Hispanics' Web Identity Grows As Ads Target Diverse Audience

Spanish-language television started forging a pan-Latino identity among American Hispanics more than two decades ago. Broadcasters, especially the longtime king of the Spanish-language airwaves, Univision, began introducing a standardized Spanish for news programs that would appeal to Latinos regardless of their home countries, Korzenny said. More recently, its main network competitor, Telemundo introduced a policy that actors in the fabulously popular telenovelas be coached to speak in a neutral, flat Spanish without any of the idiosyncrasies associated with one country or another.

The Internet is now accelerating this trend, he said.

Gustavo Paredes, 51, was raised in Adams Morgan, the son of immigrants from Colombia and the Dominican Republic, and had spent much of his life listening to the melodious, often breezy music of those two countries like salsa and merengue. But after he began experimenting with different channels on Batanga, he found he was unexpectedly drawn to songs from Mexico, which their unique rhythms and lyrics that often speak of pain, pride and loneliness.

This "cross-pollination," Paredes said, "broadens the identity of Latinos."

Offering two dozen online Latin music channels from countries running the length of Latin America plus Spain, Batanga.com has nearly doubled its audience in the last year, to 1.4 million unique visitors a month, according to comScore Media Metrix, which measures Internet audiences for analysts and marketers. . Batanga has recently extended its reach, merging with PlanetaTV.com to offer thousands of Latin music videos.

"Music is a huge cultural glue that is beginning to transcend your country and the country of your parents," Batanga chief executive Rafael Urbina-Quintero said. "We find a new kind of Hispanic culture is being born here in the United States."

But while many Hispanics are reaching out, others, like Francisco Maravilla, are reaching back. Maravilla, 42, moved to Gaithersburg six years ago from the small town of San Juan Nonualco, El Salvador, eventually got his green card and has never returned. But every day, he said, he logs on to the computer, calls up the sites of two main Salvadoran newspapers, La Prensa Grafica and El Diario de Hoy, and navigates to the pages with news from his home province, where the rest of his family still lives.

"How can I forget my country? I can never do that," said Maravilla, who is employed as a school maintenance worker.

He also checks his hometown's Web site about twice a month to keep up with local happenings and view photographs of local festivals. "No doubt about it," he said, "the Web site keeps me feeling proud of my country and where I lived."

The combination of ample band width and niche marketing means the Internet can offer myriad cultural touchstones from the old country, ranging from ingredients for specialty dishes to traditional music for the holidays.

Yet online newspapers -- there are more than 100 from Mexico alone -- have emerged as the main way to stay connected. A study by the Pew Hispanic Center two years ago found that the Internet was one of the main ways that Hispanics in the United States kept informed about events in their country of origin.

Paula Avila, 24, came to Arlington nearly two years ago from Colombia and quickly turned to the Internet for news. Raised in the remote town of Yopel, she said she waits anxiously for the local monthly newspaper to update its site. More often, Avila turns to the Web site of the national newspaper, El Tiempo, published in the capital, Bogota, where she studied law.

Soon after her arrival, she also began to miss sitting around the television with her family to watch Colombian soap operas. Telenovelas on Spanish-language television in the United States failed to satisfy, lacking the Colombian "cultural signature." So Avila said she started visiting the Web site of a Colombian television station and watching the daily soap opera previews posted there.

But it remains the newspaper Web sites that are the main reminder of who she is, Avila said.

"I want to keep feeling proud of my country and my city and my people," she said. "Following the news makes it easier to feel I still come from Colombia and to feel my identity."

Staff researcher Richard Drezen contributed to this report.