Book Review: Juan in a Hundred: The Representation of Latinos on Network News, by Otto Santa Ana

Abstract

Otto Santa Ana Juan in a Hundred: The Representation of on Network News. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2013. 295 pp.Media audiences might have impression that news and commentary on U.S. Latino community is common. They might recall how mass media reported on 2012 Latino vote and how important it was for President Obama's reelection. addi- tion, they might have heard about Latino groups or from Latino voices in reports about immigration. Yet stories covering are less frequent than audience might think. And those of us concerned with media's biases and impact still know little about larger questions of how Latino community is represented in media, and how this representation affects society.These questions were addressed by University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) professor of Chicana/o Studies, Otto Santa Ana in Juan in a Hundred: The Representation of on Network News. this book, he not only offered a clear and detailed picture of how Latino community has been represented in U.S. net- work news, but also suggested ways in which this representation can be improved in interest of accuracy and fairness. addition, he provided mass communication scholars and students a detailed description of how TV news content can be sampled and analyzed.The book is divided into two parts. The first presents analyses of specific news stories broadcast by ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN in 2004. his research into network coverage of Latinos, Santa Ana found that out of more than twelve thousand stories broadcast by networks that year, less than 1 percent address Latino issues. This is one in a hundred ratio that he alluded to in title of book.The author compared 2004 network news stories with other stories that they did not broadcast, finding that TV news often ignored Latino topics of importance. detailing Latino stories covered in newspapers and ignored by networks, Santa Ana demonstrated that the scarcity of television network news stories about is not due to absence of newsworthy items (p. 21). He found that stories about considered newsworthy were those involving dramatic political events, human calamity or natural disaster, among few other topics.In this analysis of broadcast news, Santa Ana first offered a general picture of net- work news coverage of Latinos, and then a detailed comparison of how a single story was covered on different networks and, in some cases, in newspapers. The thorough examination of these news stories provides some valuable insight as to failures and successes of TV news reporting. However, failures are more salient in this book. For instance, Santa Ana pointed to media's lack of general knowledge about Latino community, as evidenced in their failure to differentiate Latinos' heritage, especially for those who do not originate from Caribbean countries. More specifically, he explained that networks seldom differentiated Mexican, Central American, and South American origin, arguing that they operated with indifference or ignorance about diversity of Latino communities and individuals (p. 82). addition, he found that many stories were constructed without citing expert sources, which might have added informed insights to news being reported.Throughout book, what Santa Ana seemed most concerned about were effects of misrepresentation of in these highly influential news outlets. For example, he argued that media can publicly include and exclude a certain segment of population, concluding, In our nearly comprehensive study of a recent year of network news, single major finding is their gross disregard of Latinos (p. 15).In addition to network news' neglect of and their stories, he pointed to another negative effect of their coverage-the misrepresentation of members of this community. …