Ethnic Media

Ethnic Media is media fashioned with a particular ethnic minority group or ethnic minority community, in mind.

Academic Yu Shi tenders an operational definition for ethnic media: “Ethnic media are often regarded as media by and for ethnics in a host country with content in ethnic languages." Shi also adds, ethnic media “can be published by big ethnic media groups and by small organic ethnic communities”, as well.

Practitioner Inga Buchbinder of New America Media adds, “Our organization defines it most as a publication, whether that’s news, television, radio, online, print, magazine--any sort of publication that caters to a specific ethnic community. And it could be in-language…or it could be bilingual that reaches a very specific community.”

In addition to news, television, radio, online, print, and magazine outlets that qualify as ethnic media, academic John D.H. Downing adds musical culture and forms of religious expression to the ethnic media mix. Downing finds, “these may, along with language and dialect, act as a media force somewhere between shock absorption and psychic validation in the often fraught atmosphere between the ethnic majority and ethnic minorities.”

Downing finds that ethnic media tends to circulate, “within at least three different sectors, namely, indigenous nations and communities, recent migrants…and settled subordinate ethnic groups.”

Ethnic Media as Alternative Media

Analogous to the debate as to what qualifying factors constitute Alternative Media, the domain of what qualifying factors that classify a respective ethnic media outlet as an alternative media outlet is also, at play.

Thus, Ethnic Media is not by definitional default, Alternative Media.

Again, the work of academics and grassroots practitioners, such as John D.H. Downing, Yu Shi, Clemencia Rodriguez, and Inga Buchbinder of New America Media provide definitional assistance for this complex and overdetermined zone. Discernment of whether or not a respective ethnic media outlet qualifies as an alternative media outlet is dependent upon the outstanding contextual information, and should be assessed on a case by case evaluation.

Yu Shi’s work puts forth a seven-pronged test for evaluating the “alternative media role” of ethnic media in the United States: “reference has to be made to their (1) individual place of origin, (2) historical evolution, (3) production process, (4) distribution pattern, (5) ownership, (6) self-identity (non-profit or for-profit; alternative or commercial; or in between), and (7) connection to power groups in local and transnational settings.”

Examples of Ethnic Media

• Black Enterprise Magazine
  Black Enterprise
  Black Enterprise is a monthly U.S. magazine which describes itself as "the premier business news and investment resource for African Americans" and claims a readership of 3.7 million. It was founded in 1970 by Earl G. Graves, Sr.. The publication is known for its annual listing of the largest...
  
  
• Black Entertainment Television
  Black Entertainment Television
  Black Entertainment Television is an American, Viacom-owned cable network based in Washington, D.C.. Currently viewed in more than 90 million homes worldwide, it is the most prominent television network targeting young Black-American audiences. The network was launched on January 25, 1980, by its...
  
  
• Ebony
  Ebony (magazine)
  Ebony, a monthly magazine for the African-American market, was founded by John H. Johnson and has published continuously since the autumn of 1945...
  
  
• Essence Magazine
• Hispanic Business Magazine
  Hispanic Business
  Hispanic Business, Inc. is a media company based in Goleta, California, in the United States of America. The firm was founded by Jesús Chavarría in 1979 and its publications are oriented towards Hispanic professionals and entrepreneurs.-Publications:...
  
  
• Jet Magazine
• Latina Magazine
• Telemundo Television Network
  Telemundo
  Telemundo is an American television network that broadcasts in Spanish. The network is the second-largest Spanish-language content producer in the world, and the second-largest Spanish-language network in the United States, behind Univision....
  
  
• Univision Television Network
  Univision
  Univision is a Spanish-language television network in the United States. It has the largest audience of Spanish language television viewers according to Nielsen ratings. Randy Falco, COO, has been in charge of the company since the departure of Univision Communications president and CEO Joe Uva...
  
