Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - Ethnic media: Bridging the gap or widening it?

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Ethnic media: Bridging the gap or widening it?

Quote:

Minority groups favor ethnic media
LINK
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Nearly half the country's Hispanics, Asian-Americans and other minorities prefer ethnic newspapers, television and radio to mainstream media, according to a poll commissioned by the non-profit New California Media.
Outlets from Korean-language dailies to Spanish-broadcasting powerhouse Univision Communications (UVN) attract 45% of adults in major minority groups, or about 29 million people nationwide, at least several times a week over their mainstream counterparts.

Overall, ethnic media reaches about 80% the groups studied — about 51 million people, a quarter of the U.S. adult population.

"This is something that is growing like a giant hidden in plain sight," said Sandy Close, executive director for NCM, a nationwide association of more than 700 ethnic media groups.

"We have a multicultural society with multimedia choices, so people pay attention to media that pay attention to them. That's the bottom line," said Felix Gutierrez, professor of journalism at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California.

Anabel Delgado, 29, a Mexican immigrant who responded to the poll, watches up to two hours a day of Hispanic soap operas, or telenovelas, and music videos on Spanish language stations.

She favors the news shows in particular because they focus on topics affecting Hispanics like immigration and diabetes.

"The Spanish news seems to let Latinos know more about what interests us, things English channels don't talk much about," said Delgado, a customer service representative who lives in El Monte, east of Los Angeles.

The survey found that more than half of all Hispanic adults preferred ethnic media. About 60% of blacks and Arab-Americans, and a fourth of Asian- Americans and Native Americans, opted for such outlets.

Guttierez said the poll was further evidence that the news media are fracturing into segments, a trend fueled in part by advertisers looking to tailor their messages to individual consumers.

Some companies see minorities — many of whom are immigrants whose tastes and buying habits are still being shaped — as an untapped market.

Advertising and marketing in mainstream media, about $140 billion a year, is growing about 3% annually, according to NCM estimates. In Asian-American media, marketing dollars hover around $100 million a year, but are expanding about 10%. For Hispanic outlets, ad spending is about $3 billion and increasing at 15%.

"They're ripe for the picking," Gutierrez said of minority groups. "Individually they may not have much buying power, but collectively they do."

The poll has a margin of error between 3.5 and 10 percentage points, depending on the sample.

I don't understand this at all. I'm not a fan of this, separate cultural graduation ceremonies, or any thing else that pushes ethnicity into enclaves. I understand it for niche lifestyle programming, but that's not the same as ethnic programming. Personally, if CBS/NBC/ABC has SAP audio tracks in spanish, I expect when I go to any of these ethnic channels they would have SAP audio in english but they do not.

If they don't eductate the mainstream media as to their issues and plight that the hispanic lady addresses in the article, then we wind up with just as fractured disfunctionaly communication that we currrently have cross culturally.

I agree, there seems to be an increase in segragation of media separating broadcasting into different cultural sections, however supply and demand shows there is a need for ethnic minority media- else it wouldn't be so popular and with digital technology what it is allowing for so many channels I think ultimately it is a positive thing. None of this media should be exclusionist, or close minded in it's editorial so, yes, definately english subtitles all round and an avoidance of labelling (I hate the term Black music)

This is called market forces. If the mainstream doesn't catch on, then they lose out and some other enterprising people will fill that void/niche/market demand. It sounds like capitalism, free makets are working.

My guess is that since there isn't a demand for English subtitles on Spanish programming there isn't any (just a guess). It is my understanding that there is English subtitles on Asian programming. Also, testing has shown that Americans don't like to read subtitles wheras people from other cultures don't mind as much.

I don't see what the problem is.

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Originally Posted by jorgelito

I agree in the capitalism and market forces at work. Looking back at the immigrants that passed through NYC in the 1800s and early 1900s the elders understood that for their offspring to succeed they needed to "immerse" themselves and become part of the melting pot. I no longer see a melting pot, but a smogasbord buffet with separate cubbies for each item.

