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Abstract
In this study, I use two population-based survey experiments to consider the role that Spanish-language political media plays in shaping views of Latino political identity. Drawing from social psychology, communication and cultural studies literatures, I hypothesize that both the use of the Spanish-language and the pan-ethnic label serve to increase perceptions of a politically distinctive, Latino collective. To explore this theory, a nationally-representative sample of 829 Latino adult respondents was exposed to a 30-second, televised Obama campaign ad. Subjects were randomly assigned to one of two versions of the ad, either in English or Spanish. The study's results showed that exposure to Spanish-language media did, in fact, affect perceptions of Latino political homogeneity in an intriguing way. In a second study, a nationally representative sample of 875 bilingual Latinos saw a brief news clip about the elections. Subjects were randomly assigned to either a control condition, or to view a version of the story either in English or Spanish, and using the pan-ethnic label or excluding references to specific subgroups all together. The results underscore the importance of the language of the political content, but also draw attention to the importance of using the pan-ethnic label. Together, these findings provide some of the first empirical evidence of how Spanish-language political media affects how Latinos perceive themselves in the context of American politics.
