Abstract
The debut of Ethnic Journalism in the Global South is timely. The book capitalizes on the DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) electricity currently sweeping through all aspects of our being, academic scholarship included. It delves into ethnic journalism—defined as “the practice of journalism by, for and about ethnic communities” (p. 10)—examined concomitantly with ethnic media. Matthew Matsaganis and colleagues (see Understanding Ethnic Media: Producers, Consumers, and Societies, 2011, SAGE Books) define ethnic media as media produced by and for (a) immigrants, (b) racial, ethnic, and linguistic minorities, and (c) indigenous populations living across different countries. In Chapter 1 of this 16-chapter volume, the editors, Anna Gladkova (Leading Researcher and Director of International Affairs Office at the Faculty of Journalism, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia) and Sadia Jamil (Post-doctoral Fellow at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Khalifa University of Science and Technology, United Arab Emirates), note that the Global South, an important DEI ingredient within the globalization framework, has rarely been the focus of researchers’ attention. The book’s treatment of the Global South aligns with postmodernist thinking that privileges history over geography. It essentially links the histories of inequities, oppression, and exclusion across and within countries. The book covers Africa (Ghana and Zimbabwe), Asia (India), Latin America (Brazil and Argentina), Eastern Europe (Bulgaria) and Oceania (New Zealand), and trans-continentally, “Europe and Asia” (Russia and Turkey), and “Africa and Asia” (Egypt).
Chapters 1 and 2 serve as the contextual and theoretical framework of the book. Thereafter it covers five themes: (a) Profession, (b) Social mission, (c) Ownership, regulation, production, and financing aspects, (d) Case study analysis, and (e) Migration. Thematic overlaps are evident when reading the full volume, which demonstrates a flaw in the book’s organization. The first theme is addressed in Chapters 3 and 9 with Ghana and Bulgaria serving as the bellwethers. Recognizing that education is integral to professionalism/professionalization, Chapter 3 argues for the integration of ethnic journalism training in the Ghanaian curriculum.
Chapter 9 focuses on the transformative nature of new online ethnic media produced in Turkish language that give a voice to the Turks in Bulgaria to counter their invisibility in mainstream media. Switching thematic gears to migration, this invisibility as it pertains to misrepresentation and nonrepresentation is revisited in Chapters 6 and 12, which spotlight the plight of Syrian refugees.
When juxtaposed, Chapter 5 on Russia and Chapter 11 on New Zealand make for an interesting analysis on the theme of ownership, regulation, production, and financing approached from a press freedom perspective. The two countries are at polar opposites on press freedom rankings on Freedom House with Russia ranked 0 and New Zealand 4, where 0 is “Worst” and 4 is “Best.” Having a favorable ranking does not translate into more fertile ground for ethnic media to flourish—for example, New Zealand experiences funding and regulation bottlenecks in safeguarding ethnic journalism. In Russia, ethnic media are at the mercy of the State in terms of funding and ownership structures, which allows the State to hijack their agendas.
Kicking off the five out of 16 chapters focusing on social mission, Chapter 7 examines the “policies of invisibilization” impacting Afro-descendants and their media in Argentina. Parallels can be drawn with Zimbabwe (Chapter 10) where save for two, minority languages are annihilated on the state-owned National FM. The station “is believed to be playing the translation role for the state’s ethnic hegemonies” (p. 192). Bright spots are seen in Chapters 8, 13, and 16. The former emphasizes the pivotal role community radio plays in safeguarding cultural identities of indigenous people in India, and the latter chapters (both on Brazil) assert the role ethnic media play as a public sphere for celebrating the marginalized Afro-Brazilian/Black culture.
Chapter 14, also on Brazil, takes a thematic detour from social mission to case study analysis. Using the defunct São Paulo Shimbun, the author highlights the challenges ethnic journalism faces in the Global South. One such challenge is the sociodemographic transformation of the target audience, which as noted in Chapter 15, “makes a case for re-theorising ethnic media in ways that can better account for diversity and complexity, as well as the changing nature of audiences” (p. 287). Audience engagement during the COVID-19 crisis and ethnic media’s relationship with various stakeholders are among the issues tackled in Chapter 4, using Egypt as a case study.
Thematically, the book is lopsided with more than 30% (compared with about 13% on average for other individual themes) focusing on social mission. Growing challenges in the Global South around ownership, regulation, production, and financing, for instance, should have necessitated having more than two chapters dedicated to this theme. The overrepresentation of Brazil with three chapters and New Zealand with two was another limitation. Limitations aside, the book’s examination of how ethnic journalism—especially through the theme of social mission—is instrumental in driving change in different cultural and political contexts neatly places it into ongoing scholarship in the field of International Journalism. At the core of this field is an emphasis on how journalism globally is being consciously used to support mobilization and deliberation around political, economic, cultural, and social issues that affect societies at both the micro and macro levels. This book, which can also be placed within development communication scholarship, is the latest in a three-volume series dubbed Palgrave Studies in Journalism and the Global South. It will be a gem to scholars, students, practitioners, and anyone with an interest in its subject matter. In addition, the book’s contribution to DEI in academic scholarship cannot be overemphasized.