News Diversity and Minority Audiences

Abstract

The rapid growth of Hispanics in the United States, the parallel growth of Spanish-language media, and the difficulties that this population continues to experience in terms of important socio-demographic indicators such as education, immigration, healthcare, and criminal justice, requires research that investigates the ways in which Spanish-language news outlets are delivering the information needed by this group in terms of providing a public service and contributing to democratic notions of the press. Democratic theories of the press posit that in order for a democracy to function properly, all groups should be provided with news coverage that reflects the voices, concerns, and interests of their communities. However, it has often proved difficult for news industries undergoing rapid growth and increasing corporate concentration to serve audiences with diverse news and information needs. In order to examine the extent to which Spanish-language news outlets are providing a diverse range of news and topics relevant to their audiences, researchers used software that gathers Real Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds to archive, organize, and analyze over 10,000 news stories posted to 28 Spanish-language news websites during October 2012. The results show some diversity in the range of topics covered, but the widespread duplication of content across platforms owned by a small handful of media conglomerates found in the results raises important questions about the impact of increasing news homogenization in the digital age and the potential implications for minority audiences.