Ronnie's Blog Spot: February 2007

Language and Power

I am using an article that was published in the New York Times by Lynette Clemetson on Feb. 4 as a referent for this assignment.

The article, titled,”The Racial Politics of Speaking Well” took issue with Sen. Joseph Biden’s characterization of Sen. Barak Obama as “articulate.” Articulate is a trigger word among educated African-Americans as Clemetson writes, because of the way white Americans use it to praise a black man or woman.

What provoked Clemetson’s wrath was Biden’s characterization of Obama as “articulate.” It’s not that she sees being articulate as a bad thing; it’s more the way the word it is used by a white person who to imply that they don’t expect to find such an attribute in a black person. Articulate is a trigger word – one that Clemetson says makes African-Americans want to literally wring the neck of the (white) person who uttered it because of the unspoken message that accompanies those damning words of praise.

Or as Clemetson writes:

“When whites use the word in reference to blacks, it often carries a subtext of amazement, even bewilderment. It is similar to praising a female executive or politician by calling her “tough” or “a rational decision-maker. … Such a subtext is inherently offensive because it suggests that the recipient of the “compliment” is notably different from other black people.”

This article illustrates much of what as said about language, labels and power in Chapter 6. The collective, societal (white) perspective is that African-Americans don’t express themselves as well as white people do –so when Biden praises someone like Obama he is unconsciously saying … wow, he really speaks well … for someone who isn't white like me.

But more significantly, the unstated message is that Obama is an excellent speaker of the dominant white lexicon. Obama has learned how to speak white. He has realized a cross-over dream and talk the talk and walk the walk of the dominant group as well as his co-cultural group.

Howeve,r Al Sharpton, another prominent African-American politician does not. Clemetson’s article points out that although Al Sharpton is a powerful public speaker, his speaking style is elaborate and emotional. His words are well understood and much appreciated within his co-cultural group of African-Americans, but no so much outside that sphere. When the dominant white population thinks of Sharpton, articulate is seldom a word that comes to mind.

Now with the 2008 presidential race already underway, we need to take stock as to how we describe and label our top Democratic contenders. Will Hillary Clinton be more than a woman or when we say she’s tough or ambitious or knows the political ropes do we really mean to say she does it as well as a man? Would we be as surprised by Obama’s rise to prominence if he was white?

We all want to have positive labels – and perhaps even set ourselves apart from our own co-cultural group especially when we perceive the dominant identifiers of our own sphere as negative. In my own experience, I have been pleased when Hispanic or Latino friends tell me that I dance well. Now I know what they really are saying is not so much that I can dance their dances, but I do it well for a white person.

Communication Styles

ommunication style

I think I have a more direct communication style. My only disclaimer is that I see myself as a bit of a hybrid in the way I communicate. If I like you, if I feel update, if I am in a New York/New Jersey state of mind, I can and will be very direct and very forthright. I am verbal and that was the cultural milieu of my childhood. It was enhanced during the years I spent living in Puerto Rico, and then in Central America where for the most part people say what they think … and think what they say. I felt right at home there.
I also have very little patience with people who are easily offended because they misinterpret something that was said or was done, but don’t say anything about it. That silent style of communication just doesn’t work for me. I prefer to get it out in the open, deal with it and then move on.
I like to talk and use details in my explanation. Sometimes I berate myself for providing too much detail, but it’s who I am, so if you ask me a simple question you may get more of an answer than you expected. On the other hand, going back to my earlier statement about being a hybrid in how I communicate, if I feel sad, depressed or just not in a very good frame of mind, I tend to keep to myself and not say much. I don’t think that’s cultural – but it is a reflection of who I am.
As to learning style, my tendency toward open and direct communication dominates here as well. When I am in a class, I tend to participate in class discussion and say what’s on my mind. I enjoy those exchanges – expressing my views and hearing what others have to say. There is much to be gained. We don’t have that kind of direct exchange in this class with its online learning environment and I miss that.

