LATINO MEDIA MCC.UE.1022
New York University
Department of Media, Culture, and Communication
DESCRIPTION AND READINGS
This course examines the production, representations and cultural meaning of Latino Media in
the U.S. In particular, this course focuses on the culture of production of television, radio, film,
advertising, newspapers and magazines. This course will provide a general survey of Latino
media in the U.S. based on a critical investigation of theories of production, representation and
popular culture. We will examine media organizations and their participants in their role in
shaping popular culture. We will also reflect on the impact of Latino media production on
identity formation as a mode of revealing and reproducing ideology and political struggle.
This is an upper-level inter-disciplinary course that draws on readings in cultural economy,
political economy, cultural studies, history and sociology. Reading and writing requirements
for this course are demanding. You will also be asked to watch films and/or videos outside of
class in addition to the readings.
Articles:
Required readings will be available on the Class site.
Video materials:
There will be required A/V materials for you to listen to/watch prior to coming to class. These
will be made available on the web or through the class site, when possible; or they will require
that you to listen/to watch them in the Avery Fisher Center at the Bobst Library.
EXPECTATIONS & GRADING
•
Leading class discussions 10%
You will be asked to lead a class discussion twice during the semester. Your guidance will
be base on reading responses and the questions posted in the class forum. Print them and
bring them to class and start a vivid discussion with your peers about the central ideas of
the readings. Clarifying the main argument, its theoretical contribution as well as its
possible weakness will be part of the task.
Class Participation = 10%
You are expected to complete the assigned reading before each class and to participate
actively in all class discussions. Your participation grade is based on presence,
punctuality, quantity and quality of in-class participation. You are expected to come to
class prepared and to discuss the readings critically.
Written responses = 20%
• You are expected to write a critical response to the readings assigned for the class. At the
end of the semester you should have written a total of ten responses for the reading
assigned on ten different class days. You can choose freely which classes you are interested
in writing a response to; however the due date of the submission will be the very day on
which the class is given. You must turn in your response before we discuss the text in
class.
3 Short Papers = 30%
• You will be required to write three short papers on the separate sections of the course
(identity, production and representations). These three papers will be guided critiques on
Latino media institutions and their participants and the kind of representations that they
produce. In these papers you should show an in-depth involvement with the issues
addressed, and the capacity for building your reflections upon the readings.
• Papers should be typed, double-spaced, stapled and 4-6 pages in length.
• If you want to email me your papers, you need to do it before 1:00 pm on the day they are
due.
• Due Dates:
o Paper 1: February 20th
o Paper 2: March 20th
o Paper 3: April 25th
Final Paper / Project = 30%
• The final paper will be a case of study of a Latino media institution or organization.
• I need to approve your final project, and for that reason you need to make an appointment
to talk about it with me before April 24, 2013
• The final papers should be typed, double-space, stapled and 12-15 pages long.
• Due date: May 17, 2013
• I recommend that you purchase at least one style manual which will help to improve the
organization and composition of your written work, and help ensure proper citation of
sources. There is a handy edition that you can carry by Hacker, D. (2009). A pocket style
manual (5th Ed.). Boston, New York: Bedford/ St. Martin’s.
Students with disabilities
• Students with special needs, either with physical and/or learning disabilities, should
register with the Moses Center for Students with Disabilities at 212-998=4980, 240 Greene
street, www.nyu.edu/csd.
Religious observances
• Students with religious observances that may interfere with the class schedule need to see
me at the beginning of the semester to talk about your schedule.
Academic dishonesty and plagiarism
• “Academic integrity is the guiding principle for all that you do […] you violate the
principle when you: cheat on an exam; submit the same work for two different courses
without prior permission from your professors; receive help on a take home courses
without prior permission from your professors; or plagiarize. You plagiarize when,
without proper attribution, you do any of the following: copy verbatim from a book,
article, or others media, download documents from the Internet; purchase documents;
paraphrase or restate someone else’s facts, analysis, and/or conclusions” (See School of
Education Bulletin, 2004-6, p. 174)
•
Cheating or plagiarism will not be tolerated under any circumstance and will result in a
failure of the assignment and possible failure of this class
Grading
• Late papers and assignments will be graded down 5 points for every day late. Papers and
assignments will not be accepted once they are more than 5 days late and will
automatically result in a grade of F (0%).
• Participation in class is required, based on the completion of readings / video assignments
before class. Your grade will decrease by a full point for every two classes you miss (i.e.
from B to B-). You must notify me in advance if you are going to miss a class or a deadline,
and you will need a legitimate excuse.