The problem that I'm pointing out is that in celebrating differences, we tend to then neglect similarities.

Why should there be Grammys and Latin Grammys? What about Asian Grammys? will there be an all encomapssing top dog Grammy? In that instance it's strictly what you are talking about market forces and capitalism.

People are clamoring for people to be all treated equally regardless of race, sexual orientation, religion etc. If there's little mainstream exposure of their interests then their issues are just as marginalized if not demonified by those that don't understand their plight.

But people tend to get tired of fighting a fight that isn't easy to win and in the end could result in lashback on the other side.

Prime example. Blacks in America have been fighting for decades to get better representation on the air waves and in general in society. Yet when somebody from the NAACP starts ranting about how there are no black people on friends or complaining about how the only black people on the news are the suspects...they get labeled as aggitators(sp?). Can you really blame people for finding and creating their own niche(and also lining THEIR own pockets as opposed to the pockets of people that won't listen to them) when they likely won't get listened to in the first place?

I'm sorry Cynthetiq, but I don't have much to say on the matter, except that this floored me:

Quote:

Advertising and marketing in mainstream media, about $140 billion a year, is growing about 3% annually, according to NCM estimates. In Asian-American media, marketing dollars hover around $100 million a year, but are expanding about 10%. For Hispanic outlets, ad spending is about $3 billion and increasing at 15%.

$3.1 billion - out of a total of $140 billion! - in advertising directed at Asian-American and Hispanic-Americans.... I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing. The good things might be 1) they aren't bombarded with values maybe contrary to their own, 2) programming directed specifically at them could have empowering side-effects. The bad things, well, you mentioned some of those I had in mind already...

Screw the mainstream media. While they are busy talking about the latest pretty white suburbanite going missing Mexicans would rather hear about issues that affect Mexicans. You see it all the time. The really fucked up thing is that when the local news does present a story relating to Mexicans, they use their token Mexican reporter who notoriously overpronounces everything Spanish, "Hello, this is Cathleen Mazzzzzcarrrrrreaneas, I am speaking to ARrrrramo'''nnn...." I'm sure it seems condescending to them.

I hope this doesn't mean that we can expect Fox Noticias to be on its way soon?

Quote:

Originally Posted by kutulu

I hope this doesn't mean that we can expect Fox Noticias to be on its way soon?

Well, they do have Geraldo Rivera sitting around somewhere... :)
I quit watching MTV a few years ago because it didn't relate to me anymore. Same thing. The key isn't to melt all of us into the same person - our differences make us a more flexible, experienced, and adaptable population.

lol, MTV would love it if we were all like-thinking clones.

Gee, the white middle class is upset about other people being interested in their own scene.
How completely (white) American that is.

Don't you think they get bombarded enough with your news and values?

I sometimes do distribution for a local minority paper so i might be biased. Anyways, i really don't see how this is a bad thing. There has always been specialization in the media. That's why there are at least 150000000000000 different magazines covering 65000043452352 different topics. If the MSM was doing a good job covering all the angles than such specialization wouldn't exist. I don't think ethnic media widens the gap, it just allows people access to news that is relevant to them.

If america ever actually becomes a homogeneous melting pot, i doubt such things will continue to exist.

i can understand everybody wanting their own outlet for information, but i believe that creates more differences in everybody. you always hear about the first black elected mayor or the first hispanic to fly to the moon. why does their ethnicity have to be pointed out? to me, that is telling people that they are different, instead of teaching that we are all the same.

on a side note, have there ever been an instance to where they said that someone was the first white person to be or do something important?

I don't think there is anything wrong with ethnic based programming. Growing up in different cultures and having different cultural backgrounds will lead to having different things and values that will appeal to them. Provided that one race does not make egregrious negative comments of another race, or emphasize negative differences between races, then I don't see anything wrong with it.

However, I see that sort of negative diversity emphasis happening with main stream media, so what's to say that other race media doesn't do the same thing?

I'm sorry for making a round-about argument, but I guess I will conclude my comment with that we ought to just realize the next person is Human, just like us.