The Hispanic image: The making of the Spanish-speaking audience

Michele Marie Klich, Purdue University

Abstract

In his amendment to political-economic media theory, Dallas Smythe has argued that under monopoly capitalism, the main commodity produced by media organizations is audiences not messages. Using a symbolic interactionist perspective, this study investigated how Spanish-language media operators and Hispanic advertising personnel have "selectively responded to particular cues" and have defined the Spanish-speaking community in America as an audience on two levels in a way that is acceptable to themselves and advertisers. Forty-two articles published in business periodicals from 1975 to 1986 were analyzed in terms of how these media professionals have constructed an image of this community as a media audience in the trade press. They have constructed this image by attempting to meet the criteria established by marketing researchers and fulfilling the financial opportunities that they perceive in some of these criteria. Media professionals have described the Spanish-speaking community as a "big," "growing," and "spending" uniform group of "Hispanics." According to media professionals, Hispanics can become only partially assimilated. While they have economically assimilated, Hispanics have not socially adapted to the "ways of life" in America which include speaking English. The Hispanic image in the trade press is marked by some serious inconsistencies. Looking to develop additional financial opportunities for themselves, certain Hispanic advertising executives have contended that Hispanics are comprised of separate and distinct subcultures and vary in the degree to which they have become socially assimilated. Interviews with 14 Hispanic advertising personnel in Chicago were conducted to analyze the production of Spanish-language television commercials. The Hispanic image in these commercials has been constructed out of a focus on the Hispanic mother/homemaker and a "gentricization" of the language, talent, and music which enable Hispanic advertising personnel to produce these commercials effectively and efficiently. The Hispanic image in Spanish-language television commercials, then, is narrowly-focused, bland, and diluted. The image of the Spanish-speaking community as an audience on both levels is being constructed out of routines which enable media professionals to work in a way that fulfills the perceived requirements and opportunities in their producer-patron relationship with advertisers.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Turow, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Mass media

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