Fusion and the politics of Hispanic identity

Summing up my previous entry, Univision and ABC News's initiative to launch Fusion can be seen as the latest stage in the evolution of the cultural industries dedicated to the market of Latin American origin peoples in the US. This process, as previously stated, has been marked partly by a tension between the natural business drive to serve the Spanish-language market and the demands of sectors in the Latino population for a media that is representative of their interests in the US. Indeed, whilst there is a clear profit motive in Fusion, it is also motivated by catering for a Latino leadership that has historically called for constructive representations and role models in the American media. No wonder then that Fusion promoters have openly pitched their outlet as one to seek the political and economic empowerment of Latinos. Such a discourse might as well be part of a commercial narrative, but its convergence with the rising political influence of Hispanics as a whole, both immigrants and US-born, is an indication of an Hispanic population that has slowly, and yet progressively, become more assertive in the public horizon in the US. One of the more visible signs of such assertiveness has of course been the growing influence of Hispanics as an electoral force, which has been found to be essential in the election and re-election of Barack Obama as President of the United States. Importantly, this influence has been materialising in very particular dynamics, such as a growing tendency of immigrants to apply for citizenship and to participate in electoral processes. Simultaneously, the firmer political standing of Hispanics has taken the form of better representation in politics, an example of which is the Mexican-origin major of Los Angeles, Antonio Villarraigosa, and the coming of age of advocacy organisations such as the National Council of La Raza and the League of United Latin American Citizens. More recently, the normally anti-immigrant Republican Party has realised it needs Hispanics on its side if it is to recover the presidency in the future. Hence the prominent role of Senators John McCaine and Marco Rubio as supporters of a migration law reform that would "legalise" nearly 12 million undocumented migrants.

It is important to note that Fusion's intention to 'give Latinos a voice in the American conversation', as put by Univision Networks president Cesar Conde, implies an acknowledgement of important interlinkages and disjunctures within the Hispanic population. The interlinkages and disjunctures in question are visible in a variety of dynamics that could be broadly described as a Hispanic politics of identity. For example, whilst the Republican Party has recently warmed up (for electoral reasons) to the idea of a migration reform that would include an amnesty for foreign nationals without documents, such a measure would be accompanied by conditions such as long waiting periods, burdensome bureaucratic rules, and fees of a varied nature for applicants. In the past, this passive aggressive brand of public policy has been practiced by Republicans, sometimes giving way to 'regularised' pro-Republican Hispanic voters, who frequently become outspoken supporters of tough border security controls, incarceration and deportation of "illegals". Interestingly, during electoral processes, these subjects also become voice-overs of Republican policies that tend to reproduce a typically US conservative discourse of divisiveness within the Hispanic population (anyone who has read David Gutierrez cogent book Walls and Mirrors: Mexican Americans, Mexican Immigrants and the Politics of Ethnicity, knows what I am talking about).

There are also those actors in the US who have tended to reproduce dynamics reflecting on the close interconnections amongst Hispanics. One such example is provided by Univision itself, which for nearly three decades now has maintained its command of the Spanish-language media market by reproducing an idea of Hispanics as a homogeneous group. In this, the linguistic commonalities, the Latin American background (rather than the Mexican, Cuban or Puerto Rican nationalities), the hardships of migration, and the values of family and religion have been part of a skilfully unified narrative. It may be true that such a narrative has been devised to present Hispanics as a cohesive market of consumers to advertisers. However, the discourse in question has more recently evolved into a regime of representation in which Univision frequently presents the struggles of particular sections of the Latin American-origin population as if they involved Hispanics as a whole. One recent example in this context has been Univision's coverage of the Arizona Law, a bill that criminalises 350,000 immigrants of a largely Latin American background but which also makes 2 million Hispanics liable to racial profiling by the police. In face of the prospect that the Arizona Law might set a precedent for other states, Univision's coverage reflected on Hispanics as a unified group represented by lawmakers, advocates, religious ministers, students, citizens and undocumented foreign nationals, who mobilised to protect their common interests (Moreno, 2011a).

