ABSTRACT
Billboard advertising, a form of outdoor advertising, is undergoing a renaissance in the US with outdoor advertising revenue growing 16.5 per cent since 1990. The more public nature of billboards, however, means that Anglos and other non-Hispanics may be unintentionally exposed to Spanish language billboard advertisements. The reactions of non-Hispanic consumers to Spanish language billboards appear to be much more complex than first considered. In the field of language planning, most research has concentrated on language planning efforts at the governmental and even national level. When non-Hispanics are exposed to Spanish monolingual or bilingual billboard advertisements, people are more likely to feel alienated from their community. Spanish-language billboard advertising may indeed increase racist attitudes among non-Hispanics, although the effect may be more complex and require a more subtle survey instrument than the one created for and used in the research.
