Media and Politics in Post-Authoritarian Mexico: The Continuing Struggle for Democracy 3031364406, 9783031364402

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Media and Politics in Post-Authoritarian Mexico The Continuing Struggle for Democracy Edited by Martin Echeverria · Ruben Arnoldo Gonzalez

Media and Politics in Post-Authoritarian Mexico

Martin Echeverria Ruben Arnoldo Gonzalez Editors

Media and Politics in Post-Authoritarian Mexico The Continuing Struggle for Democracy

Editors Martin Echeverria Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, Puebla, Mexico

Ruben Arnoldo Gonzalez Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, Puebla, Mexico

ISBN 978-3-031-36440-2    ISBN 978-3-031-36441-9 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36441-9 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Paper in this product is recyclable.

Acknowledgments

The editors would like to thank the authors and anonymous reviewers of each chapter for their contribution to the quality of this volume. The editors would also like to acknowledge the support of the Institute of Government Sciences and Strategic Development (ICGDE in Spanish) for the intellectual space to develop this project as well as from the book publication scheme of the Vice-Rectorate of Research and Graduate Studies and the Department of Research Internationalization of the Autonomous University of Puebla, Mexico.

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Contents

1 Introduction.  Not Authoritarian, But Not Yet Democratic. Advances, Setbacks, and Challenges in Mexican Media and Politics  1 Martin Echeverria and Ruben Arnoldo Gonzalez Part I Media Systems and Regulation: Explaining Continuities  29 2 Media  Systems in Unconsolidated Democracies: The Case of Mexico 31 Manuel Alejandro Guerrero 3 Legal  Protection of the Freedom of Expression in Mexico During the Alternation: Progress with No Results 57 Salvador DeLeón-Vázquez 4 The  Salinas Years, 1988–1994: Watershed in the Opening of Mexico’s Print Media 85 Andrew Paxman

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Part II The Burden of Being a Journalist in Mexico: Risk, Security and Censorship 115 5 Defective  Democracy, Erosion of Press Freedom, and the Perils of Being a Journalist in Mexico Two Decades After the Democratic Transition117 Ruben Arnoldo Gonzalez and Osiris S. González-Galván 6 Still  Dreaming of Democracy: How Professional Identities from the Political Opening Shape Risk and Resiliency in Democratic Mexico143 Sallie Hughes 7 Violence,  Trauma, and Reflexivity: Methodological Issues and Challenges in Conducting Research in Mexico’s Conflict Zones155 Jeannine E. Relly and Celeste González de Bustamante 8 Freedom  of the Press Under Andres Manuel López Obrador: The Struggle Between Journalistic Autonomy and National Sovereignty, 2018–Present179 Melissa Santillana and Stuart Davis Part III Post-authoritarian Media Performance: Actors and Representations in Dispute 205 9 Press  and Civil Society: Alliance and Mistrust in Mexican Transition207 Grisel Salazar 10 Mediatization  in Post-Authoritarian Democracies. Thirty Years of Media Logic in the Mexican Press235 Martin Echeverria 11 Televised  Political Satire and the Democratic Transition in Mexico261 Frida V. Rodelo Index283

Notes on Contributors

Stuart Davis  Assistant Professor, City University of New York, Baruch College. He received his PhD in Media Studies from the Department of Radio-TV-Film at the University of Texas, United States. Salvador  DeLeón-Vázquez  Professor in the Department of Communication at Universidad Autónoma de Aguascalientes, Mexico, and coordinator of the Sociocultural Studies, PhD, in this institution. Martin  Echeverria  Professor and Researcher, Institute of Government Sciences and Strategic Development, Center for Studies in Political Communication, Autonomous University of Puebla, Mexico. Ruben  Arnoldo  Gonzalez Professor and Researcher, Institute of Government Sciences and Strategic Development, Center for Studies in Political Communication, Autonomous University of Puebla, Mexico. Celeste González de Bustamante  Mary Gibbs Jones Centennial Chair in Communication, Professor, School of Journalism and Media, and Associate Dean, Moody College of Communication, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, United States. Osiris S. González-Galván  Postdoctoral researcher at Université Laval, Canada. She holds a PhD in Public Policy from the Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo and has been awarded several fellowships by the National Council of Science and Technology of Mexico.

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Manuel  Alejandro  Guerrero Professor and Researcher in the Department of Social and Political Science at Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico City. President of ORBICOM - World Network of UNESCO Chairs in Communication. Sallie Hughes  Full Professor and Chair, Department of Journalism and Media Management, University of Miami, United States. Andrew  Paxman Associate Professor in the Journalism Program at Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE) (National Center for Research and Teaching in Economics) in Mexico City, Mexico. He teaches in the history and journalism programs at the CIDE in Mexico. Jeannine E. Relly  Professor at the School of Journalism and an Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs in Inclusion for the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences. She is the former Director of Global Initiatives for the Center for Border and Global Journalism, University of Arizona, United States. She also holds a courtesy appointment with the university’s School of Government and Public Policy. Frida V. Rodelo  Professor at the Department of Social Communication Studies, Social Science and Humanities University Center, Universidad de Guadalajara, Mexico. Her research is centered on the analysis of journalistic practices and journalistic contents. Grisel Salazar  Professor and Researcher in the Department of Social and Political Sciences at Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico City. She holds a Ph.D. in Public Policy and a Master’s degree in Political Science. In 2019, she was recognized by the U.S. Department of State as a fellow in the SUSI Scholars Program, at the Cronkite School of Journalism, Arizona State University. Melissa  Santillana Assistant Professor of Journalism at Texas Tech University. She received her PhD from the University of Texas at Austin.

List of Figures

Fig. 3.1

Murder of journalists in Mexico, figures according to FEADLE and Article 19, 2000–2021. Note. FEADLE was created in 2010; this is why data are presented starting then. Source: Created by the author with data from FEADLE (2021) and Article 19 (2021b) 70 Fig. 9.1 Distribution of protagonists by state of the federation. (Source: Original elaboration by the author) 223 Fig. 10.1 Framing trends in the last five presidential campaigns (1994, 2000, 2006, 2012, 2018) 251

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List of Tables

Table 3.1 Table 3.2 Table 3.3 Table 3.4 Table 5.1 Table 9.1 Table 9.2 Table 9.3

Interrelated effects that contributed to the configuration of public communications in contemporary Mexico 60 Total number of criminal investigations of offenses against journalists in Mexico, 2010–2021 72 State laws to protect journalists and defenders of human rights 73 Analytic distribution of local laws on social communication in Mexico76 Geographic distribution of the sample 125 Distribution of news items according to the protagonist 222 Distribution of reports according to tone of coverage 224 Distribution of reports according to the reproduction of declarations225

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction. Not Authoritarian, But Not Yet Democratic. Advances, Setbacks, and Challenges in Mexican Media and Politics Martin Echeverria and Ruben Arnoldo Gonzalez

The abundant scholarly work on Mexican media, from both Mexican and foreign scholars, would make unnecessary an argument about its intrinsic academic relevance and geopolitical weight. Yet we would like to put to the fore the intrinsic and extrinsic value in studying Mexican media on its political dimension, beyond the cosmopolitan or de-Westernizing ethos that might motivate it. Regarding the former, the breadth of the country deserves international attention. It is the second-largest Latin American economy, the first trade partner for the United States, the 15th-largest world economy, and the 10th most populated country in the world. It is the combination of its large population, geographical location, and vigorous economy that makes

M. Echeverria (*) • R. A. Gonzalez Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, Puebla, Mexico e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 M. Echeverria, R. A. Gonzalez (eds.), Media and Politics in Post-Authoritarian Mexico, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36441-9_1

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Mexico a modern nation where media production, usage, and dependency occur at a large scale, making it an interesting case in itself among Global South countries. But for political reasons, it has drawn ample attention from foreign scholars in the last three decades, mainly because of its singularity among other Latin American nations. Mexico had an authoritarian regime for many decades without a dictatorship. It transitioned to democracy without a coup, revolution, or referendum, but by an elite settlement. And, most of all, it currently experiments with hardships to sustain a democratic ethos and practices, and to translate the regime to economic and social benefits. Thus, the singularity of the Mexican case is that it did not go through a violent upsurge that established a new regime, but the previous one slowly dismantled and opened to democratic liberties. This gradual liberalization meant that previous authoritarian conditions did not go away overnight. On the contrary, some of them stayed adamant, and others refunctionalized themselves and adapted to democratic times. Mexico’s singularity is academically relevant because it shows what happens with the relationship between politics and media when the structural conditions change very slowly from authoritarian to democratic rule, oftentimes selectively and incompletely—in terms of institutions and regions—and even des-democratization processes ensue. Mexico also shares the commonality of those former authoritarian nations—be it Russia, Hungary, India, and so forth—where the promise of a free and autonomous press after the transition to democracy is still pending. While this is also a matter of contentious expectations from internal and external actors of those nations (by, e.g., naively equating democratic media to that of the Western democracies), it highlights the complexity of the post-authoritarian condition in two ways: first, there is not a clear-cut distinction between authoritarian and democratic media practices, but an ample gray zone that makes typologies and explanations challenging, and in need of sophisticated empirical and theoretical elaboration (Vaca-Baqueiro, 2018). And second, continuities and inertias are as important as changes in those settings, even more so (Voltmer, 2013). Thus, explaining those cases entails the need for a non-teleological rationale that rejects the understanding of some things as belonging to the “past”—expandable—or the “future”—desirable—and a normative theory that reworks Western assumptions of what is a “good” or “bad” media practice for a “good” or “bad” democratic polity.

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The Mexican case, then, is important in terms of its scope—is where a lot of media and politics happen in the region–and epistemic value, for it allows an in-depth understanding of the processes and nuances of similar post-authoritarian nations.