With Fusion, Univision is once more circulating an inclusiveness-in-difference kind of sub-text, when noting that its knowledge of Hispanic matters and ABC New's journalistic understanding of the US national reality will result in the political empowering of Latinos.

Fusion: a new chapter in the commercial logic of Hispanic media in the US

Broadcasters ABC News, a unit of Disney, and Univision announced in February that they would be launching Fusion, an English-language network to provide factual content focusing on matters from the perspective of Hispanics, the largest ethnic minority in the United States. This association represents a major development in country's cultural industries, which over the last few decades have experienced the consolidation of a Spanish-language media market that has been undergoing a process of cultural hybridity since the 1950s. This process began with a form of media transnationalism initiated by Mexican broadcaster Televisa (Moreno, 2011); it has been followed by a stage of development of a national media market in Spanish that has been marked by two important dynamics: a) tensions over the need to serve a market of immigrant and US-born Latin American-origin audiences, and b) the reorientation of nationally-produced content as a flow of programming consumed in Latin America. In this blog I will be discussing some political, cultural and economic aspects of the first dynamic, which manifests itself directly through Fusion in ways that signal the presence of a new episode in the life of Hispanics in the US. This new episode is likely to take many forms, for instance, of deeper cultural assimilation, but also in terms of accelerating the transnational connections of US-born Latin Americans with their ancestors' countries of origin. Whilst my intention is to start thinking about these processes, in this post I would like to simply outline some initial thoughts about the significance of Fusion. The latter's importance is immediately clear in at least three interrelated dimensions: commercial, political and cultural. For this post, I will be addressing the first one.

The market logic

In straightforward terms, Fusion can be seen as widening the offer of programming for a section of the Hispanic audience that has been left unattended by the existing alternatives. In this context, there has always existed the notion that media products for people of Latin American origin has concentrated on Spanish-speaking immigrants, whilst neglecting their assimilated children, and in turn their offspring. To the present day, for example, these latter viewers have not been sufficiently attracted by Univision's programming, largely concentrated on content that is particularly attractive for "eyeballs" of Mexican-origin. Telemundo, which has tried to differentiate itself with programming that resonates better amongst Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Salvadorans, etc, has been able to better reflect on the diversity of the Hispanic population. However, its lack of appeal amongst Mexican-origin people (which forms 65% of all Hispanics) has left it trailing far behind Univision in terms of its market share and advertising revenue. After it was acquired by NBC Universal, Telemundo's knowledge of the non-immigrant Spanish-speaking population paved the way for Mun2, a US network that adopted Spanglish as a key element of its programming and production values. These characteristics were aimed at attracting young English-speaking Latinos who maintain a close cultural proximity to the Spanish-speaking world. One problem with Mun2 is that its revenue potential is limited by its young, low-income audience, which is either likely to remain as part of an unattractive market segment, or to adopt alternative choices that meet new aspirations as they become more educated and employed.

Fusion could very well be seen as Univision's forward-looking response to Mun2, although not necessarily in competitive terms. In other words, Univision is already paving the way to maintain its leadership, (or at least to remain as a highly relevant player), as a provider of information and entertainment for Latinos. Aware that the Hispanic population is undergoing an important demographic transformation that will sooner rather than later render obsolete its business model, Univision has smartly allied with ABC News, a unit of the world's largest media corporation, to enter the world's major English-language media market. It may well be true that Fusion could alienate English-speaking Latinos who do not want to be targeted on the basis of their ethnicity, but even if it were to fail in commercial terms, it would result in a highly valuable experience, giving Univision a foothold in the two most important linguistic markets in the US and worldwide. In any case, even if one looks at Fusion as a short-term initiative, it makes sound business sense, considering that Fusion is a reflection of the rising economic importance attributed to assimilated Latinos, who represent 66% of Hispanics as a whole. The latter are deemed to represent the bulk of a purchasing power estimated to grow from 1 to 1.5 trillion dollars in the period between 2010 and 2015. Subsequently, with Fusion, Univision would be positioning itself, alongside ABC News, as a producer of premium content that has the potential to reach the more educated, and high-income sectors of the Hispanic population.