Center for the Study of Latino Media & Markets

2nd International Latino Media Conference 2009

Vision

• A guiding light on Latino-oriented media and markets in the United States 

Mission

• To generate research and knowledge about Latino-oriented media, markets, and the new multicultural America.
• To be the driving engine of a series of complementary activities that enhance the academic, professional, and business opportunities related Latino-oriented media and Latino markets.

Background

The Center has been developed as a response to the University’s recognition of the increase in the Latino population and its annual purchasing power (currently estimated to have surpassed $1 trillion), and the growth of Latino-oriented media in the United States, which have grown at an unprecedented rate during the last thirty years.  The Center also emerges from the recognition that there has been an expansion in the number of media corporations venturing into Latin America, and in the linkages between Latin American and U.S. Latino-oriented communication industries, for which a large number of the investment funds and people involved in the transactions are non-Hispanic Americans.  The University understands the importance and need to educate future professionals who can best comprehend, analyze and work in or with industries and markets that cater to Latinos and Latin Americans in the U.S. and abroad.

Since the late 1970s, professionals in businesses catering to Latinos have dedicated increased attention to these matters—as evidenced in articles published in, for example, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Miami Herald and various professional and trade journals such as Hispanic Business, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, and Broadcasting. Advertising Age has a multicultural page, which most of the time is dedicated to Hispanic media and markets, and Multichannel News, from Crains Communication, published its weekly “Hispanic TV Update.” Moreover, from 2004 through 2006, ADWEEK produced a special magazine focused exclusively on Latino media and markets, named appropriately Marketing y Medios.  And although the printed version of this publication ceased operations in December 2006, it continues as a special electronic supplement still produced by ADWEEK and distributed by e-mail to subscribers.  

However, the dynamics of Latino-oriented and Latin American media as well as the changing configuration of Latinos and Latin Americans as consumers and audiences have received only limited attention.  This has left open the opportunity to establish a center that specialized in this area of knowledge.

Goals and Objectives

The Center is envisioned as the nation’s prime academic entity to achieve at least six interrelated programmatic goals. 

1. The establishment of an academic sequence and concentration on this subject matter at the undergraduate and masters (and subsequently doctoral) level at the School of Journalism & Mass Communication. 
2. The development of research on media structures and markets, as well as about the media content, uses and effects as these pertain to Latino populations. 
3. The offering of professional development workshops and specialized courses for people already working in Latino-oriented media or related businesses.
4. The collection, cataloguing, and preservation of academic and commercial publications and research (e.g., data banks) pertinent to the aforementioned goals.
5. A public information function in publicizing the work, the findings, and the realities of the changing media landscape with respect to growing Latino populations.
6. Altogether, the Center will prepare alumni and professionals for the multicultural demands of the media and markets in the United States and Latin America.
    

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