SCHEDULE
About changes in schedule, reading or assignments
This syllabus is a guide but it is not a fixed document. Changes in the schedule, readings or
assignments may occur along the way given the specific needs of this semester’s class and
students. These changes may be inevitable, but you will be properly notified in advance in
case any changes are necessary.
WEEK I.
Mon. Jan. 28: Introduction
Wed. Jan. 30: Latino racial formation
De Genova, N. and A. Ramos-Zayas. (2003). Latino racial formations in the United States: An
introduction. Journal of Latin American Anthropology, 8, 2-17.
Suárez-Orozco, M. and Paéz M. (Eds.). (2002). Latinos remaking America. Berkeley, Los Angeles
and London: University of California Press.
Ch. 1: George Sanchez. “Y tú, ¿qué?” (Y2K): Latino history in the new millennium (4558)
Movie: Latin Beat
Recommended:
Suárez-Orozco, M. and Paéz M. (Eds.). (2002). Latinos remaking America. Berkeley, Los Angeles
and London: University of California Press.
Ch. 2: Juan Flores. Island enclaves: Caribbean Latinos in historical perspective. (59-74)
Ch. 3: Alex Stepick & Carol Dutton Stepick. Power and identity: Miami Cubans. (75-92)
WEEK II.
Mon. Feb. 4: Identity and the politics of labeling (1)
Oboler, S. (1992). The politics of labeling: Latino/a cultural identities of self and others. Latin American
Perspectives, 19, 18-36.
Valdivia, A. (2004). Latinas as radical hybrid: Transnational gendered traces in mainstream media.
Global Media Journal 3(4). Available at: http://lass.calumet.purdue.edu/cca/gmj/sp05/sp04/gmjsp04-valdivia.htm
Wed. Feb. 6: Defining Latinidad (2)
Laó-Montes, A. and Dávila A. (Eds.). (2001). Mambo montage. New York, NY: Columbia
University Press.
Introduction: Agustín Laó-Montes, Mambo montage: The Latinization of New York
City (1-52).
WEEK III.
Mon. Feb. 11: Hispanic market (1)
Dávila, A. (2001). Latinos Inc. The marketing and making of a people. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA:
Universidad de California Press.
Introduction (1-22).
Ch. 1: Don’t panic I am Hispanic. (23-55).
Wed. Feb. 13: Hispanic market (2)
Dávila, A. (2001). Latinos Inc. The marketing and making of a people. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA:
University of California Press.
Ch. 2: Knowledges: facts and fictions of people as a market. (56-87).
Movie: The salt of the earth
WEEK IV.
Mon. Feb. 18 President’s day
Wed. Feb. 20: Spanish language newspapers
Rodriguez, A. (1999). Making Latino news: Race, language, class. Thousand Oaks, Delhi, London:
Sage.
Ch. 1: U.S. Spanish language newspapers. (13-25).
Ch. 6: Local Latino News: Miami and Los Angeles (107-130)
Episode: Noticiero Univision, Telemundo and Azteca America
First short paper “Defining Latinidad and the Hispanic market” due: February 20, 2013
WEEK V.
Mon. Feb. 25: Spanish language Radio
Rodriguez, C. (2001). Fissures in the mediascape. New Jersey: Hampton Press, Inc.
Ch. 6 The origins of Latino Radio in the United States: The brokerage system. (129-147)
Castañeda, M. (2003). The transformation of Spanish-language radio in the U.S. Journal of Radio
Studies. 10, 5-16.
Recommended:
Castañeda, M. (2008). Segmentation, Migration, and Reciprocities. In N. Mirabal and A. Lao-Montes
(Eds.) Technofuturos. Critical interventions in Latina/o Studies. New York, NY: Lexington
Books.
Wed. Feb. 27: Spanish language TV
Rodriguez, A. (1999). Making Latino news: Race, language, class. Thousand Oaks, Delhi, London:
Sage Publications.
Ch. 4: Commercial ethnicity. (46-71)
Ch. 5 “Nationhood, nationalism and ethnicity in the making of U.S. Latino news” (75-106).
WEEK VI.
Mon. March. 4: Telenovelas I
Castañeda, M. (2011). The transcultural political economy of telenovelas and soap operas in
the digital age. In D. Rios and M. Castañeda (Eds.). Soap operas and telenovelas in the
digital age (pp. 3-19). New York, NY: Peter Lang.
The centrality of telenovelas in Latin America’s everyday life: Past tendencies, current
knowledge and future research. Global Media. 5, 359
Wed. March. 6 : Telenovelas II
Sinclair, J. (2003). The Hollywood of Latin America: Miami as a regional center in television trade.
