The Routledge Companion to Latina/o Media

Maria Cepeda, Maria Cepeda, Maria Elena Cepeda, Dolores Inés Casillas, Maria Elena Cepeda

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317935414
• Subtopic: Gender Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

The Routledge Companion to Latina/o Media provides students and scholars with an indispensable overview of the domestic and transnational dynamics at play within multi-lingual Latina/o media. The book examines both independent and mainstream media via race and gender in its theoretical and empirical engagement with questions of production, access, policy, representation, and consumption. Contributions consider a range of media formats including television, radio, film, print media, music video and social media, with particular attention to understudied fields such as audience and production studies.

Part I

Understanding Contemporary Latina/o Media

Introduction

A more than sixfold increase in the Latina/o population since 1970 prompted dramatic shifts in the U.S. ethnoracial landscape by the turn of the twenty-first century. This Latina/o population growth spurred a move towards more intensive ethnic marketing aimed at a heterogeneous amalgam of Latina/o communities currently totaling approximately 55 million (Brown 2014; Krogstad and Lopez 2015). Rapid population growth, accompanied by an enhanced awareness of Latina/o buying power, rendered the Latina/o market more legible to mainstream media outlets across all formats, just as it has eventually led to a noteworthy expansion in the realm of Latina/o-centered media in both English and Spanish. Not coincidentally, the last twenty years have also marked a significant rise in the amount of scholarship in the field of Latina/o Media Studies. The field has coalesced during a juncture characterized by stark contradictions: it is an increasingly globalized era first defined by growth in the amount of Latina/o-centered media and selective mainstream Latina/o hypervisibility. These circumstances are juxtaposed against a stark lack of parity regarding the amount and scope of Latina/o media presence and production-level participation. As both a reflection and a product of the historical moment, Latina/o Media Studies has come into its own during a period marked by the ever-growing allure of Latina/o market power coupled with the ongoing, deep-seated structural inequities faced by Latinas/os in the United States.

Latina/o Media Studies is not the sole straightforward result of the Latina/o media boom of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, however. Rather, it is a field that is also profoundly indebted to the student-led call for the creation of U.S. Ethnic Studies programs dating back to the late 1960s and early 1970s. As it was, by the late 1980s, marked Latina/o population growth and the rise of Ethnic Studies had already inspired a nascent consideration of Latina/o-specific subject matter in existing Media Studies courses. This scholarship was generated by the first cohort, or generation, of Latina/o Media Studies scholars, a group of self-taught individuals who did not initially receive the interdisciplinary training that has since become a hallmark of the field. In contrast, the second cohort of Latina/o Media Studies scholars benefitted from graduate-level training from across the disciplines, as well as in the areas of popular culture and Film Studies. While these individuals generally lacked formal guidance and mentorship from graduate advisors familiar with Latina/o or Ethnic Studies, they nevertheless persisted in forging a coherent plan of study from across the disciplines. Though small in number, the Latina/o Media Studies specialists from these two earlier cohorts have exhibited a noteworthy commitment to mentoring their more junior colleagues and graduate students that has resulted in the rapidly expanding corpus of cutting-edge, critically engaged research presented in the pages of this volume. As such, more recently trained Latina/o Media Studies scholars have experienced the privileges of rigorous, highly specialized interdisciplinary training. However, despite their access to a greater array of Latina/o-centered research in Communications and Media Studies, successive cohorts of Latina/o Media Studies scholars have not limited themselves to these areas of inquiry. Rather, as Angharad Valdivia states, if Media Studies is interdisciplinary, then Latina/o Media Studies proves more emphatically so (2004, 107, 2008, 10, 12–13). As the chapters featuring the second and successive Latina/o Media Studies scholarly cohorts in this opening section illustrate, the methodological and thematic scope of the field is exceedingly broad and poses significant challenges regarding reigning conceptualizations of race, ethnicity, gender, language, and nation to Media Studies as a whole.

