Abstract

The Latin American children of the late 1990s and 2000s grew up watching cartoons, just like those
decades before; however, for the first time, many of these cartoons were being made by them. That was
only the beginning… Benefiting from new digital animation technology and Internet availability as much
as from a renewed sense of what cartoons were and for whom, online animation became one of the
earliest and most popular forms of online media in Latin America and the world. And yet, their
popularity is relatively confined to the Internet and their academic study remains scarce. This thesis
aims to remediate this absence and to provide a base from which to give a better account of Latin
American online animation. In doing so, it can improve our understanding of other online media’s
connection with socio-economic, technological, ideological, and aesthetic imperatives. I highlight the
role of economic class and cultural imperialism in online animation’s aesthetic and contents, consider
the role of cable networks in both shaping these tastes and offering a precedent for online platforms like
YouTube, and review the technological limitations leading to an online animation vernacular (regional
and global). I focus on this vernacular’s formal traits as a necessary first step to approach online
animation and potentially other media. Ultimately, I provide a socio-economic and techno-historical
context for Latin American online animation’s visual culture and its media and geo-cultural specificity.
This research is all the more necessary in the face of the impermanence of online media.