The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights

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New Study Maps Rise in Ethnic/Racial Media Nationwide

Media directed to racial and ethnic populations reaches 51 million adults, according to the findings of the first-ever comprehensive multilingual survey on this subject.

New California Media, partnering with the Center for American Progress and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund, released the results of the survey on June 7.

The poll was conducted in 10 languages targeting 14 distinct ethnic and racial minority groups (including six Hispanic sub-groups, five Asian American sub-groups, African Americans, Native Americans, and Arab Americans). Some 1895 adults were interviewed in the phone survey.

The study indicates that about 80 per cent of the populations studied are reached by ethnic media on a regular basis.

Forty-five per cent of all African American, Hispanic, Asian American, Native American, and Arab American adults—approximately 29 million adults—prefer racial and ethnic television, radio, or newspapers to their mainstream counterparts and access ethnic media frequently.

"Amidst sweeping changes in the media industry, ethnic media are the giant hidden in plain sight," said pollster Sergio Bendixen, who conducted the poll for New California Media.

According to the study, the groups surveyed showed different characteristics in ethnic/racial media consumption.

African-American radio is the most popular ethnic/racial medium among blacks in the United States, while for Arab Americans, television is the preferred medium. Access to the Internet is very high (67 per cent) among Asian Americans, and half of them prefer ethnic web sites to mainstream web sites. Approximately one quarter of Native Americans read tribal newspapers more often than their mainstream counterparts. The reach of Spanish-language media is almost universal among Latinos, with eighty-seven per cent of all Hispanic adults accessing Spanish-language television, radio, or newspapers on a regular basis.

"The Center for American Progress sees this historic study as a vital step towards building more inclusive communications in our increasingly fragmented society," said CAP President and CEO John D. Podesta. "These findings will change the way we've come to think about the influence ethnic media have on their audiences."

Wade Henderson, executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, said, "The findings of this groundbreaking report are of enormous significance to the civil rights coalition. At a time when our survival and success depend more than ever upon an informed public, this report will help us better target our outreach to the constituencies most affected by the upcoming reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act, efforts to adopt harsh and restrictive immigration policies, and the confirmation of right wing judges who would roll back civil rights, among other critical issues."