Mexican Media and Politics at Large. An Overview Though the chapters describe in detail the many aspects that build up the state of the relation of media and politics in Mexico, an overview is helpful to identify their key treats, as well as provide a context to make sense of each one of those chapters. We focus on the main subjects signaled by the literature on the field, particularly from the perspective of a democratic performance of the media (in a recently democratized nation). Hence, this review and the book at large are centered on the relations and tensions between political and media institutions, though other subjects that are as relevant to the field (i.e. civil society, social media, media effects) should be addressed in further studies. First, it is important to situate the historical period of the relation between the media and politics, as a means to identify the legacies that come from each one. Roughly, and for analytical purposes, it is possible to divide contemporary relations of media and politics into three broad epochs: the authoritarian transitional period (1988–2000), the first alternation and transition to democracy (2001–2018), and the second alternation with the arrival of the leftist President Andres Manuel López Obrador (2018 onward). Though it is debatable that each of those periods established a new media system or rather emphasized or rearranged some characteristics from previous stages, there are clear differences in the performance, political and economic relations, and official discourses about media. Hence, the current state of that relationship is primarly a consequence of the early transition to democracy (2001–2018). Nevertheless, while research about the current period is starting to emerge (Sánchez-Gudiño, 2021), it seems that it shares many key structural continuities with the second one. This placement is relevant to the literature of post-authoritarian democracies, for many of the hindrances of the media do not come from the authoritarian era, but (1) from the legacies that the early democratic period could not manage properly, and the late governments are not willing or capable to solve; and (2) from the unexpected issues that the transitional period created, once the authoritarian grip got loose and other

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powerful actors came to the fore (Trejo, 2004), particularly, but not exclusively, the media corporations and the organized crime (more on that later). The relation between media and politics is typically understood as an agonistic struggle between both fields to control public discourse, credibility, and reputation (Blumler & Gurevicth, 1995; Blumler & Kavanagh, 1999; Pfetsch, 2004). In post-authoritarian countries, however, this dynamic is intertwined by previous asymmetries and path dependencies (Voltmer, 2013). The media in Mexico was for a long time, and with some minority yet relevant exceptions, a subservient institution for the political system, a propaganda device (Lawson, 2002). While the institutional design of the transition was set to separate both fields, cultural beliefs and expectations of subservience remained. A brief example can illustrate these inertias. Mexican politicians expect the media to inform the public about their discourses and actions. When they are ignored or scrutinized by journalists, they react as if a political faction told them to or as if the media was a political actor in itself, with a hidden political agenda. Under a binary expectation of subservience or rivalry—a typical authoritarian frame—media performance is seldom interpreted as guided by a public service ethos. In parallel, the media and journalists acknowledge that the government exerts measures to control their work either by traditional “soft” strategies, such as spin or news management, or by hard strategies such as censorship—by legal or paralegal means—or clientelistic instrumentalization of colleagues, owners, or advertisers. They perceive their autonomy in a constant siege and have devised strategies to counter possible machinations. Of course, this particular relation has many variations and nuances, so it does not always resemble a victim-perpetrator dispute. Sometimes the media does play a rival role against politicians or assume a subservient stance (de León, 2012; Espino, 2016a, 2016b; Gonzalez, 2013). In any case, a faction logic is at play, far from the tenets of a functional democratic media that is an ally to democratic governance, not an obstacle (Christians et al., 2009). Under such understanding of struggle, we can organize this overview by signaling in which aspects political actors, mostly the Mexican State, parties, and leaders, have the upper hand, and in which ones the media leverages its stance and exerts considerable power. These are specific and structural aspects of the country, different from the typical institutional affordances (Graber & Dunaway, 2015; Shoemaker & Reese, 2013). A final comment will be made about the power that organized crime and

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local landlords have accrued in recent decades and that severely hinders media performance, particularly in Mexican peripheries. State regulation of media performance during campaigns is the first evidence of strong control of the media by politics. Successive reforms at a constitutional level gave way to a political communication model that meticulously regulates the information flow of the campaigns. The model places sponsorship, programming, and censorship of political advertising in the hands of the State and the electoral authority, which also organizes and advertises electoral debates. But a key instrument of control is a media monitoring of coverage: as the largest observation endeavor in the world, in order to detect any possible bias, the electoral authority analyzes the content of all of the news pieces broadcast by every radio and television station in the nation about the federal race. The findings are published in major media outlets and social media every week, and imbalances are signaled (Calleja et  al., 2013; Coutiño et  al., 2016; Echeverría & Meyer 2018; Juárez, 2010; Serra, 2009). This mechanism of media performance, vigilance, and sanction—reproduced at the state level too—has created a pretty balanced, straightforward, and careful coverage of campaigns (Echeverría et  al., 2020; González & Echeverría, 2017a, 2017b). However, it has also promoted a sense of indirect censorship among journalists. Other forms of state control of media performance during campaigns include the issuing of “coverage recommendations” by the electoral authority to media outlets at the outset of the campaigns, the prohibition and further sanction of under-the-table buying of media coverage by the candidates, and secondary laws (Electoral Procedures and Institutions Law, Radio and Television bylaw of the electoral authority) that specify how journalism should perform: in a non-biased, neutral, impartial, objective, and factual way. These regulations work mostly as a means of deterrence against malpractice (Echeverría, 2020). From that on, instrumentalization and particularly clientelism are pervasive ways of informal, non-repressive control by the Mexican government. This relation of patron-client between media and political actors—mainly governments and parties—occurs in three ways. First, and up until the creation of the National Telecommunications Institute in 2013, licenses for exploiting television and radio frequencies were granted by the government on a clientelistic basis and political alignment, rather than going through a formal and impartial process held by a third party. Second, the arbitrary allocation of government advertising, which has

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been the main—and, in some cases, even the only—source of revenue for news organizations. Those payments are negotiated in the form of timely contracts, which check the allegiance from the media on a regular basis. Finally, individual news workers (i.e., reporters, editors) receive bribes directly from some sources such as government officials, political elites, business persons, and drug lords (De León, 2011; Espino, 2016b; Gomez, 2020; Gonzalez, 2013; Salazar, 2019). This under-the-table operation of coverage buying, which includes entertainment content as well, occurs at federal, state, and municipal levels without the scrutiny and sanction of the authority. Clientelism has two consequences. First, journalistic routines in Mexico tend to be passive. They rely on press releases or speeches from government authorities or party leaders, to the detriment of factual reporting, context, and follow-up stories (González 2016; Marquez, 2012; Reyna, 2014). Consequently, the coverage tends to be dominated by political actors, neglecting citizens and other sources. And second, it gives way to party bias during the campaigns and systematic officialdom during non-electoral, governance periods. While broadcast coverage of campaigns has been fairly balanced in the last decades—due to the aforementioned monitoring efforts—the printed and digital press still shows certain bias in favor of the patron in turn. Moreover, officialdom is rife either by the broadcast, radio, or press outlets, at national but mainly local levels. It tends to give ample coverage and favorable treatment—and even praise—to government activities, seek negative coverage against political or civil opposition, hide or minimize allegations of misconduct, and align their agenda to the issues of their patrons (Aceves, 2010; Andrade, 2012; Echeverría, 2013; Espino, 2016a; Gonzalez, 2013; Martínez, 2013; Ortiz & Gómez, 2013; Reyna, 2014; Salazar, 2018). The instrumentalization of media by politicians has extended also to the digital space. Akin to other post-authoritarian nations (Tumber & Waisbord, 2021), parties, and campaigns deploy several strategies to manipulate public opinion, of which we signal four of them. The first is the farming of automated accounts or bots to praise candidates or governments or attack the opposition. This massive operation has been demonstrated in the 2012 campaigns when candidates grew their social media followers exponentially overnight (Observatorio-Electoral, 2012), and when one of the candidates tried to discredit the #YoSoy132 social movement, threaten their members and gather their personal data (Treré, 2016). Second, and building on that digital infrastructure, overt and

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undercover smear campaigning is common currency during campaigns. These expressions go from candid memes or nicknames (the “peñabots” for the followers of the 2012 candidate Peña Nieto and “pejezombies” to the followers of the then-leftist candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador) to crime, sexual misconduct, and corruption indictments (Barcenas & Donnovan, 2016; Echeverría & González, 2019; Liceaga, 2016). Finally, disinformation campaigns are well-orchestrated strategies that issue fake news through Facebook and Twitter accounts, YouTube channels, WhatsApp messages, and websites created for that sole purpose, and that were documented in the 2018 presidential campaign (Rodríguez-Cano, 2018). All of these strategies work in tandem to try to steer public opinion in one way or another and prove the strong want of Mexican politicians to control public communication venues. In the case of technologies they cannot formally regulate, such as the Internet, political actors deploy ample resources and dubious practices to make sure their rivals do not lure voters on the social media. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s discourses about the media are a more recent attempt of political elites to intervene in the media field. Sometimes dubbed as a populist leader, at least on the discursive dimension of it (Flores Gonzalez, 2019), he has stated a very vocal position on media allegiances, rivalries, and disappointing performance. Through his daily press conferences (“mañaneras”) he congratulates and despises certain media outlets and pieces, stigmatizes journalists, and expounds in detail his views about what media performance is best for his political program of “national transformation”. In terms of patronage, his administration strongly reduced the budget for advertising, yet some arbitrary agreements were made in favor of certain historical allies, and no law has been passed to rationally regulate media spending (Article-19, 2021). Through an active attempt to hamper the credibility of some media, and passively preserve the influence of money on coverage, AMLO protracts the attempt of Mexican politicians to control public discourse. Furthermore, the first two decades of this century have witnessed the dramatic increase of anti-press violence as a means to control media by powerful groups and individuals, including government authorities and politicians. It has been consistently stressed that Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists (CPJ, 2022). The Mexican case illustrates how complex and multifaceted the phenomenon of violence against journalists is (Cottle et  al., 2016), because it involves a diverse set of factors and actors. For instance, there is a plethora of

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aggressors (public officials, armed forces, drug lords, demonstrators, unions, etc.) and aggressions (killings, torture, kidnappings, beatings, online harassment, smear campaigns…) (Del Palacio, 2018; Gonzalez & Rodelo, 2020). In addition, there is almost total impunity regarding those crimes, fostered by corruption and collusion between perpetrators and authorities (De León & González, 2020; Del Palacio, 2018; Relly & González de Bustamante, 2014). Besides the inherent impact on journalists and news outlets, the ultimate effect of anti-press violence is the weakening of an informed citizenry, whose right to know is not fulfilled due to the lack of information about important issues (González 2021; Salazar, 2019). Amid this environment, in some other aspects, the media has gained leverage against politicians. For a start, the quality of journalism has risen. While not widespread, active and investigative reporting techniques have been deployed by journalists and a tepid yet firm watchdog ethos has settled in (Díaz-Cerveró & Barredo, 2020; Gonzalez, 2021; Márquez-­ Ramírez et al., 2020). This has been a consequence, in part, of the surge of new media outlets. Technological advances and broadcast reforms have lessened entry barriers and brought about new competitors; the Mexican national television market jumped from one, usually colluded network in the eighties (the then all-mighty Televisa) to three networks with various channels, as well as cable and satellite venues. Due to their relatively low down payment, digital outlets have proliferated. Whether they are crowdfunded or sponsored by donations, NGOs, or think tanks—that makes them less dependent on government advertising—they are managed by veteran journalists and staffed by highly professionalized reporters (Rodríguez Cano, 2019). These commercial and professional conditions allow those outlets to produce high-quality investigations that have had a deep impact in terms of denouncing corruption practices at politicians’ high ranks. A couple of examples attest to this assertion. The investigation of the renowned journalist Carmen Aristegui on President Peña Nieto’s shady businesses with contractors in 2015, and the scoop of digital outlet Animal Politico about a corruption network between several public universities and government accomplices in 2017, did not only get several national and international awards, but they started a spiraling down in the approval of Peña’s administration and triggered judicial cases still pending. Another sign of media empowerment is the infotainment coverage of politics. A global trend that emerged from the nineties onward, this

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manifest when journalists convey politics in exciting ways, to cater to depoliticized audiences. This trend sort of subverts the traditional function of the media, for in some cases this entails deemphasizing or outright ditching the substance of political discourses and matters (such as issues, policies, and proposals). This coverage frames politics as conflicts between political actors, the machinations, and strategies that politicians exert to gain political advantage, the telling of elections as a “horse race”, the focus on human interest stories, and the personalization of politics, highlighting persons instead of institutions, and the depiction of the private lives of politicians (Baym, 2008; Brants & Neijens, 1998; Vliegenthart et al., 2011). This coverage has been found in presidential and midterm elections, and local races as well (Echeverría, 2017b; Muñiz, 2015; Muñiz et  al., 2018). Certain events are particularly prone to stimulate it, such as presidential debates, conflicts in Congress, and organized crime scandals (Echeverría, 2017a; Echeverría & Bañuelos, 2017; Echeverría & Millet, 2013). While politicians have adjusted their messages to fit those frames, the fact that the media overcomes the discourse of politicians to make their input salient—as when they cover gaffes, conflicts, or intimate matters of politicians—shows that sometimes the media gains ground in the control of political discourse. The “hybrid media” logic has been increasingly relevant for media performance and empowerment. Understood as the integration of “old” and “new” media logics and institutions in the public space (Chadwick, 2013), this hybridity has produced extraordinary collaborations between digital movements and trends and journalists, that have pushed civic agendas and resistance against abuses of power. Denunciation of campaign malpractices is a good example. In a local campaign of 2011, the trending topic #elcanaldelasdespensas (the network of the groceries) denounced that a truck of the broadcast network Televisa was distributing propaganda for the PRI, signaling collusion between them. The hashtag became the second most popular topic in Mexico by the time and forced a response from the campaign and the network (Lay Arellano, 2012). The hashtag and trending topic #ElPRIestáenCrisis (the PRI is in crisis) exhibited groups of young people hired to create false accounts on Twitter and send massive messages of support to the then-candidate Enrique Peña Nieto, artificially raising his online popularity (Ortiz et al., 2013). Social media in tandem with news media are now a normalized place of vigilance, denunciation, and mobilization against candidates and politicians’ campaign malpractices.

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Finally, social movements with ample resonance in legacy media, such as #YoTambiénSoyTwitTerrorista (I am Twitt terrorist too) advocating for freedom of expression against the censorship and manipulation of a local government (Zires, 2014), #AyotzinapaSomosTodos (we all are Ayotzinapa) as an expression of outrage about the disappearance of 43 high school students in the hands of organized crime (Slimovich & Lay Arellano, 2018), or the digital mobilization and ensuing demonstrations against the government because of a national gasoline shortage (Pérez Salazar, 2019), all attest to the plurality and power polycentrism that the hybrid media logic has brought to the public communication sphere in Mexico. But despite these cases, media leverage has also given way to certain malpractices and vicious dynamics. Widespread clientelistic practices have turned some media into rent-seekers of government spending. Sometimes they sell out their airwaves, pages, or websites to their patrons, either for politicians to post their messages—sometimes verbatim—or to be silent against pressing events for them. The bargaining power of media owners is significant here, even in the case of small news websites and particularly when political crises arise and threaten the reputation of politicians. But when the government does not pay or comply with their terms, some media outlets resort to extortion practices, by exerting selective scandal investigations, persistent negative coverage, and even slander, until the government settles the dispute. In the absence of the repressive measures of the authoritarian regime, the selling off of undercover publicity—masquerade as information—complicit silence, or a non-aggression pact is a negative outcome of the increasing power the media has accrued in recent decades (Espino, 2016b; González, 2018). In any democratic system, too much control of either politicians or media is problematic for a healthy public sphere. The heightened political control of the media inhibits vigilance and a watchdog function, plurality, and public discussion. In conditions of elevated commercialism and journalistic adversarialism, the media can turn politics into a circus or a dispute between self-interest cynics (Patterson, 1993). Responsible journalism and politics keep those extremes at bay, and a dynamic equilibrium sets in. But in transitional democracies, this balance is more complicated, because it has to respond to new circumstances and power realignments. And it can get messy. Sometimes media tend to vigorously exert their newly acquired freedom of expression, to watch and critique the new government. But if this criticism is excessive and effective, it will undermine the

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efforts of the elites to build new institutions and the public confidence in the process. Political elites should let the media do their job to make a difference to previous regimes, but they should make sure to convey their messages to the public to signal stability and order in turbulent times, and prove they are willing to change the status quo. If journalists do not mediate these messages or introduce doubt about the effectiveness and integrity of the new regime, this may destabilize the whole process. Media is both a functional and dysfunctional third party for consolidation, an agent for institutional and cultural change, and an instrument of the status quo (Voltmer, 2011, 2013; Voltmer & Sorensen, 2019). The previous account of the Mexican setting shows signs that both poles, the control of the media by politicians and the control of political discourse by the media, actually coexist. This runs counter to an orthodox account and straightforward logic that would assert that the practices of the old regime should go away for modern practices of media performance to thrive. Nonetheless, the relationship between media and politics in nations such as Mexico is more nuanced and complex and requires a specific explanation, that is described in the next section.

Understanding Mexican Changes and Continuities. Plural Journalisms and Transitional Legacies There seems to be a contradiction with the traits of performance previously described. On the one hand, there is a vibrant journalistic activity that helps to develop and sustain democratic competition and accountability. On the other hand, authoritarian practices and arrangements seem to curtail any attempt to make democratic journalism prevail. Some literature would label the coexistence of these conditions as a form of “hybrid” media system that has incompletely domesticated liberal journalism, blending cultural patterns with the normative tenets of Western journalism (Voltmer & Wasserman, 2014). Without denying such an assumption, we argue that the former and the latter conditions function—to some degree—in a full systemic form in different regions of the country (Chakravartty & Roy, 2013). Some of them have achieved a liberal functioning of the press—by mainly depending on the market and cutting their political ties—and others exist in precarious stages of modernization, where weak markets and political cultures of patronage keep a grip on

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subservient media. Moreover, different understandings of what journalism is and what it is for might be at play. In other works, we have conceptualized this condition more thoroughly with the theory of “multiple modernizations” (González & Echeverría, 2017a, 2017b; Reyna et  al., 2020). We contend that the explanations to the differences in media performance do not only point to the political transition paradigm but other structural determinants. Since political, economic, and cultural differences and inequalities are so deep across regions in Mexico, we assert that modernization processes are not occurring at different paces—a matter of degree—but they are of different nature—a matter of ontological distinction. If modernization implies a process of social change associated with notions such as individual and social autonomy, agency and reflexivity, social differentiation and division of labor; economic issues such as market systems, industrialization, and capitalist growth; and political issues such  as legal equality, rule of law, State bureaucracies, democracy and a liberal mass communication system, among other aspects (Eisenstadt, 2000; Portes, 1973; Schmidt, 2010; Tipps, 1973), it is safe to say that in some Mexican regions many of these processes have barely occurred, had a tepid development that then stopped, or had not happened in tandem, for some have thrived and others have stalled (Rubalcava, 2010). The broad explanation to this is a heterogeneous appropriation of the modernization program of the West by other social systems, and the multiplicity of outcomes, that is, multiple modernities. Eisenstand defines the latter as “the appropriation by non-Western societies of specific themes and institutional patterns of the original Western modern civilization societies (and the) continuous selection, reinterpretation, and reformulation of these imported ideas” (Eisenstadt, 2000, p. 15). Thus, the ideas of the “modern program of the West” (which consist in the features mentioned previously) could encounter and interact with other civilizational dynamics in distant geographies, so they could be contested, carefully selected, or reinterpreted in critical ways. This, in turn, could make those elements to be adapted, combined, and hybridized, “with their components acquiring new meaning” (Domingues, 2009, p.  221; Eisenstadt, 2013; Gallegos, 2013; Kaya, 2004). This does not equate to a cosmopolitan process. More often than not, the formation of an idiosyncratic modern program is heavily influenced by the cultural premises, traditions, and historical experiences of a given society, so the new identities that develop do not give up

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specific components of traditional identities (Eisenstadt, 2013; Spohn, 2010). This theoretical proposal gives way to two historical interpretations of the institutionalization of journalism and media in Mexico. First, since modernization is the prime social undercurrent that triggers a functional differentiation process between media and politics, a “divergent” modernization conditioned this process to delay or accelerate it or else, introduced exogenous factors that shaped journalism in multiple directions. And second, in terms of journalistic culture, Mexican journalists appropriated Western journalistic norms and practices, though some of those were selected from the liberal canon and others left behind, and the former were reinterpreted, adapted, or combined with other Western traditions or previous authoritarian customs. The process was not linear but was carried out in a tense, contested, and open way. The outcome was the rise of “multiple journalisms” within Mexico, that although share the same Western template, are a distinct, idiosyncratic way of understanding and doing journalism. These theoretical underpinnings provide a core rationale to the contradictions already discussed, beyond a mere “hybridization” of opposite elements. For example, Hughes (2006) proposed that the Mexican liberalization process from 1995 to 2005 ended up in three distinct models: (1) a civic journalism a la mexicana, whereby citizens’ interests could be represented by the media, (2) the commercial model, which tried to economically exploit journalistic activity, and (3) an inertial authoritarian model, mainly at a local scale. These models are explained on a mid-range, institutional basis as negotiations within newsrooms on how to confront change, and the ensuing settlements between owners and journalists. By contrast, we think this process corresponds to a broad sociological and postcolonial pattern whereby institutions on the brink of a transition get to choose certain patterns of a hegemonic cultural program and combine them with their previous dispositions, amid several structural conditions that constraint those selections. The heterogeneity of journalism(s) in Mexico, either across regions or within a single region, is a result of how local journalists chose to combine the liberal canon with other models of journalism (French, Mediterranean, Leninist), and their previous authoritarian cultural values, yet their criteria are shaped by the conditions of the market, political forces’ reach, and political culture. This more or less corresponds to the findings of Reyna et  al. (2020) about at least four different appropriations of the liberal

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canon that are found in ethics codes of the main Mexican newspapers and magazines, developed in response to the “prensa vendida” stigma that grew during the most repressive phase of the authoritarian regime. In Mexico, multiple journalisms combine liberal, authoritarian, investigative, opinionated, active, and passive features from several traditions, and that gives way to contradictory ways of doing journalism (see also Márquez-Ramírez et al., 2020; Mellado et al., 2017). Variegated as well are the systemic outcomes of this institutional behavior: parallelism and independent watchdog, internal and external pluralism, civic and market-­ driven endeavors coexist within the nation and within different regions. The three models proposed by Hughes (2006) and the four appropriations posed by Reyna et al. (2020) are the starting point to a more ambitious academic effort to unveil how many models, journalistic cultures, and media systems coexist in Mexico, whether in conflict or not. Another approach to the understanding of media transformation in emergent democracies—such as Mexico—is proposed by Voltmer (2013). Drawing on a similar stance of the aforementioned multiple modernities framework, she explains that there is not only one way for journalism to move from authoritarianism to democracy. Conversely, the path depends on the political, economic, and social contexts. That is, media and political systems are interdependent actors (see also Hallin & Mancini, 2004). Therefore, media transformation is intertwined with both institutional and cultural changes. Regarding institutional transformation, Voltmer (2013) argues that it is unrealistic to expect a complete renovation of the media system as a whole when most of the news organizations were created and operated during the old regime. Thus, their initial news-making processes and journalist-­ source relations respond to a previous era. In addition, the adoption of a more liberal practice (e.g. watchdog role) is insufficient per se in an environment of endemic corruption, limited press freedom, and blatant anti-­ press violence. In other words, the absence of minimal institutional mechanisms to favor accountability and citizens’ right to know, plus the pervasiveness of old journalistic inertias, do not promote the general development of the press in emergent democracies. Related to cultural change, the author stresses that an uninformed, passive, and uncritical audience makes irrelevant any journalists’ attempt to become more professional. To put it in another way: when large segments of the public are uninterested and disengaged, the press by itself cannot foster any transformation. Nonetheless, Voltmer (2013) also emphasizes

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that very frequently economic liberalization of the media market has facilitated citizens’ cynicism because many news outlets tend to cover political issues under the logic of infotainment. This means that news about politics and politicians have a negative tone, focus on scandals, are superficial and episodic, to mention just a few characteristics (Brants, 2005). Under these assumptions, we argue that in Mexico we are witnessing the workings of a struggle between a political culture (of the political elites) used for decades to favorable public discourse, and a media culture that is pushing its new liberties to new places, though some outlets abuse those liberties to commercially exploit the electoral competition and the pressing need of publicity by politicians (either through the market or clientelism patronage).

On This Volume This volume presents an analytical and empirical overview of the many issues that the Mexican media face in the post-authoritarian age, which jointly explains how a partially accomplished democracy, its authoritarian inertias, and the unintended consequences of the transition hinder the democratic performance of the media. This is analyzed from three points of view: the stalemate Mexican media system and regulations, the conditions of risk and insecurity of the journalists on the field, and the limits of freedom of expression, political substance, and inclusiveness of media content. The chapters are written by leading scholars of Mexico and the United States since the media-politics axis is a thoroughly researched subject in both countries. Hence, we consider this book a binational conversation from those scholarly communities about this issue. The book is divided into three parts that encompass different analytical levels, from macro conditions to meso issues—the challenges that journalists face in their everyday work—and finally the content of Mexican media. This is an outline of the chapters that integrate each part. Part I: Media Systems and Regulation. Explaining Continuities A fierce adversary of the media establishment in his previous two campaigns, at the dawn of its tenure (2018) the leftist President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) promised to end the previous collusion between government and media. But as Alejandro Guerrero shows in the

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opening chapter of the first section, “Media Systems in Unconsolidated Democracies: The Case of Mexico,” those promises fell flat against his actual policies. The author contends that the first alternation from the PRI to the PAN did bring about a change in terms of plurality but a limited one in terms of independence since unprofessional and subservient reportage practices stood still: based on statements of political actors, pieces with little context and no contrast, information without follow-up. The second alternation (from PRI to MORENA, AMLO’s party) did not change the concerns about media linkages and performance. The government has not issued a law to regulate government spending and has been economically deferential to broadcast networks and historical media allies. Moreover, the president attacks adversarial media from its daily conferences and social media apparatus. But on the part of the media, it has retaliated by becoming a militant adversary to the president, denouncing his errors and gaffes without professionalizing its weak journalistic practices. Thus, the second alternation did not change the government’s logic of control and brought about a new sterile antagonism between the press and the power. The second chapter is entitled “Legal Protection of the Freedom of Expression in Mexico During the Alternation: Progress with no Results,” and in this text, Salvador De León analyzes the advances and challenges related to the laws and regulations that aim to guarantee public access to information, the free exercise of journalism, and the protection of journalists. As the title suggests, there have been important steps toward a more modern and, hence, democratic legal apparatus regarding public communication and media operation. The author points out three key moments that facilitated this: the debates on transparency and access to information during the first years after the political alternation in 2000, the electoral reform of 2007, and the constitutional reforms of 2013. Nevertheless, these undeniable developments were not followed by the expected outcomes. That is, in practice, transparency is an alien concept for many government authorities at the federal, state, and local levels; clientelism still determines media operation; and journalists face diverse risks when covering crucial issues, such as corruption and organized crime activities. De León argues, hence, that there is an evident mismatch between the democratic aspirations that promoted those legislative efforts, and the everyday realities of the Mexican public communication. The section closes with Andrew Paxman’s Chap. 4. When and how the Mexican media liberalization process began is crucial for this volume, for it sheds light on the ongoing factors that are historically relevant in an

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attempt to explain media changes. The author offers a reassessment of the Carlos Salinas six-year term (1998–1994), much-maligned by academia and the public as a repressive and authoritarian period, often downplayed within the accounts of the process of liberalization of the Mexican press. By unearthing documents of the era, gathering original data, and reinterpreting classical studies in the field, Paxman strives to change this view. An original contribution of the chapter is the expanded role that Paxman gives to economic factors that allowed the Mexican press to be profitable and detached itself from the government expenditure, and the part that played the will of President Carlos Salinas himself—interviewed for this chapter—to democratize media and integrate it into its far-reaching modernization program. This reassessment places President Ernesto Zedillo’s term (1994–2000) as a continuation of the changes triggered by Salinas, rather than the beginning of the process, as other scholars suggest, and a crucial precedent for the 2000 transition to democracy. Part II: The Burden of Being a Journalist in Mexico. Risk, Security, and Censorship Rubén Arnoldo González and Osiris González-Galván contribute with Chap. 5, which opens the second section of this volume. The authors analyze the origins of current anti-press violence in the midst of the Mexican defective democracy. A democratic system is considered defective when it does not properly achieve a set of minimal indicators, such as the exercise of civil rights, the promotion of horizontal accountability, and an ample press freedom. Considering this context, they argue that the rationale of the assaults on journalists is twofold: on the one hand, there is a set of internal factors that are inherent to the journalistic practice, particularly when it adheres to the watchdog role. That is, exposing government corruption, organized crime activities, or collusion between authorities and drug lords involves permanent risk for media everywhere, including Mexico. On the other hand, however, there are other external factors particular to the Mexican case—such as structural violence and clientelism— that make journalism an even more dangerous activity. Their final argument is that being a journalist in Mexico is twice as hard as in any other country because the widely assumed risks of the profession significantly increase within a context of endemic impunity and corruption. Closely connected with this discussion, Sallie Hughes contributes to this volume with Chap. 6. She explains that the transition to democracy

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weakened political actors at the federal level, but strengthened local and regional politicians who became increasingly unaccountable. In addition, this reconfiguration of power opened the door to organized crime and, hence, drug lords gained access to mayors and governors’ offices. As a result of the collusion between them, journalism has turned into a highly dangerous profession in Mexico. Nevertheless, news workers throughout the country have found diverse ways of coping with the constant violence against them. According to the author, in response to the aggressions, some journalists draw on the democratic professional identity in spite of the risks associated with it. That is, they try to serve the audiences’ right to know, even though it may jeopardize their integrity. In doing so, they have adopted a monitorial role to keep powerful actors accountable and foster collective action by forming associations and informal collectives to provide training related to safety measures or better reporting practices, to mention just a couple of examples. Studying the adverse conditions that Mexican journalists face on a daily basis involves different methodological, ethical, safety, and security aspects. In Chap. 7, Jeannine Relly and Celeste González de Bustamante share their experiences and reflections on conducting fieldwork in the most dangerous regions of the country. The authors provide a much-needed discussion on the critical points entangled before, during, and after collecting data from informants whose lives are in constant danger. They explain that researching anti-press violence does not only imply the scholars’ safety and security. On the contrary, it also requires to consider the well-being of the interviewees, fixers, and research assistants; whose lives might be affected by the inquiry too. That is, beyond the theoretical and methodological robustness of the study, researchers must have a comprehensive plan to safeguard the integrity of every person involved in the project. For instance, the authors suggest that after interviewing victims of violence, the academics should facilitate psychological help to the informants who may require it, and who may not have enough resources to get it. The second alternation in the Mexican presidency, this time from the right to the left, brought about new subjects and issues of contention, as a consequence of the promise of the new administration to radically alter the status quo inherited. Chapter 8 by Melissa Santillana and Stuart Davis delves into one of those contentious issues, the conflict between the will of the President to push its agenda of national development with minimal dissent, and the right and determination of journalists to scrutinize it. The chapter presents anecdotal evidence that demonstrates the reaction of the

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government to the latter. The President harshly critiques media performance, protects members of his government that have slandered journalists, and depicts foreign agencies of freedom of the press and their domestic allies as puppet organizations of foreign countries that attempt to hinder his national development program. The stance of the President is interpreted as a part of a Global South discourse about the attempts of multinational agencies of Western countries to meddle into internal issues of the peripheral nations, and the right of those to preserve their national sovereignty. In sum, the chapter demonstrates the contradictions between the autonomy of the journalists and foreign advocates and a forceful nationalistic development agenda in Mexico and similar cases. Part III. Post-authoritarian Media Performance: Actors and Representations in Dispute It is widely assumed that there is a close and harmonic relationship between media and citizens, because the former keeps the latter informed about important and useful issues. Nonetheless, as Grisel Salazar argues in her Chap. 9, that might not be the case. This is because Mexican journalists’ coverage of citizens’ organizations is variable, heterogeneous, circumstantial, and episodic. That is, when civil society is one of the protagonists of the event that is reported by the media, it is presented in a positive way, and its presence becomes more visible. However, as her findings suggest, this is more the exception rather than the rule; because the overall coverage is still dominated by political actors (government authorities, party leaders, legislators, etc.). Therefore, in the absence of a sustained interaction between citizens and media, it is not easy to build trust among them and, as a result, both actors tend to be distant to one another. In the end, this represents another shortcoming of the high expectations associated with the transition to democracy in Mexico. Mediatization theory contends that as the media becomes more pervasive, authoritative, and autonomous, politicians adapt their discourses and practices to their media logic. This logic renders political events and discourses into engaging and pleasurable narratives, deemphasizing their political substance (the opposite political logic of public discourse). Nonetheless, in Chap. 10, Martin Echeverria contends that in transitional democracies such as Mexico the conditions that drive this process are different to that of their original, European, formulations: markets are small, journalistic autonomy is unstable, commercialism is aggressive, and

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professionalism is weak. These conditions can heighten political logic in media coverage in small media markets, but they can also increase the media logic in strong markets with low professional autonomy. Nonetheless, his frame analysis of the coverage of the last five presidential elections (1994, 2000, 2006, 2012, and 2018) by the Mexican elite press contradicts these expectations: media logic is mostly about strategic coverage, while other indicators of it are negligible. Political logic is relatively high yet is not about issues, but the electoral procedures. Thus, media and political logic manifest in different ways than in advanced democracies, which calls to adjust the assumptions of the mediatization theory to be useful in transitional democracies. Aside from the journalistic output, other media discourses about politics are shaped by the post-authoritarian condition. As a transgressive critique about politicians, satire is a genre in need of democratic conditions to thrive. Based on data from television recordings, secondary data sources, and literature on this object of study, Chap. 11 by Frida Rodelo reconstrues a narrative about the evolution of this form of comedy, particularly in the aftermath of the transition to democracy in 2000. Considering the relevance of historical-structural conditions and institutional conjunctures to satire and observing those against the formats and content highlights of satire in recent history, it comes to a couple of conclusions. First, that the “edge” of satire in broadcast television oscillates between the most daring critique of the status quo and the most blatant attack against the political opponents of the regime, depending on the asymmetries between media and politics at the time. And second, that there are at least five structural conditions on Mexican media that exert a considerable influence in satire: the clientelistic relations between television stations and political actors, self-censorship, commercial considerations, the political orientations of the media, and protective rituals. The chapter demonstrates how this form of discourse, as well as journalism, reproduces the conditions of the political and media systems in the context of the democratic transition.

