Boardroom Meetings and On-line Protests: Organizing an Asian American media activist community

• In Event: De/Re-stabilizing Rhetoric and Contemporary Social Movements

Abstract

Since 1992, the Media Action Network for Asian Americans (MANAA) has monitored the media and organized petitions and protests in response to offensive or inaccurate representations of Asian Americans. In addition, MANAA participates in a Multi-Ethnic Media Coalition that annually meets with the major networks to discuss issues of racial diversity in their shows. As an activist media organization, MANAA operates at the ground level organizing protests but also engages in mainstream media’s attention in the boardroom. This paper explores, through texts and personal interviews, the various rhetorical strategies that MANAA employs both in organizing an “Asian American” community and communicating that community to activists and networks in an effort to rectify representational wrongs in the media.

Author

• Vincent Pham, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign