Abstract

Given that increased rates of population movement across borders in recent decades have coincided with an era in which audiences for mass media are being fragmented and ever more precisely targeted according to demographic criteria, we might expect to find that ethnic minorities have become exposed to intensive exploitation as consumer markets. We would be wrong. The small size and often dispersed distribution of many minorities makes it uneconomical for major advertisers to seek to reach them, whether through their own ‘ethnic ’ media at the local level, or even the international satellite channels which now serve globally distributed minority audiences. While there may be enviable advantages to being segregated from commercial influence in this way, it is also a form of marginalization, a restriction of full cultural citizenship. This article contrasts the case of Chinese-speaking minorities in Australia with that of Spanish speakers in the United States. K E Y W O R D S advertising ■ Chinese ■ cultural citizenship ■ diasporas ■ Hispanic ■