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Article published In: Journal of Language and Politics
Vol. 12:4 (2013) ► pp.558–582

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Despierten, Latinos (‘Wake up, Latinos’)

Latino Identity, US Politics and YouTube

 | University of North Carolina at Charlotte
 | Universitat de València
 | Swansea University
Published online: 31 January 2014
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https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.12.4.04bli
This study examines the schemata underlying the social dimensions and relationships associated with the processes of Latino identity construction in 500 YouTube postings in response to the Obama Reggaeton video. According to Van Dijk (1998), such schemata allow members of a given group to provide answers to questions such as who they are, what criteria need to be met for membership in their group, and what kinds of relationships are established among their group and other social groups. Along the lines of Wodak et al. (1999), our study unveils six main thematic contents or categories that discursively realize the social dimensions and relationships associated with the Latino identity, and tests them in a corpus of unsolicited data in a deindividuated environment, YouTube, in which social identity, such as the Latino identity, is salient. The analysis lends validity to these categories, as they were found to be highly relevant to the corpus. We argue that the Latino identity is essentially political, both in the narrow and the broad senses of the word (see Gee 2005; Joseph 2006). Furthermore, the Latino identity can only be properly understood within the identity politics climate of the US.
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