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Gonzalez, R., & Rodelo, F. (2020). Double-edged knife: Practices and perceptions of technology and digital security among Mexican journalists in violent contexts. Tapuya: Latin American Science, Technology and Society, 3(1), 22–42. Gonzalez, R. A. (2021). Mexican journalism under siege. The impact of anti-press violence on reporters, newsrooms, and society. Journalism Practice, 15(3), 308–328. https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2020.1729225 Graber, D., & Dunaway, J. (2015). Mass media and American politics. Sage, CQ Press. Hughes, S. (2006). Newsrooms in conflict: Journalism and the democratization of Mexico. University of Pittsburgh Press. Juárez, J. (2010). El papel de la publicidad política en la nueva ley electoral: una mirada crítica. Sociologica, 25, 43–70. http://www.scielo.org.mx/scielo. php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0187-­01732010000100003&lng=es&nrm=iso Kaya, I. (2004). Modernity, openness, interpretation: A perspective on multiple modernities. Social Science Information, 43(1), 35–57. https://doi. org/10.1177/05390184040685 Lawson, C. (2002). Building the fourth estate: Democratization and the rise of a free press in Mexico. University of California Press. Lay Arellano, I. T. (2012). Redes sociales virtuales y elecciones. Paakat: Revista de Tecnología y Sociedad, 2(2), 1–10. Liceaga, C. (2016). Manejo de las redes sociales de Josefina Vázquez Mota durante los primeros quince días de campaña. In O.  Islas & X.  Pimienta (Eds.), El empleo de redes sociales en las campañas presidenciales en México, 2012 (pp. 58–100). Sociedad Latina de Comunicación Social. Marquez, M. (2012). Valores, roles y prácticas en conflicto: el papel de los periodistas mexicanos en las elecciones presidenciales del 2006. In A. Roveda & C.  Rico (Eds.), Comunicación y medios en las Américas. Entre gobernanza y gobernabilidad (pp. 181–207). Pontificia Universidad Javeriana. Márquez-Ramírez, M., Mellado, C., Humanes, M.  L., Amado, A., Beck, D., Davydov, S., Mick, J., Mothes, C., Olivera, D., Panagiotu, N., Roses, S., Silke, H., Sparks, C., Stępińska, A., Szabó, G., Tandoc, E., & Wang, H. (2020). Detached or interventionist? Comparing the performance of watchdog journalism in transitional, advanced and non-democratic countries. International Journal of Press Politics, 25(1), 53–75. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 1940161219872155 Martínez, F. (2013). La contienda electoral federal 2012 en la prensa mexicana. Revista Mexicana de Opinión Pública, (15), 61–79. http://www.revistas. unam.mx/index.php/rmop/article/view/43682 Mellado, C., Márquez-Ramírez, M., Mick, J., Oller Alonso, M., & Olivera, D. (2017). Journalistic performance in Latin America: A comparative study of professional roles in news content. Journalism, 18(9), 1087–1106. https:// doi.org/10.1177/1464884916657509

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Muñiz, C. (2015). La política como debate temático o estratégico. Framing de la campaña electoral mexicana de 2012 en la prensa digital. Comunicación y Sociedad, 23, 67–95. Muñiz, C., Saldierna, A. R., & Marañón, F. (2018). Framing de los procesos electorales: las etapas de la campaña como factor moderador de la presencia de los encuadres políticos en las noticias. Palabra Clave, 21(3), 740–771. Observatorio-Electoral. (2012). Crecimiento inusual de seguidores de presidenciables en redes sociales. Boletín de Prensa, 18(5) http://electoralhistorico. juridicas.unam.mx/Electoral2012Mx/boletin/bol20120514.htm Ortiz, A., Rodríguez, J. L., Gómez, A., & de la Cruz, F. (2013). Seguimiento de las campañas presidenciales 2012 en redes sociales: un estudio exploratorio. Revista Mexicana de Opinión Pública, 13, 73–92. https://doi.org/10.22201/ fcpys.24484911e.2012.13.41385 Ortiz, M., & Gómez, R. (2013). Una mirada a las elecciones de 2012 desde la frontera norte de México. El caso de la prensa de Baja California. Versión, estudios de Comunicación y Política, 32, 51–71. Patterson, T. (1993). Out of order. Vintage. Pérez Salazar, G. (2019). Teoría del encuadre y plataformas sociodigitales de interacción: Un análisis de coyuntura. Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Políticas y Sociales, 64, 333–353. http://www.scielo.org.mx/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext &pid=S0185-­19182019000200333&nrm=iso Pfetsch, B. (2004). From political culture to political communications culture: A theoretical approach to comparative analisys. In F. Esser & B. Pfetsch (Eds.), Comparing political communication. Theories, cases, and challenges. Cambridge University Press. Portes, A. (1973). Modernity and development: A critique. Studies in Comparative International Development, 8(3), 247–279. https://doi.org/10.1007/ BF02800432 Relly, J., & González de Bustamante, C. (2014). Silencing Mexico: A study of influences on journalists in the northern states. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 1(19), 108–131. Reyna, V. (2014). Nuevos riesgos, viejos encuadres: la escenificación de la inseguridad pública en Sonora. El Colegio de Sonora. Reyna, V. H., Echeverría, M., & González, R. A. (2020). Beyond exogenous models: Mexican journalism’s modernization in its own terms. Journalism Studies, 21(13), 1815–1835. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2020.1796765 Rodríguez Cano, C. A. (2019). El colapso de la mediocracia: prensa digital, pluralismo y enmarcado colectivo [Pluralismo, Prensa Digital, Framing, Mediocracia, Facebook]. Virtualis, 10(19), 74–94. https://doi.org/10.2123/ virtualis.v10i19.303

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Rodríguez-Cano, C. (2018). La manufactura del engaño: desinformación y noticias falsas en #Verificado2018. In F.  Sierra & F.  Toussaint (Eds.), Economía política y medios digitales. Comunicación Social. Rubalcava, R.-M. (2010). Municipios y localidades: Concreción territorial de las desigualdades sociales. In F. Cortés & O. de Oliveira (Eds.), Los grandes problemas de México. Desigualdad social (pp. 309–336). El Colegio de México. Salazar, G. (2018). ¿Cuarto poder? Mercados, audiencias y contenidos en la prensa estatal mexicana. Política y gobierno, XXV(1), 125–152. Salazar, G. (2019). Strategic allies and the survival of critical media under repressive conditions: An empirical analysis of local Mexican press. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 24(3), 341–362. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 1940161219843200 Sánchez-Gudiño, H. (2021). López Obrador en el espejo de su comunicación política. Año uno de la 4T. In J. Hidalgo, M. Echeverría, M. Sánchez, T. Lay, F.  Aceves, J.  Esteinou Madrid, R.  Sánchez, M.  Portillo, & I.  Corduneanu (Eds.), Dimensiones de lo público y lo político en la segunda alternancia democrática. Ria Editorial. Schmidt, V. H. (2010). Modernity and diversity: Reflections on the controversy between modernization theory and multiple modernists. Social Science Information, 49(4), 511–538. https://doi.org/10.1177/0539018410376882 Serra, G. (2009). Una lectura crítica de la reforma electoral en México a raíz de la elección de 2006. Política y gobierno, 16, 411–427. Shoemaker, P., & Reese, S. (2013). Mediating the message in the 21st century: A media sociology perspective. Routledge. Slimovich, A., & Lay Arellano, I. T. (2018). La reacción ciudadana en la sociedad hipermediática contemporánea. El caso de la movilización por los estudiantes mexicanos desaparecidos de Ayotzinapa. Paakat: Revista de Tecnología y Sociedad, 7, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.18381/pk.a7n13.303 Spohn, W. (2010). Political sociology: Between civilizations and modernities: A multiple modernities perspective. European Journal of Social Theory, 13(1), 49–66. https://doi.org/10.1177/1368431009355864 Tipps, D. C. (1973). Modernization theory and the comparative study of societies: A critical perspective. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 15(2), 199–226. http://www.jstor.org/stable/178351 Trejo, R. (2004). Poderes salvajes, Mediocracia sin contrapesos. Ediciones Cal y Arena. Treré, E. (2016). The dark side of digital politics: Understanding the algorithmic manufacturing of consent and the hindering of online dissidence. IDS Bulletin, 47(1), 127–138. Tumber, H., & Waisbord, S. (2021). The Routledge companion to media disinformation and populism. Routledge.

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Vaca-Baqueiro, M.  T. (2018). Regímenes políticos y medios de comunicación. Hacia una reconsideración de la dicotomía entre los modelos autoritario y liberal. Foro Internacional, 58(3), 537–580. http://www.scielo.org.mx/scielo. php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0185-­013X2018000300537&nrm=iso Vliegenthart, R., Boomgaarden, H. G., & Boumans, J. (2011). Changes in political news coverage: Personalization, conflict and negativity in British and Dutch newspapers. In K. Brants & K. Voltmer (Eds.), Political communication in postmodern democracy challenging the primacy of politics. Palgrave Macmillan. Voltmer, K. (2011). How far can media systems travel? Applying Hallin and Mancini’s comparative framework outside the Western world. In D. C. Hallin & P.  Mancini (Eds.), Comparing media systems beyond the western world. Cambridge University Press. Voltmer, K. (2013). The media in transitional democracies. Wiley. Voltmer, K., & Sorensen, L. (2019). Media, power, citizenship: The mediatization of democratic change. In K. Voltmer, C. Christensen, I. Neverla, N. Stremlau, B. Thomass, N. Vladisavljević, & H. Wasserman (Eds.), Media, communication and the struggle for democratic change. Palgrave Macmillan. Voltmer, K., & Wasserman, H. (2014). Journalistic norms between universality and domestication: Journalists’ interpretations of press freedom in six new democracies. Global Media and Communication, 10(2), 177–192. https://doi. org/10.1177/1742766514540073 Zires, M. (2014). Violencia, redes sociales y procesos de subjetivación política: El caso de #verfollow en Veracrúz, México. Argumentos, 27, 119–144.