Television and New Media, 4, 211-229.
Wilkinson, K. (2003). Language and difference in the telenovelas trade. Global Media Journal.
2(2)
 Episode: Telenovela
WEEK VII.
Mon. March. 11: Media and the surge of the Chicano movement
Noriega, C. (1996). Imagined Borders: Locating Chicano Cinema/America. In C. Noriega and A. Lopez
(Ed.), The Ethnic Eye: Latino Media Arts (pp. 3-21). Minneapolis and London: University of
Minnesota Press.
Video: I am Joaquin/ The sell outs/Los vendidos
Wed. March. 13: Chico and the Man: is this Chicano television?
Ogus, G. (2005). “Whose Barrio is it?” Chico and the man and the integrated ghetto shows of the 1970s.
Television and New Media. 6,(3) 3-21
Episode: Chico and the man
WEEK VIII.
Mon. March. 18: Spring Break
Wed. March. 20: Spring Break
WEEK IX.
Mon. March. 25: Popular Culture: Music (1)
Pacini, D. (2007). The name game: locating Latinas/os, Latins, and Latin Americans in the US Popular
Music Landscape. In J. Flores and R. Rosaldo. A companion to Latina/o Studies (p. 49-59).
Malden, MA; Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing.
Vargas, D. (2002). Bidi bidi bom bom: Selena and the Tejano music in the making of Tejas. In M.
Habell-Pallan, and M. Romero, (Eds.). Latino/a popular culture (pp. 117-126). New York and
London: New York University Press.
Movie: Selena
Wed. March. 27: Popular culture: Music (2)
Calafell, M. (2003). To Ricky with love. In Latina/o Communication Studies. Theorizing
Performance (pp. 87-118) New York, NY: Peter Lang.
Cepeda, M. (2010). Shakira as the idealized transnational citizen: media perspectives on colombianidad
en transition. In Musical ImagiNation. US Colombian identity and the Latin music boom (pp.
61-87). New York, NY; and London, UK: New York University Press.
Second Short Paper due: Spanish-language media institutions March. 27, 2013
WEEK X.
Mon. April 1: Representations in Classical Hollywood Cinema
Ramírez-Berg, C. (2002). Latino images in film. Stereotypes, subversion and resistance. Austin, TX:
University of Texas.
Ch. 2: Stereotypes in Film (38- 65)
Ch. 3: A crash course on Hollywood’s Latino imagery (66-86)
Movie: The Bronze screen
Wed. April. 3: The New Hollywood Cinema
Beltran, M. (2005). The New Hollywood Racelessness: Only the Fast, Furious, (and Multiracial) Will
Survive. Cinema Journal, 44(2), pp. 50-65
Beltran, M. (2008). Mixed race in Latinowood: Latino Stardom and Ethnic ambiguity in the Era of Dark
Angels. In M. Beltran and C. Fojas (Eds.). Mixed race Hollywood (pp. 248-268). New York,
NY: New York University Press.
WEEK XI.
Mon. April. 8: Representations in Latino film 1
List, C. (1989). El Norte. Ideology and immigration. Jump Cut. A Review of Contemporary Media. 34:
27-24
Fregoso, R. (1993). The representation of cultural identity in Zoot Suit (1981). Theory and Society. 22:
659-674
Movies: El Norte and Zoot Suit
Wed. April. 10: Representations in Latino film 2: Narratives of family
Marti-Olivella. (1997). When the Latino family goes Hollywood. Latin American Studies Association
Conference Mexico City.
Movies: My family/Mi familia
WEEK XII.
Mon. April 15: Representations in Latino film 3: The feminine figure
Beltrán, M. (2003). The Hollywood Latina body as site of social struggle: Media constructions of
stardom and Jennifer Lopez’s “cross-over butt.” The Quarterly Review of Film and Video,
19(1), 71–86.
Molina, I. and Valdivia, A. (2004). Brain, brown and booty: Latina iconicity in U.S. popular culture.
The Communication Review. 7, 205-221
Wed. April. 17: Representations in Latino film 4: Latinidad feminista (2)
Baez, J. (2007). Towards a Latinidad Feminista: the multiplicities of Latinidad and Feminism in
Contemporary cinema. Popular Communication. 5(2), 109-125
Beltran, M. (2004). Más macha. The new Latina action hero. In Y. Tasker (Ed.). Action and Adventure
Cinema, pp. 186-200. London: Routledge.
Movie: Real women have curves and Girlfight
WEEK XIII.