Audiences

In the classes I have been teaching we have discussed niche marketing or audience targeting. As the media executives and decision-makers opt to keep their focus narrower and narrower, this kind of targeting is the sign of the times. I, however, miss some of the broader focus because niche marketing presupposes knowledge of what is out there that each individual may not necessarily possess. For example, as someone in that so-called older audience range, I did not see – and was not even aware of – the movie, “Boynton Beach Club.” So guess who’s going to Hollywood Video or Blockbuster now to see about renting it? That would be me.

From the audience perspective, the problem I have with niche media is figuring out how to find what might be of interest to me. In the days when truly mass media prevailed, it was easier to keep up with trends and what was going on. I could follow-up on what interested me, and ignore what did not. Today, I find it difficult to keep tabs on all that might be of interest, given the plethora of communication possibilities that are out there. Yes, I know I can do a broad Google search and eventually find what I want, but this presupposes coming up with the correct search terms.

So while it is convenient for advertisers, marketers and programmers to identify me in terms of what they perceive as my interests, income, demographics, etc. by typecasting me according to those specifics, they could miss out on a world of (economic) opportunity to attract me and my peer group to what they have to offer.

These difficulties are not just age-specific either. For example, let’s look at our growing Hispanic population. The media have had an “ah-ha” moment with this demographic group as communications executives across the board try to figure out the best way to appeal to this audience. In English? Spanish? Spanish? Younger Hispanics or older Hispanics? Florida Hispanics (Cubans and Central Americans) or Texas and California Hispanics (more likely to be of Mexican descent). Reggaeton or salsa? Low income or affluent? The only show I’ve ever seen which seems to appeal to Hispanics across the Board is Univision’s long-running “Sabado Gigante” or “Gigantic Saturday,” a three-hour show with chit-chat, entertainment, prizes and an affable host whose name escapes me right now, but who everybody seems to like.

My point with all this is that while audience fragmentation is the way of the future, some attention still needs to be paid to appealing to the masses – so we can be exposed to things outside of our own specific interest ranges and learn about something new.

Two other things I would like to comment about briefly are the decreasing opportunities for minorities in the media and the proliferation of online news sites.

Our readings show that despite the lip service being paid to minority opportunity, the numbers are down. Some of this may not be due to anything more than pure economics – across the board media operations are engaging in cutbacks, downsizing, restructuring or any other euphemism that translates into fewer job opportunities for everyone. When you couple this with the fact that in many instances when cutbacks are implemented, the last hired, first fired syndrome prevails – and which demographic groups are among the last hired – African Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans and Hispanics – in other words – minorities.

Some of the slack is being picked up by the increase in minority and ethnic targeted media. The San Francisco, Calif.-based New America Media New America is a very interesting collaboration of ethnic news organizations. It was founded by the nonprofit Pacific News Service in 1996, and brings together ethnic media news and journalists in a variety of ways. For more information, I refer you to their website: http://news.newamericamedia.org.

Obviously, because almost every newspaper is posting online editions, this now means if I have the time and so desire I can glance at dozens of newspapers in a single day from across the United States and around the world. I have mixed views of all this. I feel that we are all constantly on information overload. I will admit that I, at least, have a hard time not feeling as if I am simply running in place. Yes, it’s great to be able to access newspapers in London, Paris, and Hong Kong or anywhere in the world. But I am just glancing, seldom reading. I also miss getting a newspaper, although not doing so is my decision. I no longer subscribe to a newspaper – something I had done all my adult life – because so much is available to me now via the internet. But the main reason I stopped, is because I would see day’s worth of newspapers piling up untouched. So I have now become an online reader. I don’t know what the numbers are for online readers, but actual newspaper readership is down – and I think that will continue. Take a look at this story.

World’s Oldest Newspaper Now Exists Only Online

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) -- Call it a sign of the times: The world's oldest newspaper still in circulation has dropped its paper edition and now exists only in cyberspace.

Post-och Inrikes Tidningar, founded in 1645 by Sweden's Queen Kristina, became a Web-only publication on January 1.

"We think it's a cultural disaster," said Hans Holm, who served as the chief editor of the paper for 20 years. "It is sad when you have worked with it for so long and it has been around for so long."

What do you think?

