19.4: Conclusion – The Precarity and Politics of Media Advocacy Work

Precarity—the central theme of this collection—defines media advocacy work in many ways. The NHMC has been motivated by what it has seen as the precarious status of its community. Its work has been premised on the belief that Latinas/os’ security—as well as their political, economic, and social rights—would be affected by their visibility within the media and their ability to access communication technologies. The capacity to enact reform is also precarious, as the outcome of advocacy campaigns rarely hinges only on the solidity of the arguments presented or the extent of popular support for an issue, but also depends on the ideological commitments of the regulatory community, the sway of industry interests, and the political culture at a historical juncture. The ability to do advocacy work is precarious, as groups not only have to continually raise money to support their organization, but consistently have to shore up their informational and reputational capital in order to be legible and credible stakeholders to regulators, other advocacy groups, and their own community. Indeed, the very precarity of media advocacy only underlines how critical it is to honor the ongoing labors of media advocacy groups who continually work amid uncertainty as to outcome as well as to their own survival.

When civil rights organizations become, in the words of Nogales, “too chummy” with the media corporations, when they use their standing as representatives of communities of color to promote the agenda of media companies, they only intensify the precarity of media advocacy work. Not only do they lend support to policies that most likely will diminish the diversity of voices in the public sphere, but they discredit the notion that communities of color have not been, and will not be, served well by deregulation. In this, they mask their media work as media advocacy work and upend the very purpose of media advocacy on behalf of the public interest.