PART I

Media Systems and Regulation: Explaining Continuities

CHAPTER 2

Media Systems in Unconsolidated Democracies: The Case of Mexico Manuel Alejandro Guerrero

Introduction: Media in Transitional Regimes Most of the literature on political transitions, whether the variant is “from authoritarian regimes” or “towards democracy,” has usually considered media plurality and autonomy as variables dependent on politics. In a notable exception, Voltmer’s (2013) work proposes that (1) the media are actors with certain ranges of action during periods of transition; (2) transition processes do not necessarily imply the consolidation of democratic media ecosystems; and (3) diversity and independence are basic conditions for understanding the role of the media in a political regime. Voltmer, however, does not establish relations between the types of media systems and particular stages of the political transition processes. For its part, the literature on media systems has also fallen short of discussing types of political regimes beyond the already established

M. A. Guerrero (*) Universidad Iberoamericana Ciudad de México, Ciudad de México, Mexico e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 M. Echeverria, R. A. Gonzalez (eds.), Media and Politics in Post-Authoritarian Mexico, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36441-9_2

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models—of democracy, authoritarianism, or totalitarianism—resulting in predictably static conceptions of the media: “free” under democracy, and “controlled” in varying degrees under the other two.1 An exception is the work of Vaca (2017), for whom the concepts “democracy” and “authoritarianism” no longer necessarily reflect major transformations of media systems. However, while it is feasible to assume that, generally speaking, the contours of media landscapes are delineated by politics, outlining trends toward certain forms of systems, these are by no means static spheres, especially when dealing with transitional regimes. During transitions, conjunctures arise that enable different possibilities for action (agency) for various actors—including the media (Voltmer, 2013). This opens up the possibility of reacting to politics in innovative ways, but also of rethinking the way the actors understand their audiences, as well as the concepts they have of information, professionalization, and journalistic independence. At certain moments, the media have the possibility of influencing the path toward democratic consolidation, or, on the contrary, of seeking convenient accommodations with the new groups in power. This chapter is part of a larger research project on media systems in transitional regimes. Here we analyze the media system by focusing only on the two conditions mentioned—diversity and independence—in the context of an unconsolidated democracy: Mexico. This particular context presents opportunities for the media either to act in favor of consolidation or to accommodate themselves with the (new and not so new) political classes, privileging what in other spaces we have defined as a “captured liberal model” (Guerrero, 2014). However, far from implying a deterministic acceptance, any result derives from a scenario that must consider both the type of transition process (structure) and of strategies (agency) that the media decide to enact. The chapter begins by classifying democracy as a particular type of political regime, on the basis of an analysis of its main components—its  This perspective was first adopted in the work of Siebert et al. (1956), that marked a way of understanding media systems as a dependent variable of political systems. Hallin and Mancini (2004) distanced themselves from such a static conception by not establishing cases based on preconceived theoretical models, but by studying empirical examples in order to find similarities and particularities. Their work, however, is limited to the study of those political systems that they define in advance as relatively consolidated democracies, which leaves out transitional regimes. 1

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access to and exercise of power—and of the place the media occupy in respect of the aforementioned conditions of diversity and independence, to see how these affect the functions of the media as providers of information, arenas of debate, and watchdog. Using this framework, the following sections analyze the case of Mexico: first, through a brief description of the conditions that gave rise to the classic model of relationship of the media with the government during the PRI regime, and of the way in which conventional media opted for openness at different moments during the long process of political liberalization. Second, by analyzing the arrangements of mutual convenience between the media and the new political elites, starting with what is called here the first alternation (2000–2018), when they negotiated exchanges instead of professionalizing the media’s informative work and pushing for consolidation.2 Third, by discussing the changes promoted by the regime of the second alternation (2018) in relation to the media: the redefinition of official advertising, the attempt to circumvent media coverage through daily morning conferences and social media, and a systematic confrontation with most conventional national press outlets. In these sections, there are continuous references to the role of digital media and journalism. A main conclusion of this work is that, in spite of evident media diversity, media independence is still under siege, both by the government and from corporate interests, affecting the possibilities for developing an effective and extended watchdog journalism in the Mexican media.

Political Regimes, Media and Democracy Roughly since the end of World War II, political science—especially in the US—has sought to define democratic regimes on the basis of certain minimum characteristics that distinguish them from other forms of government (Møller & Skanning, 2010). What characteristics are essential to democracy? In a classic work on the subject, Robert Dahl (1971) pointed out eight minimum attributes that any real democracy or “polyarchy”

2  An “alternation” does not mean a “transition” (see O’Donnell & Schmitter, 1986), nor a change of regime. It means here a change of the ruling group in power, even of the “personal style of ruling” (Cosío Villegas, 1974), without structurally replacing the rules defining the exercise of power.

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should have.3 Undoubtedly, Dahl’s criteria have been very useful in defining modern democracy on the basis of electoral and participation criteria. They inspired many projects that have emerged to measure democracy, from the Freedom House indexes, the Economist Intelligence Unit’s ranking, the Democracy Barometer, and the Varieties of Democracy Project, among others. However, by the beginning of the twenty-first century, some “third wave” democracies had not only experienced setbacks, but remained in complex gray areas where they seem to have settled, to the extent that, for some, this represents the “end of the transition paradigm” (Carothers, 2002; Hobson, 2003). In spite of their having respect for voting and participation, competitive party systems, and alternation in power, some of these democracies have not been able to consolidate mechanisms of political responsibility, accountability, transparency, and the effective rule of law. There are authors who have even defined some of these regimes as “polyarchies without rule of law” (O’Donnell, 1999), “competitive authoritarianisms” (Levitsky & Way, 2002), or “illiberal democracies” (Smith & Ziegler, 2008). At the same time, other authors began to speak of the “quality of democracy” (Diamond & Morlino, 2004), focusing on characteristics complementary to the electoral system. For Diamond and Morlino, there are eight dimensions in which democracies vary in quality: freedoms, rule of law, equality, participation, responsiveness, competition, and vertical and horizontal accountability. These dimensions indicate a tendency of moving jointly, either toward consolidation or toward regression. From here onward, much debate has arisen about what aspects to add to the minimum criteria—that is, competitive elections—in order to be able to define a regime as democratic. Authors have added extended civil liberties (Collier & Levitsky, 1997), rights of association (Norris, 2012), the rule of law (Møller & Skaaning, 2012), responsiveness (Bühlmann et  al., 2008), social outcomes (Campbell et al., 2015), more active roles of civil society (O’Donnell, 1998), and even the citizen’s perspective on government (Pickel et al., 2016).4 3  The attributes are freedom to associate and form organizations; freedom of expression; the right to vote; the right of political leaders to compete for support; diverse and alternative sources of information; the possibility that, in principle, any citizen can be elected to public office; free and open elections; and, finally, there must be institutions that ensure that public policies are, to some extent, a reflection of electoral preferences. See: Robert Dahl (1971). Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition. New Haven: Yale University Press. 4  See Munck (2016) for an analysis of the concept of quality of democracy.

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The point is not the number of criteria, since the list can be as short or as long as one wishes, but the need to conceptualize two key dimensions shared by any type of political regime: access to and exercise of power. The Argentine political scientist Sebastián Mazzuca (2010) has pointed out that the ways of accessing power and the ways of exercising power are basic attributes of any definition of a political regime. This distinction is useful for analyzing democratization as a series of processes located in the realm of the political regime. However, contrary to Mazzuca, who considers that democracy is only a form of access to power (i.e., restricted to electoral matters), this work argues that liberal democracy comprises particular forms of both access to and exercise of power. Democratic access to power refers to the ways in which different individuals and groups compete to attain it on the basis of formal and informal mechanisms and rules that specify who can and who cannot participate in public affairs. In liberal democracies, these rules and mechanisms have to do with open and relatively balanced competition, with popular participation, and with conditions that ensure accountability and an alternation of power based on voting. Broadly speaking, Dahl’s attributes define these forms of access to power as free, competitive, fair, and participatory. Thus, in liberal democracies access to power should be open. As for the forms of exercising power in a liberal democracy, these are, in theory, limited and balanced. Limited in respect of the ways in which political power extends into society (Dunn, 1999). There are criteria relating to the effective existence of liberal constitutionalism, which limits public power vis-à-vis the rights and freedoms of individuals and groups, but also there are criteria of responsiveness and a certain type of accountability and transparency. Balance, on the other hand, has to do with the ways in which power is distributed and shared between different orders and institutions (O’Donnell, 1998). One might be able to speak of criteria related to checks and balances and, again, to certain forms of accountability and transparency. Thus, in a liberal democracy power should be accountable. In short, every type of political regime has a dimension of access to power and another regarding its exercise. Democracy, being a type of regime, implies specific forms of these two dimensions—open forms of access to power and accountable forms for its exercise. Of course, one can discuss what the specific criteria might be and, again, the list can be as short or as long as one wishes.

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Further, it is possible to consider the place of media and journalism in a democratic regime on the basis of two key aspects: conditions and functions. Voltmer (2013) points out that a degree of diversity and independence favors the possibilities for the media to serve as watchdogs and report abuses of power. For her, diversity has to do with the variety of media available (external diversity) and information technologies, as well as the heterogeneity of viewpoints included in each media (internal diversity). Following Voltmer, independence, in turn, relates to aspects such as the extent of government influence, the availability of sources, the concentration of ownership, and the financial dependence of the media. However, it also relates to the degree of autonomy of journalists and editors vis-à-vis the owners. Thus, these two conditions not only favor the watchdog function, as Voltmer says, but also three others: the ability of the media to provide information to the public, their capacity to serve as an arena for open debates on public issues, and the chances for journalists to effectively commit to professional practice. In a liberal democracy, media and journalism are fundamental for keeping open forms of access to power by reporting on electoral processes, the competing actors, the most relevant issues, and along the way, fostering participation, freedom of expression, and civic empowerment. At the same time, media and journalism are also essential to fostering political responsibility in the exercise of power by seeking to enforce accountability and transparency. The ability of the media and journalism to meet these expectations depends, in part, on the degree of development of the two structural conditions mentioned by Voltmer (diversity and independence). Also, on the capacity of the media and journalists themselves to take actions (agency) toward the effective fulfillment of the four functions referred to (informing, serving as a space for debate, professional engagement, and watchdog). Ideally, then, under these conditions and capacities, the media can become the allies of citizens in favor of a democratic public arena (Keane, 2013).

