Demographic indicators all point to ethnic media remaining important and viable in the future, as declining birth rates in Western countries continue to encourage immigration to satisfy demand for workers, postulates ‘Understanding Ethnic Media’ by Matthew D. Matsaganis, Vikki S. Katz, and Sandra J. Ball-Rokeach (www.sagepublications.com). Ethnic media provide new immigrants with content that connects them to their country of origin, and also with content that orients them to their new communities in ways that can encourage settlement, the authors aver.
They define ethnic media as media that are produced by and for (a) immigrants, (b) racial, ethnic, and linguistic minorities, as well as (c) indigenous populations living across different countries. Examples cited in the opening chapter include ‘The Haitian Times,’ a newspaper published in New York, for the 2 lakh Haitians there; ‘Korea Times,’ reaching many places in the US; ‘Antenna Satellite’ targeting Greeks in the US and Canada; ‘SAT-7’ with Arab audience across the Middle East and North Africa; and ‘TVBS-Europe,’ a Chinese satellite network that covers many European countries.
Growing in reach
If you thought that we are talking about something happening on the fringes, the numbers cited in the intro may make you sit up and take notice: that the National Directory of Ethnic Media compiled annually lists over 2,500 organisations in the US; 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; and that the New York circulation of Chinese language dailies has grown from about 1.7 lakh in 1990 to more than half a million in 2006.
“In 2007, there were more than 250 ethnic newspapers in Canada that represent over 40 ethnic communities and 40 television channels that provide programming to a variety of ethnic groups… In the Netherlands, there are more than 150 ethnic broadcasting organisations, while there are more than 90 print and broadcast media produced in Germany…” And in Australia’s New South Wales, there are more than 115 ethnic media organisations, serving about 40 different ethnic communities, ‘including Armenians, Dutch, Egyptians, Fijians, Greeks, Indians, Indonesians, Koreans, Nepalese, Filipinos, Polish, Sri Lankan, and Turks.’
Home and here
The authors reminisce how in the pre-globalisation days, there were the ‘melting-pot’ theories predicting that, over time, immigrants sever their ties to the culture of their home country and get assimilated into the culture of their new country; and that ethnic media would perish, losing their audience to mainstream media.
Proving such theories wrong, today, people can continue to be connected to their home country long after they have moved away, ‘because travelling is cheaper, telecommunication systems are less expensive and more efficient, and new modes of communication have been developed.’ Being therefore able to be linked to both ‘home’ (i.e., the home country) and ‘here’ (i.e., the country of settlement) enables people to forge new, dual, or hyphenated identities, the authors reason.
Build bridges
A sobering thought they offer is that mainstream media, their audiences, and policymakers are often unaware of the important unfolding events that impact the ethnic population. “In 2004, the mainstream media in the US not only failed to capture the impact of the tsunami disaster on the local communities in Southeast Asia, but also the broader effects of the disaster.”
Collaborations between the two can be in the form of investments in new productions, or online ventures, suggest Matsaganis et al.; because, for the mainstream media, building bridges to ethnic media offers a clearer view of aspects of society they have not been able to (and possibly cannot) otherwise access.
The co-presence of ethnic and mainstream media in our communication environment is critical for individual citizens and society as a whole, the authors urge. “Society needs to be able to see itself in its media and reflect on the changes it is undergoing due to globalisation and increasing population diversity. Moreover, individuals should understand that a rich, ethnically diverse media landscape helps us better understand and build bonds to each other, despite and ultimately because we are different.”
Recommended study, in the interest of harmonious development.
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