The volume’s opening chapter probes the question of Latinidad—or what Esteban del Río terms the “cultural logic of Latinidad”—and its status as one of the foundational conceptual components of Latina/o Media Studies. In it, the author deftly critiques the manner in which scholars frequently approach Latinas/os (and by extension, Latinidad) as subjects of study to be taken for granted, despite Latina/o heterogeneity and the ever-increasing influence of globalization and migration. Recognizing the need to find utility in Latinidad and Latinas/os as both concepts and subjects of analysis, he encourages us to simultaneously interrogate the “how” and “why” of Latina/o media; in other words, on what terms and to what ends are the cultural messages attached to Latinidad generated? In this vein, del Río emphasizes the need for scholars to question not only the usage of Latinidad as an unproblematized category for understanding media phenomena such as stereotypes, but also to trouble the notion that Latina/o Media Studies necessarily implies the study of race. For the author, both approaches prove foundational to the field; however, he cautions against allowing them to overdetermine the terrain of analysis. Instead, del Río promotes a relational rhetoric as a framework for studying Latinas/os as a coherent group and for approaching the question of difference in general. Grounded in a hemispheric approach as well as a reconsideration of Latina/o representation, this relational rhetoric introduces a more profound level of contextual analysis to Latina/o Media Studies. By enabling scholars to move beyond the practice of evaluating and conceptualizing media texts as either “positive” or “negative,” such an approach reveals the underlying conditions of production, the motivations, and the theories linked to the articulation of Latina/o coherence. As del Río posits, this conceptual shift towards the relational carries the potential for prompting a more complex platform of demands on the part of Latina/o media advocacy organizations. In a critique that spans the fields of Communications, Media, Ethnic, and Cultural Studies, del Río’s chapter productively dismantles (and ultimately later successfully reconstructs) the two theoretical and thematic linchpins that have defined Latina/o Media Studies scholarship to date. It is a piece that exemplifies the richness of the field without lapsing into an overly celebratory posture of any of the methodological or thematic approaches contained within it.

Akin to the glocalized analysis that Vargas and Erba engage in regarding the emerging Latina/o media outlets of the New Latino South in Chapter 3, Jéssica Retis offers a comparative study of Latin American immigrant media dynamics across the various global cities of London, Madrid, New York, and Los Angeles. Grounded in a decade’s worth of groundbreaking fieldwork in these sites, Retis’ chapter traces how technological innovation and simultaneous population shifts have heralded subsequent transformations in the realm of transnational communication and information. Mirroring the impacts of the shift from legacy media to new media that Vargas and Erba delineate at the regional level in Chapter 3, Retis examines how Latin American immigrants in global cities have been witness to and participated in major changes in their own communicative practices. Even when allowing for differences in geopolitical and historical context, Retis locates a common discourse at the heart of media texts aimed at Latin American immigrants in global cities: in stark contrast to the language of exclusion permeating mainstream media, an alternate, more inclusive discourse of advertising and marketing aimed at all immigrants, regardless of legal status, has emerged. This discursive turn toward inclusivity portends a recognition of the ongoing need for immigrant-oriented advertising platforms in ethnic enclaves in the cities that Retis profiles. As the author’s fieldwork confirms, new synergies in the advertising markets of global cities are developing in tandem with the pressing need for more nuanced forms of media representation and self-representation that serve as sorely needed outlets of information for immigrants. It is possible as well, Retis argues, to identify other parallels uniting the mediascapes of global cities in the context of increased immigration, such as the growth of preexisting media outlets and the development of new media projects. Nevertheless, Retis cautions against any attempts to put forth a static map of Spanish-language media in global cities; instead, she urges us to conceptualize the media dynamics of diasporic transnationalism as being rooted more in a sense of space rather than place. Her comparative analysis proves unique in its multisited approach, as well as in its dual emphasis on legacy and new media. Furthermore, the focus on immigrant media dynamics in global cities such as Madrid and London (both home to newer Latin American immigrant populations) alongside those of New York and Los Angeles (each sites of multigenerational Latina/o communities) ultimately provokes valuable questions regarding the boundaries and character of Latinidad, as well as the always/already transnational nature of Latina/o media and its role in the construction of community across time and space.

As Lucila Vargas and Joseph Erba demonstrate in the first systematic mapping of various media outlets across the “New Latino South,” regional-level analyses must also play a key role in how Latina/o Media Studies researchers (and Media Studies scholars in general) conceptualize Latina/o-centered media activity. Moving away from the bicoastal model that defines much Latina/o Studies research, Vargas and Erba argue that not only are regional-level media analyses crucial to our understanding of Latinas/os’ relationship to media in an era of rapidly shifting demographics; these analyses are also absolutely necessary given the complexity and geographic reach of the current media industry. In a chapter that reminds us of the ongoing primacy of the local in an age of globalized media, the authors ask: how has Latina/o media primarily aimed at recent immigrants fared in a six-state region faced with difficult economic circumstances, widespread anti-immigrant sentiment, and the move towards new or digital formats? Employing data collected over a four-year period, Vargas and Erba argue against a purely economicist analysis of Latina/o media dynamics in the region, advocating instead for a holistic or Polanyian approach grounded in the economic, legal, cultural, political, and religious domains. For the authors, the need for a Polanyian lens is tied to the advocacy-oriented roots of much Latina/o media, as well as to the fact that immigrant populations are subject not only to shifts in the economic sector, but to changes in the political climate and immigration climate as well. Moreover, as this chapter highlights, the relationship between Southern African-American and Latina/o media outlets proves far from simple, reflecting Latinas/os’ ambivalent location in the nation’s historic black/white ethnoracial dichotomy in tension with the social justice ideals of much ethnic media. Adding to the highly limited existing bibliography of media dynamics in “new Latina/o” spaces, Vargas and Erba provide a crucial context for understanding just how Latinas/os in the New South obtain their information, as they identify the local media formats that are most likely to reach Latina/o communities in an often hostile environment. As is the case with the urban Latina/o media outlets examined by Retis, the emergence of a transnational Latina/o labor market in the New South has prompted the development of a Latina/o diaspora, which in turn has required its own media.