In order to respond to the criticism of this submission, I took a look at “Ethnic Notions.” I would have thought I would have come into contact with this documentary somewhere along the line, but it was first released when I was in Nicaragua, and I missed it. It has had a profound impact on me now – particularly in regard to this assignment. I can see how the “black identities” that formed part of the broader American culture during the 19^th and first half of the 20^th century could hurt and how they did “shape the most gut-level feelings about race” -- in the most harmful of ways.

“From the Cake Walk to the jitterbug, an image was forged that blacks, with in-born
rhythm and musical talent, were indifferent to poverty, subservience, segregation - as slaves they danced even at their own auction block. Black's greatest joy, however, came in providing service to whites.” (from Ethnic Notions).

In terms of identify development, the negative portrayal of African-Americans in the decades after slavery ended, did keep blacks subjugated without the physical bonds of slavery by establishing and then reinforcing the damaging stereotypes with words that identified them as “darkies, coons, niggers, mammies” and other equally negative labels.” How could any black develop a positive self-identity or image of self or a white hold a positive image of an African-American with stereotypes such as those defining the black American? Those images served to maintain negative processes of avowal and ascription in one fell swoop.

Even If the critical perspective of contextual identity formation is taken into account, it is still hard to understand from the vantage point of history, how the negative image of African-Americans endured for so long. It wasn’t until after World War II that some resistance to the ascribed identities came about and developed through the decades to the point where we are today – far from ideal, but better than what was. It’s not that racism or prejudice or discrimination or stereotyping no longer exists; it does, but at least today, we are all bound – at a minimum – to pay lip service to the terminology of “political correctness” that covers all racial, ethnic and gender stereotyping.

On another level, I will relate the process of identity development to myself and the impact my “changing” identity has had on me. When I went to live in Puerto Rico as a young woman, my identity was tied to being “a good American.” I went out of my way to learn Spanish and to understand the Puerto Rican culture – not because I was so noble, but because I didn’t want to be like other Americans in the newsroom where I worked who had lived in Puerto Rico for 20 years or more and still didn’t speak Spanish. The Spanish language, at that time, was tied to the Puerto Rican identity – and a sense of “Puerto Ricanness” that probably had more to do with politics than it had to do with culture. But I learned Spanish, integrated into Puerto Rican society and through that took myself on a path that defined my professional life as a correspondent in Latin America for years.

Today, like everyone else, I have many different identities – as a white American, someone of Jewish descent, as a political liberal, as a mother, sister, partner, friend and at a different time in my life, wife. But today I am going through an identity crisis, which I just internalized for myself in the process of reviewing this assignment. My reality is that I have always defined my public persona or identity in terms of what I do for a living – my profession. For years, I identified myself as a journalist and I was quite content with that public self. When I came to Gainesville, 5 ½ years ago, I was ready to give up my identity as a journalist and identify myself as a mid-level University of Florida administrator with access to and acceptance in certain circles based on that identity. When political change came to UF and I was “restructured” out of the job I held, I lost that identity. And I still haven’t found one that works for me in the context of Gainesville and which allows me to find a place for myself in this town once again.

I am not comfortable with the “student” identity – even though I get praise from people for being willing to go back to school. I don’t feel comfortable with the “professor” identity that comes from teaching at the University of North Florida because I feel like I am always flying by the seat of my pants in terms of class presentations. I realize now what I am doing is searching for a new public identity through the process of stages and development that we are looking at in our readings. And it has lead me to understand, that I because I define myself by what I do – I have to continue look for “a do” that give me a new public identity with which I can identify. (The latter is NOT for public consumption in any way – just a perception that I am willing to share with you for purposes of this assignment and how I have been able to internalize it and apply it to myself.

