Greetings from your co-host Leah Askarinam. Blake Hounshell is off this week. Tonight we have an item from our colleague Jazmine Ulloa, who reports on a new analysis of the media habits of young Latinos.
Online disinformation hit Latino communities hard in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election.
It came in the form of videos, tweets and WhatsApp messages, YouTube videos and the rants of Spanish-speaking radio hosts. It contained false reports of widespread violence on the streets of Democratic cities after the George Floyd assassination, QAnon conspiracy theories and exaggerated claims of terrorists and criminals crossing the US-Mexico border.
As the most egregious material spread online — and in the private text chains of the tías and tíos of young Latinos — the organizers of United We Dream Action, an immigrant rights organization founded and led by young immigrants, jumped into the fray. The group trained members to provide accurate information to their families and friends and to create shareable content on social media platforms intended to dispel anti-immigrant and anti-black stories.
With the mid-term months of 2022 over and both sides vying for the votes of one of the most pivotal swing groups in American politics, the organization released a report today that takes a closer look at Latinos’ online involvement in immigration material. The controversial issue, long exploited by bad actors on the internet, is widely expected to play a central role in elections across the country.
The Immigrant Advocacy Network teamed up with Harmony Labs, a New York-based nonprofit research group, to study the television and online consumption habits of more than 20,000 Latinos across the country who agreed to share their data from Jan. August 31, 2021. Latinos over 36 were more likely to encounter polarizing anti-immigrant stories than other cohorts, the analysis found, mainly through right-wing news sites, television and YouTube.
It also found an interesting gender gap among younger Latinos.
Latinas ages 18 to 35 drew on a much wider variety of news and entertainment sources than their older counterparts, the analysis found, and were more likely to seek out stories not only about immigration policy, but also about immigrants and immigrants. the immigrant experience.
Their searches and content consumption were curious and community-driven, reflecting “a desire to understand and interact with the people and the world around them,” according to the findings.
But Latino men in the same age cohort were very different. Those surveyed tended to inhabit “a highly insular, virtual world,” the researchers said. Many young Latino men spent much of their time online with anime and fantasy games, not taking in a lot of media about immigration or immigrants, both positive and negative. When they consumed immigration content, it was mostly about policy and came from conservative-leaning sources.
GameStop Stocks and Covid News
In addition, their choices for news consumption were often more individualistic and entrepreneurial. Of the 45,000 articles Latinos read in the first nine months of 2021, only two topics were found to capture the attention of large numbers of young Latino men: the amateurs driving GameStop’s stock price and Covid-related school closures.
Both young Latinos and Latinas showed less interest in politics, and for the young men, the main “political” personalities were influencers who discuss a wide variety of cultural topics and fall across the political spectrum: Philip DeFranco, Joe Rogan, and Mr. beast.
Read more about US immigration
The vacuum of political information for young Latino men, coupled with their desire for economic stability and penchant for individualism, is likely to make that group more susceptible to right-wing anti-immigrant stories and misinformation in the future, the groups concluded.
This uniquely positions young Latino men to negative arguments “that there isn’t enough for them and someone else is taking their chances,” said Juanita Monsalve, senior marketing and creative director for United We Dream Action. But it also creates an opportunity to intervene with counter-messages, she added.
“We have this research to find out how we can create culturally responsive content and appear in the spaces where they want to consume it,” Monsalve said.
The report’s findings align with previous research into Latinos’ political affiliations — and they add to the picture emerging about how these voters are first up for grabs.
Latinos generally tend to lean democratically, but in 2020, Donald Trump improved his performance among these voters in some parts of the country, especially working-class Latino men, by focusing his message on the economy.
Young Latinas are likely to be more liberal than their male peers and more concerned about social justice and equality issues such as racism, immigration and climate change.
More young Latino men voted for Trump in 2020 than in 2016, but whether Republicans will continue to build support among the demographic “is an open question,” said Vladimir Enrique Medenica, an assistant professor at the University of Delaware and research director. research at the University of Chicago’s GenForward project, which surveys voters ages 18-36.
What is known, he said, is that many have no interest in politics, either identify as independent or have no affiliation with any of the major political parties. This is partly because many feel alienated from politics and are not represented by any of the parties.
Many also face greater barriers to college education and economic opportunity, both of which help shape people’s political views and may be of particular importance to the politicization process for second-generation Latinos whose parents have moved to the United States. emigrated and who may not have strong attachments to Democrats or Republicans, Medenica said.
Opening for Republicans
In Florida, where Hispanic hosts have bolstered anti-black stories and exaggerated claims of voter fraud, Republicans have seen an opening to appeal to more young Latino men via YouTube and social media, said Andrea Cristina Mercado, the executive director of Florida Rising , a racial justice organization focused on building political power for marginalized communities.
As an example, she pointed out: an advertisement Released last month by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis featuring UFC fighter Jorge Masvidal, who is of Cuban and Peruvian descent.
To counter political messages, this election cycle is designed to sow racism, division or confusion among voters. including the coronavirus, vaccines, Florida’s recently passed law curbing classroom discussions about sexual orientation and gender identity, and upcoming midterm exams.
“Latina women are organizing to take back the story and misinformation that is poisoning our community,” Mercado said. But they can’t do it alone, she added.
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how they run
Approval disorder in Pennsylvania
David McCormick had tried to present himself to Pennsylvania voters as the Republican most aligned with Donald Trump in his Senate primaries.
So what will he do now that Trump has backed his biggest rival, Mehmet Oz?
“There is no pivot,” said Jim Schultz, an informal adviser to McCormick’s campaign who previously served as a lawyer for the Trump White House.
Following Trump’s approval, McCormick’s campaign unleashed what it said was buying a six-figure ad for a new commercial, in which Oz praised Hillary Clinton and Anthony Fauci and danced with Michelle Obama. The ad labels Oz as “Pro China,” “Pro Transgender Children,” and “Anti Gun.”
Competition for Trump’s blessing had been fierce, with McCormick trying to prove Oz’s Turkish background was a weakness. Dina Powell McCormick, McCormick’s wife and a former Trump White House official, allegedly told Trump that Oz’s Muslim faith would be a political liability in parts of Pennsylvania.
But McCormick and his allies are now acting light and showing respect for Trump as they target the candidate he supported.
“President Trump’s approval is certainly a big deal,” McCormick said in a radio interview Monday. “But I think it’s really important that Mehmet is not a conservative and not an America First conservative.”
The conservative backlash to Trump’s endorsement of Oz, the former star of ‘The Dr. Oz Show’, was immediate.
Dave Ball, chairman of the Washington County Republican Party, said on Tuesday, “President Trump is very popular in this area. Dave McCormick is very popular. But dr. Oz is not very popular. He has little support.”
Sean Parnell, the original candidate backed by Trump who dropped out of the race following abuse allegations, also criticized the decision, that Oz. tweet was “the furthest from America First and he would be very bad for PA.”
McCormick’s campaign spawned his own bid for endorsement from a big name: Rick Santorum, a former state senator whose conservative platform and sweater vests helped keep him among conservative voters in the 2012 presidential race.
— Lea
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