Regulating immigrant media and instituting ethnic boundaries – The FCC and Spanish-language television: 1960–1990

Abstract

This article examines a puzzle in the history of Spanish-language television in the United States. Namely, after decades of knowingly permitting the top television firm Univision Communications Corporation to form complex ties with Mexican investors, the Federal Communication Commission (FCC, the Commission) deemed it subject to foreign influence, and mandated its restructuring. Drawing on FCC records, interviews and unique data on television programs, this work argues that understandings of ethnic boundaries undergirded the Commission's reversal. It shows that regulators permitted extensive foreign ties under the pretext of advancing an “ethnic minority” media. The FCC backpedaled, however, when lobbyists highlighted a boundary between “Hispanic American” and foreign, Latin American media. The impact of the FCC's turnabout on programming is discussed. The author concludes by drawing postulates from the Univision case for an analysis of immigrant media regulation that reconciles understandings of ethnic boundaries with the prevailing free-market and trusteeship aspects of regulation.