Submission:

a

Social and cultural identities define who we are and who the people are with whom we most identify ourselves when we move beyond the immediate scope of self and immediate family. My sons are simultaneously Hispanic, Latino, Nicaraguan-Americans, and Caucasian; Jewish, multi-ethnic and multi-cultural. This mix allows them to be “culture brokers” when they choose to be so; but they seldom think of themselves in the contexts to which I just made reference. Both my sons have other social and cultural identities that determine the spheres in which they move right now much more than their “birth” identities. These identities are the ones that reflect their interests. Son Number One is a runner and that is his passion. His best friends are runners; his social life is spent in the company of other runners; his email addresses have to do with running as does his spot on Myspace.com. If I had to ask him to define who he thinks he is in one word, it would be as a runner. Son Number Two son is a musician; and like his brother he sees himself within the boundaries of his social-cultural identity as a musician much more than he thinks of himself as Caucasian, Hispanic or Jewish. So how does this look at my sons tie in to the movie, “Crash?” In my view, who they are and how they relate to their society is a product of circumstances, context and coincidence – and they can act and react in a positive or negative manner depending on the same. If we lived in Los Angeles or New York or Miami – or remained living in Nicaragua or in Chile, my sons might have grown up with an entirely different sense of self and social and cultural personas. I would like to think that I raised my sons to be free of prejudice, bias and bigotry, but “Crash” makes me think that view is too simplistic. The somewhat depressing message I got out of “Crash” is that we all have hidden pockets within ourselves of all that is ugly about the human race – although it also provided me with a ray of hope that when the moment is right, we have the ability to be noble and heroic and do the right thing. That’s how, in the movie, we can see a racist cop humiliate and sexually molest an African-American woman – and the next day see him pulling her out of a car that has just crashed to save her life. The film is about the racial biases and stereotypes that dominate our American life. It is set in Los Angeles, in and of itself a stereotypical city of racial, ethnic and social clashes. Bias, bigotry, prejudice, discrimination and stereotyping dominate the movie and the interaction of the characters with each other – just as bias, bigotry, prejudice, discrimination and stereotyping impact our own lives. However, our own lives do not play out in such dramatic fashion – and if I come back full circle to my sons, my hope is that they would get and internalize the message of “Crash” and apply it to their own social and cultural identities as they mature.

Stereotyping and Identity

I could look at the question of ascribed and avowed identities as they pertain to me from several different angles, often depending on my own state of mind. When I am well-rested and external factors in my life are moving along in the way I desire, I will be perceived as extroverted, outgoing, communicative, self-confident, etc. in other words my avowed and ascribed identities will be in sync to paint a picture of a positive, dynamic me. Give me a day … or days when nothing seems to go right, when I haven’t gotten enough sleep, when I haven’t put on makeup, when I don’t like the clothes I am wearing, etc. I can come across as a totally different person. My avowed and ascribed persona is someone who is negative, nondescript and uncommunicative. I realize this may not be the point of this exercise but I think internal and external ups and downs influence our self-perceptions and those of others and in turn influence how we communicate and how others communicate with us.

Some of my larger difficulties in relating with others are not so much in terms of cross-cultural experiences as cross-generational experiences. For example, I have done some work as a substitute teacher in Gainesville high schools in the past year – and in the classroom am exposed to dress, language, communication styles, etc. that are anathema to me. If I see it in the movies, it’s OK. If I hear it in a song, it’s OK. If I read about it in a magazine, it’s OK. But up close and personal – I have a hard time dealing with very low-riding pants that look like they are going to fall off with the boxer shorts very exposed on a 16-year-old boy. I don’t understand the fashion sense that dictates a tight-fitting sweater, an extremely short skirt and bedroom slippers as the latest look. And I really don’t get the language where every other word seems to be a “f-this or a f-that”, whether something positive or negative is being expressed when the kids are talking with each other. Neither racial nor ethnic stereotypes come into play here since the kids I am talking about are all shapes, sizes and colors. Class stereotypes could be an influence in this, because the kids who are most engaged in the kind of behavior that I am talking about here are generally the ones who are in the drop-out prevention programs, which generally means they come from lower socio-economic backgrounds. (Or am I stereotyping here?) Still, I think it is the cross-generational barrier that predominates.

Musings on Evaulation in Risk Crisis Communication Feb. 18

Every risk communication effort should be evaluated. Naturally. The chapter opened with that premise and that’s a no-brainer. If you don’t evaluate what you did this time, how will you know how to improve upon it or whether you need to make changes, the next time around?

