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Professional Challenges for Ethnic Media Journalists
Last modified: 2011-06-03
Abstract
Increased population diversity in the world’s growing urban centers, new communication technologies, economic globalization, and regulatory policies, have created fertile conditions for the continued growth of the ethnic media sector – even as legacy media continue to face challenging times. However, when we study ethnic media, the focus is commonly on audiences, media organizations, economics, or policies. We spend less time focusing on the storytellers—the journalists who produce ethnic media publications and broadcasts. Who are they? What challenges do they face? How do their working environs differ from working in mainstream media, and why do these differences matter?
Drawing from focus groups conducted with ethnic media producers from a wide range of communities, in conjunction with New America Media (a national association of close to 3,000 ethnic media in the U.S.), we investigate how ethnic media journalists define themselves, as professionals and as members of the communities they serve. To place the experiences of our focus group participants in context, we draw on the experiences of the first author who worked as an ethnic media journalist in New York City, as well as prior work conducted by colleagues and scholars across North America, Europe, and Australia.
While ethnic media journalists are frequently viewed by mainstream media, politicians, government agencies and authorities (at all levels) as being less “professional” than journalists working for legacy media, we find that the journalists themselves conceive of their roles and responsibilities in more holistic ways. As being a professional journalist is often associated with being “objective,” we explore what being “objective” means for ethnic media journalists. We also examine how professionalization impacts the relationship that these journalists develop with the ethnic communities they cover, as well as the content of the stories they tell. Our analyses problematize mainstream assumptions around what it means to be a professional journalist today. We explore the implications of these assumptions for a rapidly changing, ethnically diverse social and media environment.
As the media ownership landscape continues to change and we see new types of relationships and collaborations between mainstream and ethnic media emerge, we also discuss how these new modes of co-existence complicate established, long-lived assumptions among media producers (both of mainstream and ethnic media) around the nature of their roles and professional responsibilities.
Drawing from focus groups conducted with ethnic media producers from a wide range of communities, in conjunction with New America Media (a national association of close to 3,000 ethnic media in the U.S.), we investigate how ethnic media journalists define themselves, as professionals and as members of the communities they serve. To place the experiences of our focus group participants in context, we draw on the experiences of the first author who worked as an ethnic media journalist in New York City, as well as prior work conducted by colleagues and scholars across North America, Europe, and Australia.
While ethnic media journalists are frequently viewed by mainstream media, politicians, government agencies and authorities (at all levels) as being less “professional” than journalists working for legacy media, we find that the journalists themselves conceive of their roles and responsibilities in more holistic ways. As being a professional journalist is often associated with being “objective,” we explore what being “objective” means for ethnic media journalists. We also examine how professionalization impacts the relationship that these journalists develop with the ethnic communities they cover, as well as the content of the stories they tell. Our analyses problematize mainstream assumptions around what it means to be a professional journalist today. We explore the implications of these assumptions for a rapidly changing, ethnically diverse social and media environment.
As the media ownership landscape continues to change and we see new types of relationships and collaborations between mainstream and ethnic media emerge, we also discuss how these new modes of co-existence complicate established, long-lived assumptions among media producers (both of mainstream and ethnic media) around the nature of their roles and professional responsibilities.