Identity orientations of Latino print media in Spain: the reinforcement of Latino popular culture

Abstract

The evolution of Latino print media in Spain has coincided with the demographic increase of Latin American immigrants in the country since the early 1990s. Starting with one publication in 1992, the market started to grow in 2003 and reached its peak in 2007 with the edition of more than 100 titles. The advertising crisis of 2008 ended this trend, and the number of publications began a continuous and permanent decline in the following years despite a demographic recovery of Latin Americans in Spain after 2016. This research presents a quantitative analysis of the contents of 1,500 news items from 14 Latino newspapers and magazines that survived the 2008 advertising downfall. Six of these 14 media outlets continue publishing in 2023. The objective of this study is to show the connections between the contents of the analyzed Latino print media and the cultural identities of their readers. The results show that the prevalent themes related to culture, society and politics represent the identities of their Latino readers. Latino publications give visibility to Latinos as the protagonists of their contents. In addition, the origin of the protagonists shows the wide range of Latin American countries in correlation with the diverse Latin American origins of the readers. We discuss the implications of these findings within the volatile context of Latino print media in Spain, the growing Latin American demographics, and the formation of diverse Latino identities.