"Does minority media contribute to ethnic cohesion and cultural maintenance? Or does an ethnic media encourage assimilation into the dominant culture by espousing that culture's products, images, and values? Ethnic Minority Media explores these issues by providing a broad sampling of case studies th
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at span a variety of ethnic minorities and countries. Each case study presents the different cultural, political, and economic conditions that figure prominently in the media's role in ethnic survival or demise. The contributors, many of them internationally regarded journalists, primarily study the print and broadcast media that minorities have established for their communities. They focus on previously neglected minority media in the United States (Hispanic and Native), Great Britain (Welsh), Ireland (Irish), Canada (Native), Australia (Aboriginal), Israel (Romanian), France (Occitan and Basque), Greenland (Inuit), Chile (Native), and Algeria (Berber). They analyze this phenomena on many levels, defining crucial terms, considering different audiences, and contrasting ethnic and mainstream media." (Publisher description)
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"The study examines press commentary on Latin America in U.S. newspapers and magazines during the 1920s, identifying three prevailing stereotypes: the Latin American as a political child; the backward nation that yearns for deliverance from its impoverished condition; and the exotic Latin temperamen
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t that is alien to Anglo sensibilities. Such stereotypes ostensibly served to explain Latin American behavior and political events to the U.S. public; however, these images also served to justify U.S. actions in the hemisphere and defined the United States as a mature, civilized, and rational nation." (Publisher description)
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"Jib Fowles sees television as a 'grandly therapeutic force,' that television is indeed good for you. He examines why nearly every American regularly watches television and why viewing is beneficial. Updated and jargon-free, Why Viewers Watch describes the overall effect of programming on the popula
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tion. What do viewers get from television? What does it do for them? Why do academics negatively judge television? Using recent research reports, overlooked past studies, and fresh survey data to substantiate this positive role, Fowles first reviews the history of television and programming. After discussing what people expect from television, he explores how different types of programs satisfy different needs. Fowles also debunks many of the myths propagated by media scholars and “television prigs." (Publisher description)
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"Millions of people all over the world are avid members of the television audience. Yet, despite the central place television occupies in contemporary culture, our understanding of its complex and dynamic role in everyday life remains surprisingly limited. Focusing on the television audience, Ien An
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g asks why we understand so little about its nature and argues that our ignorance arises directly out of the biases inherent in prevailing official knowledge about it. She sets out to deconstruct the assumptions of this official knowledge by exploring the territory where it is mainly produced - the television institutions. Ang draws on Foucault's theory of power/knowledge to scrutinize television's desperate search for the audience, and to identify differences and similarities in the approaches of American commercial television and European public service television to their audiences. She looks carefully at recent developments in the field of ratings research, in particular the controversial introduction of the `people meter' as an instrument for measuring the television audience. By defining the limits and limitations of these institutional procedures of knowledge production, Ien Ang opens new avenues for understanding television audiences. Her ethnographic perspective on the television audience gives new insights into our television culture, with the audience seen not as an object to be controlled, but as an active social subject, engaging with television in a variety of cultural and creative ways." (Publisher description)
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