Explicating ethnicity in theory and communication research

Abstract

Our goal is to offer a cross disciplinary assessment of the conceptualizations and operationalizations of ethnicity. First, the various defmitional and theoretical foundations of ethnicity and ethnic identity are examined. Second, based upon a large computerized library search, a content analysis of ethnicity is presented in terms of three issues: 1) relationships between theory and measurement, 2) type of measurements and 3) relationships between the Communication discipline's measurement of ethnicity and those in other social science disciplines. Results reveal that operational defmitions of ethnicity tend not to be based on theories, that the measurement trends found in Communication studies are parallel to those in other social sciences, and that most researchers operationalize ethnicity äs an objective, self-evident social reality, measuring it in tenns of a geopolitical classification or oftentimes not even stating how they measured it at all. We argue, äs a blueprint for future measurements, that ethnicity is more appropriately construed and measured äs a dynamic phenomenon, subject to societal, situational and communicative forces.Ethnic, ethnicity, ethnic group are words and ideas that seem to have a clear and solid meaning, a referent in the world, and to be the sort of self-evident social reality that needs no other explication. But ethnicity and ethnic group are among the most complicated, volatile, and emotionally charged words and ideas in the lexicon of social science. (Nash 1989: 1) Ethnicity has proven to be a very difficult concept to define with much precision. Indeed, those who have approached the task have not been able to achieve a consensus. Most usages are both vague and ambiguous in their applications to empirical research. What some scholars consider to be examples of ethnicity, other would consider to be cases of such other variables äs regionalism, religious-sectarianism, class conflict, and even sheer opportunism. (Ross 1979: 3)

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