Crowdsourcing research on the (in)visibility of AAPI voices in Christian media

I am passionate about highlighting and promoting AAPI Christian voices in the Church, especially because it is so hard to find. Beyond helping to shape AAPI Christian content on Reclaim, I am also starting two research initiatives that will measure the (in)visibility of AAPI voices in Christian media, and invite you to join me and others in these efforts!

https://unsplash.com/photos/6TLCSMj8zgE

In Hearing the Voices of Asian American Christians, I wrote that

There are few Asian American contributors or editors in leading Christian publications. [In May 2021], during Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage month where many media outlets featured Asian American voices and perspectives, not one major Christian publication featured content about Asian American Christians, reflections on the state of Asian American Christianity, or explainers about the relevance of this month to the Asian American community. And only 3% of articles (2 of 74 articles published in May) on a prominent ministry site featured Asian authors.

But I don’t think May was not an outlier.

In my years of reading and consuming Christian media, it is noteworthy when there is any content about and by AAPI Christians outside of AAPI-driven networks.

To move beyond anecdotal evidence, I am collecting data on the extent to which AAPI voices are not featured in Christian media and platforms. Specifically, there are two initiatives I am inviting AAPI Christians to participate and join in.

Index of AAPI Authorship (IAA)

This index will report the incidence or percentage of articles in a representative set of Christian media platforms and outlets that are (co-)written by AAPI Christians. The research will have four steps; each step will be detailed so that it will be replicable and updated bi-annually.

1. Defining the corpus or representative group of relevant Christian media platforms and organizations
2. Summing the number of articles published from January to June 2021 in each platform or outlet
3. Identifying and counting the number of articles published by AAPI writer(s)
4. Consolidating article counts across the full set of media platforms and outlets to calculate the rate of AAPI authorship in Christian media

Christian Media Diaries (CMD)

To cross-reference the availability of AAPI voices in Christian media, I invite people to record a week-long diary of online Christian media they read and consume. By collecting media diaries from AAPI Christians with diverse media habits and church settings that may prioritize or value different types of Christian media, I hope to show how (in)frequently AAPI Christians are finding Christian content from AAPI voices and perspectives.

If you or another AAPI Christian you know is interested in finding out more or participating in these two crowdsourced initiatives to measure and quantify the (in)visibility of AAPI voices in Christian media, please send me a DM on Twitter or email me at joshuaswu (at) gmail.com with the subject line “AAPI Crowdsourcing Project.”

I plan on starting these two projects in October 2021 and publishing findings by the end of November 2021.