Final answer:
The ethnic recordings market grew significantly with the development of digital recording technologies, allowing niche music genres to reach wider audiences.
Step-by-step explanation:
The emergence of the ethnic recordings market in the late twentieth century was significantly influenced by advancements in digital recording technology and the proliferation of various media tailored to diverse groups.
With the advent of DVDs, CDs, and the internet, artists in niche music genres such as classical and jazz found opportunities to produce and distribute their work independently, often utilizing platforms like Amazon for web-based commerce. This decentralization of production and distribution allowed for a broad, disparate audience to access a variety of ethnic and cultural content.
Similarly, the development of ethnographic film throughout the 20th century, including its use as an educational tool in anthropology, paralleled the rise of the ethnic recordings market. The advent of ethnographic film allowed for a more naturalistic depiction of indigenous peoples' stories and traditions.
Filmmakers like John Marshall and Timothy Asch sought to present these cultures in a more objective manner, avoiding the pitfalls of Western narratives and exoticization, especially once synchronous sound recording became possible in the 1960s.
Moreover, against the backdrop of profound demographic shifts and immigration waves, the portrayal and representation of ethnicity have evolved. Discussions on race and ethnicity in postmodernism and the popularity of multiculturalism in media and music, like hip-hop, further illustrate the complex interactions between technology, culture, and society in the late 20th century.