Contemporary Latina/o Media

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 Dávila 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.

Arlene Dávila is Professor of Anthropology and American Studies at NYU. Her books include Culture Works: Space, Value and Mobility Across the Neoliberal Americas (2012) and Latino Spin: Public Image and the Whitewashing of Race (2008), both available from NYU Press.Rivero Yeidy M. :

Yeidy M. Rivero is Associate Professor in the department of Screen Arts and Culture at the University of Michigan and author of Tuning Out Blackness: Race and Nation in the History of Puerto Rican Television (2005) and Broadcasting Modernity: Cuban Commercial Television, 1950-1960 (forthcoming).

With the changing demographics of the US, Latina/os are playing an important role in redefining Latina/o media. Davila and Rivero bring together media, cultural, and ethnic studies scholars to develop a contemporary analysis of Latina/o media through a transnational lens.

Contemporary Latina/o Mediaprovides scholars with a much-needed resource for rethinking media studies and will undoubtedly emerge as a touchstone volume on its topic. Scholars of Latino/a media will seek it out for several of its groundbreaking essays, and students at all levels will find the writing accessible and sophisticated.