Contemporary Latina/o Media: Production, Circulation, Politics

The cultural politics creating and consuming Latina/o mass media.

Just ten years ago, discussions of

Latina/o media could be safely reduced to a handful of TV channels, dominated

by Univision and Telemundo. Today, dramatic changes in the global political

economy have resulted in an unprecedented rise in major new media ventures for

Latinos as everyone seems to want a piece of the Latina/o media market. While

current scholarship on Latina/o media have mostly revolved around important

issues of representation and stereotypes, this approach does not provide the

entire story.

In Contemporary Latina/o Media,

Arlene Davila and Yeidy M. Rivero bring together an impressive range of leading

scholars to move beyond analyses of media representations, going behind the

scenes to explore issues of production, circulation, consumption, and political

economy that affect Latina/o mass media. Working across the disciplines of

Latina/o media, cultural studies, and communication, the contributors examine

how Latinos are being affected both by the continued Latin Americanization of

genres, products, and audiences, as well as by the whitewashing of mainstream

Hollywood media where Latinos have been consistently bypassed. While focusing

on Spanish-language television and radio, the essays also touch on the state of

Latinos in prime-time television and in digital and alternative media. Using a

transnational approach, the volume as a whole explores the ownership,

importation, and circulation of talent and content from Latin America, placing

the dynamics of the global political economy and cultural politics in the

foreground of contemporary analysis of Latina/o media.