“AAPI News Media: Origins and Futures” (PDF)
“The first Asians arrived on U.S. soil in 1587, to what would one day become California. Within a few short decades, the land they touched became the birthplace of a vibrant and diverse news media ecosystem. For nearly two centuries, in the face of repeated threats from xenophobic policies – and outright violence – Asian American and Pacific Islander community news media have kept their communities safe, connected, and informed.”
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NEW YORK — The Asian Media Initiative at Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism’s Center for Community Media is launching a groundbreaking report on the evolution of the news media ecosystem for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) in the U.S.
This report — “AAPI News Media: Origins and Futures” — comes on the 100th anniversary of the 1924 Immigration Act (Johnson-Reed Act), which banned all immigration from Asia. Today, AAPI communities face parallels in rising anti-Asian violence, xenophobic property bans and inflammatory anti-immigration rhetoric, yet they are poised to play an increasingly important role in the 2024 elections.
Inside the report, you will find the stories of AAPI news media leaders who not only made U.S. history, but wrote it. You will meet the Chinese-American publisher who traveled the country fighting against Chinese exclusion and anti-Asian hate; Lebanese American New Yorkers who invented Arabic linotype, prompting a global Arabic literary renaissance; Native Hawaiian activists who organized against U.S. colonial rule in in-language newspapers; Filipino American students who published pamphlets advocating for their civil rights; and Japanese American publishers who rebuilt their communities after their mass incarceration in concentration camps during World War II.
You will learn how immigrant and Indigenous AAPI communities reclaimed the broadcast networks intended to drive military or imperial expansion in their homelands to create shared cultural spaces for isolated and displaced communities – and how these networks paved the way for digital networks serving AAPI locally and in diasporic communities. You will gain insight into the challenges and opportunities in AAPI news media today, as they navigate scarcity and digital disinformation to continue supporting their communities.