF SATELLITE DISHES ................................. 130 CHAPTER 5: THE FORMALIZATION OF SATELLITE DISHES................................. 169 EPILOGUE. SATELLITE CULTURES ................................................................................... 205 REFERENCES .......................................................................................................................... 212 viii INTRODUCTION 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. All of them had one characteristic: they were huge, and they promised to connect people to international networks of communication. In its first version, the Colombian government invested millions of dollars in modernizing telecommunications, later locally designed “parabolic antennas”