Book Review: Understanding Ethnic Media: Producers, Consumers, and Societies

Book Review: Understanding Ethnic Media: Producers, Consumers, and Societies by Matthew D. Matsaganis, Vikki S. Katz, and Sandra J. Ball-Rokeach 

Queenie Byars

University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

 doi: 10.1177/1077699012443102
 Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly June 2012 vol. 89 no. 2 357-358

 Understanding Ethnic Media: Producers, Consumers, and Societies. Matthew D. Matsaganis, Vikki S. Katz, Sandra J. Ball-Rokeach Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2011. 314 pp. $41.95 pbk.

Journalism and mass communication programs continue to expand support for diversity that is inclusive and reflected in the classroom, work environment, and scholarly research work. The timing of a new book focusing on the proliferation of the ethnic media sector during the past two decades is noteworthy. This addition to the literature adds a new twist to the important discussion on diversity, employment of racial and ethnic minorities, and the portrayal of minorities by the mainstream media.

In Understanding Ethnic Media: Producers, Consumers, and Societies, authors Matthew D. Matsaganis of SUNY–Albany, Vikki S. Katz of Rutgers University, and Sandra J. Ball-Rokeach of the Annenberg School at the University of Southern California joined forces to present “a far-reaching review and analysis of how ethnic media affects ongoing negotiations of self-identity.” Their initiative led to a course on ethnic media at USC, and then to the book.

The three professors—one a former journalist from Greece, another a researcher who grew up in apartheid South Africa, and the third principal investigator of the Metamorphosis Project at the Annenberg School—focused on nine areas during their extensive research of ethnic media. Their comprehensive, 314-page book is organized into eleven chapters covering history, policy, culture, organization, profession, social relations, community, migration, and globalization dimensions. Most chapters include objectives, helpful shaded blocks of material labeled “For Further Discussion,” plus a summary and study questions or role-playing scenarios.

The book is so broad that it reads and feels like a multivolume encyclopedia. With so much material to cover, the authors go through painstaking efforts to structure the book into five overarching sections: Ethnic Media in Context, The Consumers, The Producers, Ethnic Media as Civic Communicators, and The Future of Ethnic Media.

Ethnic Media in Context looks at definitions, key terms, and the roles ethic media play in everyday life and history. The objective is to help readers understand what historical, social, political, and economic conditions make studying ethnic media necessary. It details the development of ethnic media for immigrant, ethnic minority, and indigenous groups in different parts of the world and traces their evolution over time. The timeline follows Gutenberg’s printing press in 1439 and details the first ethnic newspaper published in Europe.

To illustrate the importance of their topic, the authors cite a June 2009 study that showed that “nearly 60 million Americans of African, Latino, and Asian background get their news and other information regularly from ethnically targeted television, radio, newspapers and Web sites.” The Consumers section examines how these ethnic communities incorporate ethnic media into their lives.

The authors discuss two key ethnic media functions: a connective function to the news and events of the home country, plus an orientation function to familiarize newcomers with information on resources, laws, protections, and norms. Ethnic media also help with the maintenance and creation of ethnic minority identities, the authors say.

Fully 40% of the book is contained in part 3, The Producers, which comprises four chapters, which examine ethnic media audience trends, why circulation numbers and ratings matter, and why discovering these data can be difficult. Later, the authors show how newspaper competition affects ethnic newspapers. They cover social changes, the Internet, and the forces of globalization that affect the sustainability of print and electronic ethnic media.

A case study, “A Not So Uncommon Story from the Booming Ethnic Media Market of New York,” offers a look at two Greek American daily newspapers—Proini and the Greek American—and what happened when controlling ownership was acquired by a Greek company in Athens. It illustrates why “producers find it hard to attract advertising, why advertisers often feel that ethnic media do not serve their needs, and why researchers find it difficult to identify trends in media markets where ethnic media are present.”

The fifth section identifies gaps in knowledge and research that will become the topics of new investigations by researchers and practitioners alike. The authors attempt to answer the question, “What Does the Future Hold for Ethnic Media?” Responses vary, but this statement from James Ho, president of Mainstream Broadcasting Corporation, captures the sentiment: “No longer are ethnic media serving the minorities; as minority populations grow, ethnic media are now serving majorities.”

As a textbook, Understanding Ethnic Media helps explain how the media become increasingly important as “definitions of ‘majority’ and ‘minority’ are challenged and minorities become majorities in many parts of the world.” It is a valuable cross-discipline book for those teaching and studying journalism and mass communication, political science, sociology, and anthropology courses.