Mon. April. 22: Latinos in mainstream U.S. television (1)
Baynes, L. (2009). White out: The absence and stereotyping of people of color by the broadcast
networks in prime time entertainment programming. In P. Napoli (Ed.). Media diversity and
localism. Meaning and metrics. New Jersey, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc
Holling, M. (2006). El simpatico Boxer: Underpinning Chicano masculinity with rhetoric of familia in
Resurrection Boulevard. Western Journal of Communication, 70(2), 91-114.
Wible, S. (2004). Media advocates, Latino citizens and niche cable: The limits of ‘no limits.’ Cultural
Studies, 18(1), 34-66
Recommended
National Hispanic Media Coalition (TV Networks Reports Cards).
http://www.nhmc.org/tvnetworkreportcards
Bob Papper, Women and Minorities, (Radio Television News Digital Association, RTNDA/Hofstra
University Survey) http://www.rtdna.org
S. Derek Turner and Mark Cooper, Out of the Picture 2007: Minority & Female TV Station Ownership
in the United States, (Free Press, 2007 October). http://www.freepress.net
Wed. April. 24: : Latinos in mainstream U.S. television (2)
Brook, V. (2009). Convergent Ethnicity and the Neo-platoon Show: Recombining Difference in the
Post-network Era, Television & New Media, 10(4), 331-353, doi:10.1177/1527476409334021
Beltran, M. (2010). What’s at stake in claims of “post-racial” media? Flow, 12 (1)
Beltran, M. (2010). Meaningful Diversity: Exploring Questions of Equitable Representation on Diverse
Ensemble Cast Shows, Flow TV, 12,
Third short paper due: Latino narratives and representations April. 24, 2013
WEEK XIV.
Mon. April 29: Latinos in mainstream television (3)
Akass. K. and McCabe, J. (January 1, 2006). Not so ugly: local production, global franchise, discursive
femininities, and the Ugly Betty phenomenon. Flow TV. Access on the web at:
http://flowtv.org/?p=74
Molina-Guzmán, I. (2010). Dangerous curves. Latina bodies in the media. New York and London: New
York University.
Ch. 4. Ugly America Dreams the American Dream.
Piñón, J. (2011). "Ugly Betty and the emergence of Latina/o producers as cultural translators."
Communication Theory 21(4), 392-412
Recommended:
Beltran, M. (2006). Rooting for Betty, Flow TV. Access on the web at: http://flowtv.org/?p=92
Episode: Ugly Betty
Wed. May. 1: Latinos and language diversity in cable television (4)
Moran, K. (2011). Listening to Latina/o Youth: Television Consumption Within Families. New York,
NY: Peter Lang Publishing.
Ch. 2 The Latina/o youth market
Piñón, J. and Rojas, V. (2011). “Language and cultural identity in the new configuration of the U.S.
Latino TV industry.” Global Media and Communication, 7(2), 129-147.
Recommended:
Dávila, A. (2001). Latinos Inc. The marketing and making of a people. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA:
University of California Press.
Ch. 5: Language and culture in the media battlefront. (153-180).
Guidotti-Hernández, N. (2007). Dora la Exploradora: constructing Latinidades and the politics of global
citizenship. Latino Studies, 5 (209-232).
WEEK XV.
Mon. May. 6: TV reception
Rojas, V. (2004). The gender of Latinidad: Latinas speak about Hispanic television. The
Communication Review, 7, 125-153.
DeSipio, L. (2003). Latino viewing choices. Bilingual television viewers and the language choices they
make. Thomas Rivera Policy Institute. www.trpi.org.
Suro, R. (2004). Changing channels and crisscrossing cultures. A survey of Latinos on the news media.
Pew Hispanic Center and the University of Southern California
Recommended
Noriega, C. (Ed.). (2000). The future of Latino independent media: A NALIP sourcebook. Los Angeles,
CA: UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center
Ch. DeSipio et al., Talking back to television (59-98).
Wed. May. 8: The press and the ad industry
Zazueta, K. (2004). Latina magazine and the invocation of a panethic family: Latino identity as it is
informed by celebrities and papis chulos. The Communication Review, 7, 155-174
Dávila, A. (2001). Latinos Inc. The marketing and making of a people. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA:
University of California Press.
Ch. 3: Producing images for the market. (88-125)
Recommended:
Johnson, M. (2000). How ethnic are U.S. ethnic media: The case of Latina Magazines. Mass
Communication & Society, 3(2&3), 229-248
WEEK XVI.
Mon. May. 13: Projects presentations
Students present their final projects on Latino Media
Final Paper due