How The Media Has Influenced in the Construction of the US Latino Identity - Essay Example

assignment is due In the 2000 Census, the U.S. Census Bureau concluded that the largest minority group in the United States was Latinos. Latinos are becoming such an influential group of American society and culture that on August 22, 2005, Time ran the cover story titled “The 25 Most Influential Hispanics in America.” Since 2005, Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News & World Report have devoted their cover stories to ever increasing pessimism toward the issue of immigration and increased nativist and anti-immigrant sentiment directed toward Latino immigrants. This is evident in the example of the Newsweek cover story published on April 10, 2006, titled “Illegals Under Fire” and then on the same day the Time Magazine cover story read, “Who Gets to be an American?” with an inside special report “Should they Stay or Should They Go?” This mounting influence the Latino community has in U.S. society coupled with the important role of the news media warrants a study that examines how Latinos are represented in U.S. mainstream news magazines. In 2005 the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) Network Brownout Report, published a report that broadcast news programs are deficient in many areas that report stories that present the Latino community in a fair and unbiased manner. This study has been prompted by some of the urgent issues listed here and others that will be discussed later. By analyzing the way in which U.S. magazines covered Latinos, this study raises the following questions: 1. What was the number of magazine stories about Latinos? 2. What were the topics of these stories? 3. What are the main themes found in the coverage of Latinos? The Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication for the NAHJ conducted a study in which they discovered that in magazines such as Time, Newsweek and U.S. News and World Report during 2005 did not have a great amount of Latinos represented in their pages. In this report it was discovered that 1,547 which had been published in the year 2005 by the above stated magazines only held 18 stories (a total of 1.2 percent) in which mention of Latinos were given or covered. Of the stories that were published in 2005 in these magazines 12 of them were about immigration which left 5 stories out of 1,547 dealing with other issues of Latinos and Latino culture out of three main US magazines1. The study went on to expound on the portrayals of Latinos in this study. Since the majority of the stories were about immigration, the study focused on how Latinos were portrayed in this capacity. Latino immigrants in these magazines were presented in a negative fashion and were seen as a threat and a ‘disruptive force in U.S. society. However, it must also be included that six of these stories of immigration and other Latino focused articles portrayed them in a positive fashion in a political capacity. The negative stereotype mentioned previously refers to Latinos in an immigrant status as lazy and dirty2. As Banks suggests, “In a 1969 article, sociologist Tomas Martinez documented the following commercials: Grabby Goose chips featuring fat gun-toting, Mexicans; Paco the lazy Latino selling L&M cigarettes and a Mexican bandito spraying his armpits with Arrid deodorant. Latino activists Armando Rendon and Domingo Nick Reyes contended that the media had shifted the demeaning stereotypes it had once reserved for Blacks to Latinos”3. It was only through the Latino protest of these images that the nation became aware of these portrayals as negative. In U.S. magazines when a Latino is typically portrayed alongside a White Caucasian they tend to be in less white-collar roles and doing blue-collar duties such as janitorial work, or cleaning as opposed to being a businessman or CEO which further emphasizes the negative connotations of Latinos in magazines. In another study conducted by Richards, it reveals that within the realm of advertising in Southern California the Latino population accounts for 38 percent in the city of Los Angeles and 28 percent of the entire state, a low number of Latinos are represented in the magazine world, as Richard further states, “…that area ad agencies recognize the problem, and some have begun minority scholarships and internship programs to try to attract more Hispanics, believing that having more Latinos in the business will naturally increase the number appearing in ads. The fact that inadequate minority representation happens even in a high Latino-concentrated market sheds light on the depth of the problem country-wide”4.Thus, even though there is a very real and tangible problem, remedies are being made, or at least an effort is being made to place positive images of Latinos in magazines. There are many ways in which Latinos are being misrepresented in magazines when they are in fact not being represented at all. It has been stated and supported that Latinos in mainstream U.S. magazines have been underrepresented and that when they were depicted, they were stereotyped into a role as inferior in importance compared to the whites or African Americans in the story of advertisement as Ricle states, “…most ads with minority presence were racially integrated; that is, portraying white Caucasian models and minority models together, they noted the perceived importance of Hispanic/Latino characters were frequently neutralized by the presence of several other minority characters performing the same type of role as the Hispanic/Latino characters”5. In addition, advertisers are not even trying to reach the Latino market which accounts for their low numbers in advertisements6. In advertising, “presentation is everything” and in the representation of Latinos in U.S. consumer magazines in their subtle advertisement, this is very prevalent. In Reveron’s article he states, “Marketers often prefer olive-skinned or light brown Latinos with black straight hair and Caucasian-like features because they are perceived to have the broadest appeal among Hispanics of all colors. In addition, Latinos arrive in the United States from countries where white models and actors dominate marketing and media images, and blacks traditionally have appeared as stereotyped characters”7. Although Latinos are being represented in leading U.S magazines they are being more collectively represented as white Caucasians and not in the traditional Latino profile. It is obvious this type of characterization is stripping away the Latino identity in order to promote sales. This literature review has shown that in U.S. advertisements, Latinos are either being underrepresented, misrepresented or not represented at all in U.S. consumer magazines. In areas with large populations of Latinos such as Los Angeles, underrepresentation is a poor marketing strategy as the majority of consumers are Latinos. Generally, Latinos are being represented in U.S. consumer magazines as blue collar workers like janitors or cleaning people as well as dirty and lazy immigrants. As the influence of Latinos in the United States grows, it will be even more crucial to conduct further research to examine the role of the media and its representations of the largest minority in the U.S. today. Read More