Mexico: Media Openness in an Unfinished Transition In 2004, Baracca published an article in the Third World Quarterly where he defined Mexico as a consolidated democracy, understanding consolidation as the absence of conditions of instability and evident bankruptcy. Baracca emphasized that there was no major rejection in the country, for example, of electoral results and other procedural aspects. Although it is

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important to pass a certain threshold beyond which regression and democratic bankruptcy are allegedly unlikely, such a situation is by no means “consolidation,” since substantive aspects of the exercise of power are not taken into account. This section proposes two complementary analyses. The first defines Mexico as an unconsolidated democracy, on the basis of a brief review of its political liberalization process, which enabled increasingly open forms of access to power, while still keeping unaccountable forms of exercising power (distortions in transparency, low responsiveness, limited checks and balances, and low responsibility). The second shows how, although this situation has favored a relatively diverse media landscape, it has failed to consolidate a trend toward greater media independence due, above all, to the fact that a significant portion of the conventional media have sought to accommodate their interests rather than to modify their old practices. Limits of Political Change: Electoral Alternation Without Democratic Consolidation Since the end of the twentieth century, the forms of access to political power in Mexico have seemed to become increasingly plural and open. This is the result of a long process of political change in which the regime and the opposition fixed their field of dispute in the electoral arena. The process began as a political liberalization (O’Donnell & Schmitter, 1986) in a regime that wished to retain power, while responding to new demands by opening up new spaces for participation, especially after 1968, through the political reform of 1977.5 The deep economic crisis of the eighties would set the stage for the following political reforms and counter-reforms in the midst of a growing “punishment vote” against the regime (Loaeza, 1987). A crucial step toward the granting of an open access to power was the 1996 Reform 5  As part of a process of political transition from authoritarianism, liberalization processes may or may not lead to broader democratization. Liberalization brings up important changes, such as greater openness, the recognition, and extension of rights, as well as the autonomous participation of society, and it means above all a change in the behavior of the regime, but not an institutional restructuring, since the fundamental rules—formal and informal—do not change (O’Donnell & Schmitter, 1986). At least between the 1980s and 1990s, both the political opposition and academic experts in Mexico emphasized the openness of the electoral arena as the key that would open the political system to democracy—mostly understood in procedural terms.

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that, among other things, made the electoral authority independent of the government, and granted large sums of resources to political parties for electoral campaigns. Although the first experience of alternation in power had occurred at the state level in 1989, in Baja California, and later in Mexico City’s first elections for local government, the presidential victory of Vicente Fox in 2000 brought it with hopes that the changes necessary for democratic consolidation would be undertaken. However, it just ended up as only the beginning of a first wave of alternation in power, 2000–2018.6 Though in electoral terms, Mexico entered the list of electoral democracies, the country required other reforms to tackle the abuse of power and unaccountability. President Fox’s government first announced the Federal Law of Transparency and Access to Information in 2002—and the creation, a year later, of the Federal Institute of Transparency (IFAI)—which required the disclosure of government-held information and paved the way for a series of subsequent reforms that would conclude with a broad constitutional reform of Article 6 in 2006. However, the weight of partisan loyalties and quotas in the nomination of commissioners has prevented the transition from transparency to true accountability on many crucial issues (Dussauge, 2010). In addition, the Law of the Professional Career Service in the Federal Public Administration was also approved in 2003. This law, in principle, presented an opportunity to reduce political control of governmental positions, one of the oldest forms of corruption in the Mexican state apparatus (Merino, 1999). However, very soon the old practices found their way in again, for example through the creation of a large number of parallel positions that did not go through the mechanisms of competition established in the law. The creation of a Secretariat of Public Function also faced structural difficulties in its operation, since it lacked legal and political independence from the Executive (Pardo, 2009; Dussauge, 2010). For their part, the following governments of Presidents Calderón and Peña Nieto did not make much progress in reforming the exercise of 6  This eighteen-year period is defined here as the first alternation, since the three administrations in power share two basic characteristics. Firstly, the same vision of a development model based on openness, competitiveness, exports, and a reduced role of the public sector compared to the private sector. Secondly, a lack of political will to ensure that, beyond reforms and autonomous agencies, truly effective measures and actions are in place to secure political accountability.

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power, either. The former began a policy of open combat against drug trafficking groups at such a high cost in human lives, with displacement, disappearances, and human rights abuses, that it became contradictory to speak of limited and balanced forms of exercising power. Nevertheless, in 2011 a very important human rights reform was approved which, although on paper it put Mexico at the forefront (Castillo, 2015), at the end of the day still could not stop abuses and violations. Additionally, there seemed to be a lack of political will from prosecutors and ombudsmen to operate more effectively and efficiently in reducing impunity.7 President Peña Nieto’s administration maintained the war policy of his predecessor—although it was no longer referred to as such in the media— with a larger number of victims, notorious cases of human rights violations (Tlatlaya, Ayotzinapa), and negative results in terms of accountability and transparency.8 All this in spite of a series of reforms designed to form a National Anticorruption System that has not been able to operate up to date. Thus, by 2018 there were very meager results with regard to an effective accountability of power. In large part, accumulated discontent helps to explain the electoral victory of Andrés Manuel López Obrador who, after two failed attempts, won the presidency in 2018 with just over 30 million votes (63.42% turnout) and also, together with the parties of his coalition, the majority in both houses. Throughout his campaign, candidate López Obrador promised fundamental reforms in the exercise of power, to put an end to violence and corruption, and to govern in favor of the poorest and most vulnerable sectors in society. However, three years into his administration, the emphasis has been placed on the direct distribution of resources to those sectors, but with no signs of a visible path of institutional consolidation to achieve accountability and reduce corruption and violence. So far, this period has turned out to be a second alternation that, at best, has been

7  According to Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, in 2012 Mexico ranked 105th out of 180 countries measured, while by 2018, it fell to 138th place. Retrieved from: https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi#. 8  President Peña himself was involved in an influence peddling scandal in what the media called “Peña Nieto’s White House.” The report, carried out by journalist Carmen Aristegui’s team, appeared on November 9, 2014. Retrieved from: https://aristeguinoticias.com/ 0911/mexico/la-casa-blanca-de-enrique-pena-nieto/.

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more focused on de-legitimizing and undermining previous ruling styles and institutions, than on building new frameworks. For the time being, highly negative balances continue to be registered on several fronts, such as the containment of violence9; and the fight against corruption seems to depend more on judicial processes against specific individuals than on strengthening the institutional scaffolding of prevention and surveillance. Nothing has been said about setting in motion the National Anticorruption System. Regarding the strengthening of the rule of law, the administration of justice, and the fight against corruption, the Rule of Law Index elaborated by the World Justice Project places Mexico in 104th place out of 128 countries, with few concrete results in the following factors: limits to governmental power, corruption, civil and criminal justice, fundamental rights, order and security, and regulatory compliance.10 In terms of government management, one of the main pillars has been an indiscriminate policy of cuts and savings, which according to studies has resulted mainly in a dismantling of the Federal Public Administration and a serious reduction of its operational capacity (Villalpando & Morales, 2020). In sum, the transformations promoted by the government of President López Obrador, although they mark a different course from the previous development model, do not seem to seek a strengthening of institutions, or the establishment of limits and balances in the exercise of power. Therefore, it is possible to affirm that neither of the two alternations has been able to propose efficient and effective institutional reforms and changes to consolidate a more accountable exercise of power. Consequently, Mexico remains an unconsolidated democracy that, although it complies with the democratic forms of access to power, still faces great challenges in terms of its exercise.

9  According to data from the Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System, 2019 has been the most violent year on record with 34,608 intentional murders. Furthermore, comparing January to May 2018—the last year of President Peña Nieto’s administration— with the same period in 2020, there has also been an increase, from 13,515 to 14,631 intentional homicides. See: SESNSP, Informes de Víctimas por Año (Victims Reports by Year). Retrieved from https://www.gob.mx/sesnsp/acciones-y-programas/victimas-nuevametodologia?state=published. 10  See the full report at WJP (2020). Índice de Estado de Derecho 2019–2020. Hallazgos. Washington: WJP. https://worldjusticeproject.mx/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/mxinsights-full-2.pdf.

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Media Openness to Diversity: From Environmental Censorship to Convenient Arrangements From the 1930s to the 1970s, Granados Chapa (1981), a careful observer of the Mexican media landscape, defined the relation between media and government as one of environmental censorship. This term refers to: A context in which a complicity developed between the media and the regime that allowed the former to enjoy benefits to consolidate themselves as profitable businesses in exchange for maintaining a limited public space for debate and general support for the regime. Additionally, one must note the non-existence of two necessary conditions for more open and critical information contents: a strong and organized political opposition and proper institutional channels for political participation. Thus, convenience, exchanges, collusion and the weakness of political alternatives defined the context in which the media and the regime related for decades. (Guerrero, 2010: 235)

This situation changed, first in the written press, then on the radio, and finally on television. Practically at the same time as the beginning of the political liberalization process in the second half of the seventies, a new generation of print media started to challenge the regime by criticizing the excesses of power (Proceso, UnoMásUno, and soon after, La Jornada and El Financiero). On the radio, well into the eighties, with the economic crisis at its peak, stations adopted a survival strategy by introducing longer news programs and, for the first time, critical voices.11 In the case of television, it was not until a generational change, especially at Televisa, combined with a political reform in 1996—which guaranteed political parties the largest amount of resources in their history, especially for use in political campaigns—that the two main networks finally opened their programs to opposition voices.12 Thus, by the end of the twentieth century, the conditions for greater plurality were emerging, reflecting also an incipient independence that began to be reflected both in critical spaces in the 11  In most cases, the openness on the radio was not so much the result of a democratizing vocation by its owners, as a response to the need to make their stations profitable in the face of three challenges: (a) the new competition from the FM band; (b) the growth in the number of licenses awarded in the early 1980s; and (3) the reduced advertising budgets as a consequence of the economic crisis (Guerrero 2010). 12  During 1996, Televisa lost audience share to TV Azteca’s telenovelas and to its news project, “Fuerza Informativa Azteca,” hosted by Javier Alatorre.

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printed press and in the incorporation of opposition voices into the broadcasting newscasts. However, the arrival of new political parties to power through the elections, far from serving the independence of media diversity and the professionalization of their informative work, served instead to adjust the schemes of relationship developed under the old regime to new conditions of convenient exchanges with the newly arrived political elites. In this regard, one must consider that the openness in the access to power in Mexico during the second half of the 1990s occurred in a global context in which political communication and the role of the media in electoral processes were becoming fundamental parts of the campaigns, following U.S. models (Blumler & Gurevitch, 2001; Negrine & Papathanassopoulos, 2005). Thus, electoral competition in Mexico was getting stronger at a time when the main battlegrounds—though never the only ones—were the media spaces, especially the TV screens (Plasser, 2002). Considering the large amount of resources that the Federal Electoral Institute of the time guaranteed to the contests, electoral openness meant for many conventional media an opportunity to do business based on more or less veiled bets in favor of or against the different parties and candidates in dispute.13 Of course, this does not mean that all the media or all journalists acted with this logic, but it was the dominant trend in the Mexican media landscape. Media independence, then, was a bargaining chip not only during electoral processes, but also when it became the turn of the winning alternatives to run the government. In this sense, in the face of commercial advertising markets, both national and local, which could not necessarily support a diversity of media outlets on their own, the alternative of seeking government advertising not only meant a promise of survival, but also a possible tactical business alliance with specific political groups.14 After 13  Examples of how the media allied with certain political groups and actors were the socalled political tariffs through which media charged candidates and parties in a differentiated way for the same timetables and spaces. Another example was the sale of media packages to candidates and government officials, which included everything from favorable coverage to ad hoc interviews. 14  Interestingly, these tactical alliances were not only based on explicit advertising spending in the form of promotion and government campaigns, but also on “advertising packages” that the media—and some communicators in their radio and TV news spaces—offered to the highest government officials, which usually included interviews and the insertion of paid “infomercials” presented as if they were news stories.