Like del Río, Angharad Valdivia probes the question of representation in a chapter that centers on the underlying utopian character of Latina/o representational politics in contemporary mainstream media. She undertakes three case studies that illustrate the manner in which “implicit utopias” drive much Latina/o Media Studies research and political activism around representation and discourse to questions of production, audience, and interpretation. Valdivia traces the dual meaning of utopia from the original Greek, simultaneously understood as “no place” and a “good place.” This decipherment emphasizes the clear possibility that representational utopia—the “good place”—may never actually materialize and is therefore best understood as “no place.” Valdivia reminds us that ideal access to mainstream media is not merely a question of achieving representational parity; instead, she argues for the recognition of the limitations of inclusion-based media models. As she underscores, we must also account for the roles of Latina/o producers, actors, and audiences in search of employment and/or media texts that offer a unique and improved departure from standard fare. The first two case studies analyze the problematic industry coverage and reception of the Latina/o-centered film Instructions Not Included (2013) and Latina/o awards shows operating from a peripheral position. They underscore the complex tensions faced by Latina/o media producers regarding the deployment of a stereotype versus wholesale representational erasure, as well as those regarding linguistic choices and the inclusion of Latina/o content in mainstream or alternative media. Valdivia’s final case study, an analysis of the book covers for three recent Latina/o Media Studies monographs, unveils a stark critique of the utopian vision of privilege in U.S. popular culture when compared to the lived realities of Latinas/os. In a chapter that prompts readers to consider the challenges of media representation from a variety of perspectives, Valdivia skillfully complicates the reigning logic regarding the ever-present question of inadequate (and in some cases, highly problematic) Latina/o media representation.

In the first quantitative study of Latina/o phenotype bias on primetime television, Dana Mastro and Alexander Sink explore the potential impact of phenotype on discriminatory behavior. Emphasizing the true dearth of Latina/o televisual representations, the authors assert that the tendency for mass media to offer stereotypical representations of ethnoracial minorities not only assists in the creation and maintenance of biases rooted in phenotype, but it may also lead to their intensification. With content analysis data gathered from primetime television, Mastro and Sink pose various questions ranging from the degree of Latina/o phenotype diversity present on television during a given television time slot, to the variability of phenotypic traits across ethnoracial populations on television, to whether or not any variation in the particular attributes linked to the different phenotypic characteristics among Latina/o characters occurred during primetime. The authors’ analysis confirms some realities that have been long suspected by Latina/o Media Studies specialists but that had never been quantified: Mastro and Sink identify a general lack of specificity regarding the ethnic backgrounds of Latina/o characters, an onscreen preference for white or light-skinned Latinas/os, and the tendency for Latina/o characters to possess accents, among other key results. As the authors also note, the sheer lack of Latina/o characters on primetime television points to a disturbing disconnect between the manner in which cultural diversity is represented within the media and the lived realities of cultural difference in contemporary U.S. society (Dávila 2012). The potential impacts of this persistent underrepresentation and stereotyping, Mastro and Sink posit, do not merely shape Latina/o self-perceptions; they can perhaps also negatively affect the Latina/o population’s social and political capital on the whole. As an example of a quantitative approach to issues of representation, arguably the principal issue concerning Latina/o Media Studies scholars today, Mastro and Sink’s data offers tangible evidence of the manner in which the U.S. mainstream media persistently fails Latina/o consumers in its reliance on archetypes such as the light-skinned “Latin Look” and the notion that all Latinas/os are recently arrived immigrants (and must therefore have accents). The authors provide a meaningful addition to the existing scholarship on media and ethnoracial phenotypicality, which to date has exclusively focused on African-Americans, and in the process they trouble the neat black/white ethnoracial boundary upon which so many U.S. media representations and media-based studies are predicated.

Speaking from the growing field of Latina/o Audience Studies, Kristin Moran’s in-depth consideration of family television viewing practices in San Diego County offers a far more nuanced portrait of Latina/o audiences than the vision embraced by the producers and promoters of Instructions Not Included that Valdivia discusses. Focusing on Latina/o-centered programming in bo...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Acknowledgments
• List of Contributors
• Part I Understanding Contemporary Latina/o Media
• Part II Access, Policy, and Production in Latina/o Media
• Part III Representations of Latinas/os in the Media
• Part IV Engendering New Practices and Meanings Behind Latina/o Media Consumption
• Index