News or Noticias: A Social Identity Approach to Understanding Latinos’ Preferred Language for News Consumption in the United States

Abstract

For Latinos in the United States, decisions reflecting which language they prefer for news media consumption can have substantial effects on the quality of the content they receive. However, little is known about what influences Latinos’ language preferences for news media consumption. This project looks to fill that void to the immediate appeal of academics and media analysts by asking, What influences Latinos’ language preference for news? This project builds on social psychology theories highlighting the role played by social identity and self-categorization for inspiring culturally consistent behaviors. This social identity approach focuses on the embrace of Latino characteristics and the complementary nature of Spanish-language media outputs relative to those characteristics. Using the 2006 Latino National Survey, the role of identity is explored. The results indicate that language preferences for news consumption are indeed related to various social identity measures among Latinos in the United States.

Notes

¹The term “Latino” was chosen over the more classic “Hispanic” to denote individuals in the United States of Latin American ancestry. To be clear, both terms represent the same ethnic classification for individuals in the United States.

²For example, Roberts and Foehr (2008) examined trends in media use among children in the United States. They found clear differences in use that appear dependent on the presence of media (i.e., computer), the child's race and variation in intellect measures (i.e., grades) among other attributes that are individual specific. Trevino, Webster, and Stein (2000) considered what affects communication medium choice in business settings. They found individual-level determinants, such as proximity to other individuals, variably influence media use choices by managers.

³See Subervi-Velez (2008) Chapter 15 for a discussion of the penetration of Spanish-language news media prior to 20 years ago.

⁴See Subervi-Valez (2008) page 52 for a brief discussion of assimilation and acculturation.

⁵Additional information about the LNS can be found at http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/ICPSR/studies/20862/detail

⁶The 2011 study by Salzman focuses on individuals living in Latin America.

Note. High scores = less press freedom.

Source: Freedom House 2004.

^a Puerto Rico received no score as it is considered the same as the United States.

Note. Source: 2006 Latino National Survey.

⁷It should be noted that some of the civic engagement and political variables were significant at the .10 level. The strongest of these is the relationship between Civic Engagement and consuming Spanish-language news (p = .059). That relationship was negative, indicating that increased engagement in civic activities is negatively correlated with consuming Spanish-language news. The opposite relationship appears weakly present for English-language news consumption. Thus, it should not be surprising for future research to reveal a relationship between community involvement and language preference where no relationship is present for basic political participation like voting. The performance of other political/community variables including Registered to Vote and Republican also appear weakly related news media language preferences. These could be examples illustrating the role played by depth of community involvement. However, this study stops short of making those pronouncements.

⁸The results remain the same when the press freedom score of the respondent's families’ country of ancestry is included.

⁹Uncovering the impact of media consumption has been a primary focus of political communication for decades (Herman & Chomsky, 1988; Iyengar, 1987: Iyengar & Kinder, 1987; Cappella & Jamieson, 1996; Norris, 2000; Prior, 2007; Salzman & Aloisi, 2009).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ryan Salzman

Ryan Salzman (Ph.D., University of North Texas, 2011) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science, Criminal Justice, and Organizational Leadership at Northern Kentucky University. His research interests include political communication, Latino attitudes and behaviors, and Latin American political culture.