  

Examples of Ethnic Alternative Media

• Chicago Defender
  Chicago Defender
  The Chicago Defender is a Chicago based newspaper founded in 1905 by an African American for primarily African American readers.In just three years from 1919–1922 the Defender also attracted the writing talents of Langston Hughes and Gwendolyn Brooks....
  
  
• Freedom's Journal
  Freedom's Journal
  Freedom's Journal was the first African American owned and operated newspaper published in the United States. Published weekly in New York City from 16 March 1827 to 28 March 1829, the journal was edited by John Russwurm and co-editor, Samuel Cornish who contributed only through 14 September 1827...
  
  
• New Pittsburgh Courier
  Pittsburgh Courier
  The Pittsburgh Courier was an American newspaper published in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which was published from 1907 to 1965. Once the country's most widely circulated Black newspaper, the legacy and influence of the Pittsburgh Courier is unparalleled.A pillar of the Black Press, it rose...
  
  
• North Star
• Philadelphia Tribune
  Philadelphia Tribune
  The Philadelphia Tribune is an American newspaper, headquartered at 520 South 16th Street Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, that primarily targets the African American community. Published Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Sunday, it is the oldest continually running African-American newspaper,...
  
  
• The New York Amsterdam News
  The New York Amsterdam News
  The New York Amsterdam News is a American black nationalist weekly newspaper geared to the African-American community of New York City, New York.It has published columns by notables including W. E. B. Du Bois, Roy Wilkins, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr...
  
  

See also

• The Abolitionist Movement
• The Black Power Movement
  Black Power
  Black Power is a political slogan and a name for various associated ideologies. It is used in the movement among people of Black African descent throughout the world, though primarily by African Americans in the United States...
  
  
• Clemencia Rodriguez
  Clemencia Rodriguez
  Clemencia Rodriguez is a Colombian US-based media and communication scholar recognized for her role in establishing and promoting the field of alternative media studies in English language media studies, notably through her work on 'citizens' media,' a term she coined in her 2001 book Fissures in...
  
  
• Citizens' Media
  Citizen media
  The term citizen media refers to forms of content produced by private citizens who are otherwise not professional journalists. Citizen journalism, participatory media and democratic media are related principles.-Principles of citizen media:...
  
  
• Follow the Drinkin' Gourd
  Follow the Drinkin' Gourd
  "Follow the Drinkin' Gourd" is an American folk song first published in 1928. The "Drinking Gourd" is another name for the Big Dipper asterism. Folklore has it that fugitive slaves in the United States used it as a point of reference so they would not get lost...
  
  
• John DH Downing
  John DH Downing
  John D. H. Downing is a communications scholar who has written extensively on Alternative Media and Social Movements. He is Professor Emeritus of International Communication at the College of Mass Communication and Media Arts, Southern Illinois University and currently affiliated to the Information...
  
  
• The Last Poets
  The Last Poets
  The Last Poets is a group of poets and musicians who arose from the late 1960s African American civil rights movement's black nationalist thread...
  
  
• New America Media
  New America Media
  New America Media is a multimedia ethnic news agency and a coalition of ethnic media. Founded in 1996 by the nonprofit Pacific News Service, NAM is headquartered in San Francisco with offices in Los Angeles, New York and Washington, DC...
  
  
• Strange Fruit
  Strange Fruit
  "Strange Fruit" is a song performed most famously by Billie Holiday, who released her first recording of it in 1939, the year she first sang it. Written by the teacher Abel Meeropol as a poem, it exposed American racism, particularly the lynching of African Americans. Such lynchings had occurred...
  
  
• The Pittsburgh Courier's Double V Campaign

External links

• Can African-Americans Find Their Voice in Cyberspace?: A Conversation with Dayna Cunningham (Part One of Four)
• Can African-Americans Find Their Voice in Cyberspace?: A Conversation with Dayna Cunningham (Part Two of Four)
• Can African-Americans Find Their Voice in Cyberspace?: A Conversation with Dayna Cunningham (Part Three of Four)
• Can African-Americans Find Their Voice in Cyberspace?: A Conversation with Dayna Cunningham (Part Four of Four)