How the “Latinx Vote” is just like “New Media”
The more I consider the current conversation around the Latinx vote and the 2020 election, the more I realize how similar it is to my experience in “new media.” While it seems like an odd juxtaposition, what both boil down to is how one chooses to react to monumental shifts that are looming on the horizon.
I started in the music business in the online space in 1999. I was creating websites for indie bands, editing a webzine about music and the business of music, while logging hours of HMTL coding for any client we could find. I then moved to NYC, and discovered that what I was doing was now called “new media.” So I became an online music marketer and promoter, which at the time meant dealing with fan forums, nascent blogs/online publications/webzines, and managing “digital” street teams. After a few years of that, in 2004, I moved in-house at a record label to handle “all things digital.”
After a few weeks at the label, I realized there was going to be a problem. As things accelerated at warp speed in the digital world, the music industry was not keeping up. I saw that the sales person’s focus was still brick and mortar record store CD sales. PR was solely concerned with traditional magazine and TV coverage. Same for the radio department, it was FM or nothing. So, digital sales, online PR and web radio, everything considered “New Media,” was my domain, and that domain was expending every single day.
I could see the changes on the horizon. As a label, our download sales were already about 1/3 of our total sales. I was dealing with the exponential growth of blogs and online publications (and the pivot of traditional mags to online). Live music was finding online outlets, and piracy was rampant. I was creating MySpace (and later Facebook) pages for artists, coaching them and their understanding of social media, and all the rules therein. I was looking for solutions, partnerships, and collaborations all over the digital and analog worlds, and just trying to keep up.
After a year, I hoped that the label folks might realize that “new media” wasn’t an aside; it wasn’t an “other,” it wasn’t a line item in a budget. Every avenue of our business was moving toward the internet, not just certain parts. Digital, social, online, mobile, were all going to be the primary mode of interaction with both our audiences and our artists. “New media” was now integral to each of our departments, not just an aside. We were at the crossroads; the future had arrived. It was time to learn a new game, with new rules and new opportunities, but this change required that everyone buy in to the idea that their domain, too, had changed, and their skills and ways of working would have to evolve.
This is where the political world now stands with regard to the Latinx vote. In a long overdue reckoning, political parties are finally grappling with the complexity of the Latinx citizenry, their views, their differences, where they can be found and how to speak to and with them. Without even delving into the policy side of things, the basic foundational groundwork just isn’t there. They are basically starting from the beginning on a huge swathe of voters, as they all clamor: How do we get Latinx votes?
But just like with the “new media” problem, there is no single answer. The idea that you can empower a handful of surrogates to “speak” to these voters is dismissive at best, and bigoted at worst. The refrain that Latinx voters are “not monolith” is pretty basic, and, yet, absolutely true. The diversity of Latinx voices and voters is deep and wide. The nuances of geography, assimilation, religion, ancestry, and basic demographics, all play a huge part in understanding this cohort. but in practice, how can anyone hope to understand all of these facets, while also working with the complications of voter registration, acquisition and activation?
My new media experience suggests that what is required is more fundamental than translated TV ads. Political parties need to involve Latinx thinking and strategy in every area of their work. From the recruiting ground game, to the online messaging and targeting, every effort must be crafted from the start with respect toward these voters. Hire people who understand their own political skillset and specialty, as well as the complexity of Latinx voters. Have those voices in every room, and listen to them. They can no longer be seen as an after-thought or a line item. They are +60m strong, will soon be the majority minority, and treat them otherwise is willful ignorance.
