Representing Colombian history in television fiction: insights from audiovisual industry stakeholders

Since 2012, various television fiction products, including series and telenovelas, have been produced and broadcast both in Colombia and globally—including the Netflix series Narcos—portraying the harsh and violent final two decades of the 20th century in Colombia. These productions have been defined as memory telenovelas because the themes, characters, and events they address are recent, and most of their audiences lived through, were impacted by, or were even victims of the situations depicted in those products. To understand the perspectives and concerns regarding these messages and their impact on the social memory of the recent past, ten (n = 10) interviews and three focus groups (n = 16) were conducted, made up of key stakeholders from the industry. Key recurring themes included a consensus on the thematic relevance of these productions and the inherent contradictions in the representation of history through serialized fiction. Emphasis was also placed on the accuracy or validity of the representation versus the need to construct narrative universes around contemporary history; the legal constraints and limitations (such as copyright of stories, legal risk prevention, access to and use of archival material, etc.); and the creative responsibility of producers in the ideation and creation of audiovisual content.