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The United States Census asks its participants to choose one (or more) of the following races: White, Asian American, Black/African American/Negro, American Indian/Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander (with subcategories). Hispanics/Latinos may choose one or more race categories since they can be of any race. People, who do not identify with any of the given racial groups, are allowed to mark the "Some other race" category and write in their race or races.
Ethnic community- and gender-related media such as TV programmes, newspapers, magazines, radio programs, websites etc. record an explosive growth and thus reflect the official ethno-racial categorization. In a study on the penetration of ethnic media in the U.S. in 2009, New America Media, a cooperation of 2000 ethnic news agencies, states that the majority of Latinos, African Americans und Asian Americans (82% / 56 mill.) use ethnic media as primary or secondary media. For example, some 140 TV stations, 600 radio stations and 550 magazines, newspapers and websites cater exclusively to U.S. Latinos, predominantly in their native language Spanish (source: Latina magazine). In future, the ethnic media will expand their reach and influence, not least due to ongoing migration processes.
According to K. Viswanath and P. Arora, "ethnic media serve the triple functions of information, assimilation, and ethnic identity reinforcement"(53) and such have both in-group and inter-group functions.
In class, we will explore and discuss the ethnic media's specific functions in the construction and representation of ethno-racial, gender, social, cultural and political identities by analyzing diverse media material (magazines, books, TV shows, film/movies, websites, commercials etc.). In addition, we will compare so called ethnic media texts with non-ethnic media texts (which address the WASP population/White mainstream as their target audience) and discuss the appropriateness of such classifications. Requirements (subject to change) * Regular attendance and completion of all reading and writing assignments. Your participation in class will enter into your seminar grade. * For "Studienbuch" credit: give a presentation + hand in a written version * For "Proseminar" credit: give a presentation + hand in a research paper |
