Review by Choice Review
In this timely volume, Santa Ana (UCLA) considers the role of network news in producing/perpetuating dominant images of US Latino/as (who have existed in the shadows of network news broadcasts) and the implications of such images. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the author provides deep insights into relationships between network news messages and audiences' perceptions of those messages. The comparison of news stories that made it on air to those that did not should startle and raise consciousness about the book's serious subject--the systematic omission of a major racial-ethnic group from US public consciousness. Carefully applying semiotic, critical cultural, and textual analyses, Santa Ana offers sharp observations about sources of news stories and how stories are deployed to achieve certain results that are, he argues, deeply problematic. The study would have benefited from a broader analytical time frame that allowed for examination of potential changes in the network news landscape (e.g., the extent to which the campaign/election of the first nonwhite US president affected the patterns of network news' stories about minorities, Latino/as specifically). But overall this is a useful resource that is both theoretically nuanced and accessible and of interest to broadcast journalism, intercultural communication, intergroup relations, media studies, and organizational communication. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty/professionals. W. Alvarez Northeastern Illinois University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
