Mari Castañeda

The Complicated Transition to Broadcast Digital Television in the United States

This article examines three major policy issues surrounding the transition to broadcast digital television (B-DTV): digital transmission and programming, interoperability and compatibility, and copyright protection. By examining these issues in the B-DTV transition, this article aims to show the discontinuity between the current B-DTV changeover and the most commonly referred to changeovers in TV history, color television. The comparison points to the transformation of television as an important component in the national and global information infrastructures. The article suggests that the long, complicated journey to B-DTV demonstrates the limitations of broadcast policy in its attempts to reconfigure the technological, political, economic, and cultural features of analog media to reach the digital promise land. With the features of traditional television in flux and the contradictions of global capital quite apparent, the changeover to B-DTV is going to be more drawn out and costly than the transition to color TV.

Two Sides of the Same Story: Media Narratives of Latinos and the Subprime Mortgage Crisis

It is now widely publicized that Latinos are one of the most disproportionately affected communities by the 2008 recession. At the same time that Latinos have one of the highest unemployment rates in the U.S., they also have the highest foreclosure rates due in great part to subprime mortgages. In this essay the authors ask: How are Latinos represented as a significant force in the financial crisis? In particular, what are the media narratives constructed around Latinos and the subprime mortgage meltdown? In order to answer these questions, the authors analyzed the coverage of Latinos in the subprime mortgage crisis in both English- and Spanish-language print news from 2008–2011. Overall, the authors analyzed the news coverage using a transcultural political economic framework, paying close attention to the ways that Latinos are treated as postcolonial subjects. The analysis of media narratives shows how the crisis of the subprime is in fact part of a historical legacy of exclusionary property ownership, racialized segregation, and the continuous exploitation of Latin America through its people. Ultimately, the authors argue that such legacies are evident in the different ways Latinos are constructed in English- and Spanish-language news media regarding the subprime mortgage crisis.

Forging a Path: Past and Present Scope of Critical Race Theory and Latina/o Critical Race Theory in Communication Studies

This article summarizes the theoretical progression of critical Latina/o communication studies as a framework that can potentially speak to the material, verbal, visual, and discursive experiences of Latinos in a globalizing 21st century. Examining the trajectory of a critical inquiry of race in communication studies offers a meaningful entry point for which to trace the past, present, and future of Latino/as in the discipline. The essay outlines the scope and state of Latina/o communication research, noting how Latina/o theorizing paved a way into the National Communications Association particularly through the Latina/o Communication Studies Division (LCSD) and La Raza Caucus (LRC). We argue that the scholarly landscape needs to disrupt the conditions of Latina/o invisibility, and point to how critical Latina/o communication studies is in fact an integral part of the communication studies epistemology.

Breaking Through the Associate Professor Glass Ceiling

For many faculty members from racial and ethnic groups that are underrepresented in the US academy, the goal to become a full professor is not careerist but rather a political project that aims to challenge a glass ceiling that remains an important historical barrier in higher education. Unlike the hiring of assistant professors or the granting of tenure and promotion to associate professors or the hiring of senior administrators, the promotion-to-full process has not been a high-profile topic of discussion in debates over diversity in academia. Although many colleagues often do not readily admit to it, becoming a full professor grants faculty a certain level of status that opens opportunities. For instance, letters from full professors in tenure and review process are generally more highly esteemed than those from associate or assistant professors, and usually, only full professors review the promotion cases of associate professors. Chairs of the most important university committees are typically full professors rather than associates, as are deans, vice provosts, and vice presidents, not to mention provosts, presidents, and chancellors. Since white men constitute 75 percent of full professors in universities across the United States while white women comprise 16 percent of the rank, albeit with lower salaries, it is white faculty who are also the majority of deans, provosts, and chancellors at colleges nationwide; and thus the dominant reviewers of most faculty personnel actions (Chait & Trower, 2002).