That being said, it takes time and effort to make a proper evaluation. And sometimes you may not have the resources in terms of time and/or money to make a full-scale effort. Can you shoot from the hip and make a reasonable assessment of what you did right and what you did wrong. I would say yes.

I think most of us engaged in the business of communication can make a fairly good assessment about when something works – or when it does not. I’ll start with the premise that most of us are reasonably intelligent and reasonably fair in judging ourselves and in judging the efforts of others.

It wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that FEMA did a really poor job of interacting with people in New Orleans and attending to risk communication there and with the rest of the nation in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Or that Jet Blue will take a hit now -- after years of favorable public and consumer relations – after hundreds its passengers were left for up to 11 hours in parked jets at New York's John F. Kennedy Airport when the planes couldn’t take off because of bad weather. I can only imagine the kind of evaluation and measurement that will be going on at Jet Blue now. (As an FYI, there is currently a movement to establish a federal airline passengers’ bill or rights).

In both cases, tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars can be spent in assessing and evaluation the actions and inactions of the risk communication. But the final conclusions will probably not be much different from that which the communicator can assess right from the start – FEMA and Jet Blue respectively mishandled and mismanaged communications. (There’s actually a more common vernacular I might have used here to describe FEMA and Jet Blue’s efforts, but in the interests of verbal delicacy, I’ll refrain)!

This “eyeball” assessment is not unlike a journalist’s crowd count. Obviously, when a reporter covers a particular event and provides a crowd tally, the journalist does not count every person there. They will eyeball the crowd to determine whether there are dozens, hundreds, thousands or tens of thousands people present. (Of course, the journalist will also ask for a number from the event organizer – but eyeballs can still work and are a good counter to inflated attendance claims.)

Organizations like FEMA and Jet Blue, however, can afford to conduct full evaluations. Smaller community-based organizations often cannot do so common sense is relied upon even more. For example, here in town, St. Francis House may not have the resources to assess its success in communicating the risk to the homeless in Gainesville and the risk to the rest of the community if the homeless are not taken into account. But they can make a fairly accurate and quick assessment (I think) of how successful they are by looking at the news coverage they get; the attention paid to homelessness by the city and county governments and seeing what kind of response they get to requests for volunteers and donations from members of the community.

In undertaking an evaluation of a risk communication effort, common sense can count for a lot, especially when time and money are issues. Evaluation is not dissimilar to measurement, but I for think care has to be taken not to spend so much time on evaluating and measure success (or failure) that it prevents getting the job done that one is trying to measure or evaluate. In other words, let’s not get caught up so excessively in proving our worth that we find ourselves with nothing worth evaluating or measuring.

As far as legal matters are concerned – as raised in the chapter reading -- superficially you can show you adhered to the letter of the law when risk communication involves a legal technicality. But if you are working for an organization whose life is conducted in the public eye – whether as a government agency, an advocacy group or a non-profit, it stands to reason that your organization would be operating legally. If not, you have a much bigger risk assessment to make than simple communication!

The set of factors developed by Kasperson and Palmlund are useful and should be taken into account. It is important to make a correct choice in determining who will conduct the evaluation. Does the evaluator understand the issues and the topics at hand? The example given about the project manager who had his risk communication messages evaluated by technical experts made sense as did his efforts to provide them with guidelines and a frame of reference about what he was trying to do. But again, their guidelines presuppose that funds are available for this kind of effort.

Evaluation can show management that your risk communication effort was successful.
But it seems to a little too easy to simply use as a standard of success whether objectives were met. The question might be whether the objectives that were laid out were the correct ones and whether they are truly measurable in a way that is meaningful to you and your organization.

Labels: Risk Crisis Communication

Niche Targeting, Online Newspapers

Audiences
In the classes I have been teaching we have discussed niche marketing or audience targeting. As the media executives and decision-makers opt to keep their focus narrower and narrower, this kind of targeting is the sign of the times. I, however, miss some of the broader focus because niche marketing presupposes knowledge of what is out there that each individual may not necessarily possess. For example, as someone in that so-called older audience range, I did not see – and was not even aware of – the movie, “Boynton Beach Club.” So guess who’s going to Hollywood Video or Blockbuster now to see about renting it? That would be me.