Reinventing the Latino Television Viewer

Christopher Chávez is assistant professor in the School of Journalism and Communication at the University of Oregon.

• Chapter One: Hispanic Television and the Changing Field of Latino Cultural ProductionChapter Two: Audience Reconstruction and the Rise of “New Latino”Chapter Three: Mixing, Switching, and Policing Linguistic BoundariesChapter Four: English-Language Television and Linguistic ErasuresChapter Five: The New Hispanic Television Landscape and the False Promise of Democracy

Chávez provides a provocative examination of a central element in the contemporary US culture industry: the audience. And he zeroes in on an increasingly influential social, cultural, and political demographic: Latinos. Through his incisive analysis, the author puts the spotlight on the current media landscape and the rapidly changing cultural landscape. Chávez musters evidence that points to an unsettling discovery: rapacious capitalist markets, represented by the modern television industry, include maximizing profits through expansion and maintaining mainstream America’s linguistic dominance through the reinvention of Hispanic television. This last outcome includes the 'erasure' of 'Latino forms of speech' by English-language television practices, such as using English subtitles in Spanish-language broadcasts and creating bilingual television networks (e.g., Fusion). Chávez’s investigation is troubling but is required reading for anyone interested in understanding the insidious nature of power maintenance, the role of social institutions such as the mass media in shaping ideology through language, and how people in positions of power rely on sophisticated mechanisms to keep that power at the expense of the less powerful. This book is a must read for anyone in communication, media studies, Latino/a studies, cultural studies, or sociology. Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.