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the year 2000, there was no longer a unique pyramidal regime based on the federal level, but rather 32 state government alternatives and some municipal alternatives solvent enough to spend significant resources on political communication. During the first alternation (2000–2028) there was no need to transform the media routines into more professional practice, but rather to preserve governmental aids in exchange for general support of the establishment through old journalistic ways. Thus, on the whole, the information on public life presented by the mainstream media continued to be based on the statements of political actors, and on notes with little more context than in any other journalistic genre, on few sources, with almost no contrast, and on information without follow-up. In short, the mainstream media were still practicing—as in the old days—the same kind of client-oriented reporting routines, rather than informing, debating, and monitoring. One episode, in particular, helps to illustrate this general picture of media-politics exchanges. In May 2012, after five months of campaigning and leading the electoral preferences, the candidate of the alliance “Compromiso por México” (PRI and Green Party), Enrique Peña Nieto, visited the Universidad Iberoamericana. There he had a disagreement with students, who complained about the extreme violence by the security forces of the State of Mexico against residents and demonstrators in the town of San Salvador Atenco in 2006 during his governorship. Candidate Peña Nieto had to be escorted out of the university amid shouts and boos from the student community. That night, Televisa’s main news program, El Noticiero hosted by Joaquín López Dóriga, presented the episode at the university in the same way that some of the print media would do the following day: blaming supposed groups of infiltrators whose objective was to get the event canceled (Redacción, 2012). This disinformation unleashed the anger of students who organized themselves through socio-digital networks to expose the media’s manipulation of information, which gave rise to the movements @Másde131 at the Iberoamericana and #YoSoy132 among many more people in other educational institutions and social sectors. Led by students, this movement organized massive demonstrations and an additional presidential debate to those already scheduled by the Federal Electoral Institute, with logistical support from Google through digital platforms—a debate that candidate Peña Nieto did not attend. The original claim against information manipulation remained as one of the main complaints of the movement and had a double effect on Peña Nieto’s administration.

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First, under pressure, candidate Peña Nieto promised, if he should win, a new media bill that would limit spending for public advertising and establish criteria for its distribution. Almost at the end of his six-year term in government, in May 2018, a General Law of Social Communication was passed, regulating the provisions of constitutional Article 134, but leaving several loose ends, as it did not establish criteria for distributing public advertising (DOF, 2018). Neither did it set spending ceilings, nor clear oversight mechanisms; it lacked mechanisms for sanctioning personalized propaganda and centralized decisions and planning responsibilities in the Ministry of the Interior (Secretaría de Gobernación). Second, from then on, social media became increasingly relevant in the debate on the public agenda. Through them, sectors and groups began to express their disagreement with the government at different times and for different reasons: demands for justice for the growing number of victims of violence; complaints against impunity in the face of rampant corruption; or against recurrent abuses committed against journalists, among others. It is important to note that during President Peña Nieto’s administration, despite the allegedly numerous “bots” that replicated information favorable to his government, the general tone in social media was marked by a deeply critical spirit against the status quo, contrasting with what was presented daily in the mainstream media. In this way, during the first alternation (2000–2018), the media landscape was characterized by a growing diversity of outlets and digital sites, at a time when many of the main conventional information media opted for preserving the old exchanges of economic benefits for political support, but now with new political actors. A media landscape is defined by an acceptable degree of diversity, but with an independence mainly conditioned by extra-media (economic and political) interests, and in certain regions of the country, also by different forms of violence against journalists. From these two general conditions, it is not surprising that, in most of the conventional media, a self-interested defense of the status quo ended up distorting the informative function of the press, its role in providing an arena for discussions, and, above all, its watchdog role, and preserving a “collaborative journalism” (Guerrero, 2019). However, throughout this same period, thanks largely to the digital revolution, another type of alternative, committed, and professional journalism started to gain more visibility: a “responsive journalism” (ibidem). Although this latter kind of journalism has always existed in Mexico, the digital revolution has favored

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a greater presence, scope, and, above all, more autonomy from conventional media organizations and platforms. Sites such as Animal Político, Periodistas de a Pie, Quinto Elemento Lab, Aristegui Noticias, Reporte Índigo, among many others, gained prestige and readers both for the types of stories and for the angles from which they were publishing them. In addition, groups and clusters of journalists from different media appeared during this period, who began to collaborate in larger investigations sharing the same ethical and professional vision, dealing with issues that usually lacked space in conventional media.15

Politics and Media During the Second Alternation: From Arrangements of Convenience to Confrontation The coming to power of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador in 2018 has brought about an important change in the government’s relationship with the media. Three aspects exemplify this change: –– An attempt to break the old scheme of relationships between the media and the regime based on the use of official advertising. –– A communication policy centered on daily conferences and a dissemination of its messages through social media. –– A systematic verbal confrontation with conventional media and with specific journalists. On the basis of data from the NGOs FUNDAR and Article 19, the government of President Peña Nieto spent 61,659 million pesos (MXN 61,659,000,000 = circa $ 3.1 billion) (3,100,000,000 US Dollars) on official advertising, which meant an expenditure 89% higher than the amount that had been budgeted, of which 52% was concentrated in only ten media organizations (FUNDAR, 2019). According to the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness (IMCO), only in 2018, the budgeted 15  At the local level, especially in small and medium-sized cities, journalism has been under constant attack by groups that resort to violence to silence its voice. This could be labelled a “harassed journalism” (Guerrero, 2019) due to the fragility of the conditions in which it develops that, on the one hand, have to do with the precariousness of the institutional context and the regional and local markets and, on the other hand, with the lack of basic guarantees for working professionally and autonomously.

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spending on official advertising was 1160 million pesos, but the sum spent rocketed to 6373 million, that is, 449% higher (Guadarrama, 2019). This enormous expenditure is explained, in large part, by the aforementioned clientelistic agreements. So, in view of the social complaint against such practices, candidate López Obrador pledged in his campaign to promote a new bill on official advertising, and then announced it as one of his 100 commitments in his inauguration speech in December 2018. In January 2019, the “General guidelines for the registration and authorization of social communication programs of federal agencies” (DOF, 2019a, 2019b) were published and on April 17 of the same year the “Agreement establishing the Social Communication Policy of the Federal Government” (DOF, 2019a, 2019b) was announced. Both documents emphasized a 50% spending reduction in relation to the sums budgeted for in 2018 and if an increase were necessary, it could not exceed 0.1% of the total amount in any subsequent fiscal year during this administration. Other novelties of the Agreement limited annual contracts with the media, forbade the concentration of more than 25% of the advertising for a single campaign in a single media outlet, prohibited any further renegotiation of advertising rates, and gave preference to public media in official campaigns. Perhaps the aspect most clearly aimed at limiting relationships of the old sort between media and government is the explicit prohibitions against using social communication resources to give benefits in exchange for support. The Agreement makes it illegal: (I) To pressure, punish, reward, privilege, or coerce communicators or the media; (II) To pay in any way for news pieces, interviews, or images for journalistic purposes; (III) To covertly grant public resources that benefit, directly or indirectly, the media; (IV) To receive any payment, through the provision of advertising, printing, insertions, and other services related to social communication activities, except as provided for in the General Law of Social Communication; and (V) To disseminate advertising contents with any purposes prohibited by the applicable legal provisions. These measures represent, in principle, a historical break with a relationship model that, for decades, has fostered collusion between the media

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and the regime. However, they are not part of a new legal framework on the matter, since they are limited to the Agreement and will not necessarily be in force for longer than this administration. Moreover, although there is greater transparency and a firmer limit on the allocation of spending on advertising, the General Law of Social Communication of 2018 has not changed, and there are still no definitive criteria against the discretional and unequal allocation of resources. This aspect continues to be problematic. According to the annual report of Article 19 (2020), although there has indeed been a very significant reduction in government spending on official advertising during the first year of President López Obrador’s government, of the total expenditure—1.5 billion pesos—one-third was distributed only among three media outlets (TV Azteca, $168.5 million; Televisa, $160 million; and La Jornada, $124.3 million). Furthermore, 52% of the advertising expenditure was concentrated on 15 media outlets and the rest was distributed among 472 organizations, without any explanation. Though President López Obrador’s government has laid important foundations for fracturing the backbone of the relationship model that was based on collusion between the media and the regime, his measures have not translated into new legal reforms. Without further actions, these measures will end up as being no more than the result of López Obrador’s particular—and at times contradictory—style of ruling, rather than real structural changes. In this regard, an example is that, without further consultation or public discussion, the President decreed the return to commercial use of part of the so-called fiscal time allocated to radio broadcasting in April 2020.16 The explanation offered by the president, although clearly insufficient in terms of accountability, denotes another important aspect of 16  The “fiscal times” for broadcasting was a measure implemented by the government of Gustavo Díaz Ordaz in 1969 obliging the media to pay taxes equivalent to a levy of 25% of the invoiced income of the concessionary companies. The alternative to paying this tax was to pay “in kind” by ceding to the government 12.5% of daily broadcasting time which, in principle, would be used for public campaigns. In reality, the government never had the capacity to produce sufficient content to occupy that time, which was not cumulative and which at the end of the day also functioned as a space for negotiation and exchange. During the administration of President Vicente Fox (2000–2006), this agreement was modified and the “fiscal time” in favor of the government was reduced to only 18 minutes of daily broadcasting on television and 35  minutes on radio. Now, with this new Decree of President López Obrador’s, the “fiscal times” have been reduced to 11 minutes for TV and 21 minutes for radio (DOF, 2020).

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his relationship with the media: the government, he said, does not need official advertising, since it keeps a “permanent communication with the people.” Perhaps as part of his learning on the job, Andrés Manuel López Obrador and, above all, because of the role social media began to play as of 2012, his main communication strategy during the years prior to his 2018 electoral victory was based on these platforms. Moreover, during his inaugural speech on July 1st in Mexico City’s main square he thanked what he called “the blessed social networks” for their decisive contribution to his victory. Largely, his social media strategy responded to his distrust in a conventional media structure that, in previous years, but especially during the 2006 campaign, had echoed the propaganda that portrayed him as a “danger to Mexico” and that subsequently set the tone of the coverage he received in the news. At the same time, López Obrador was well aware of the growing indignation against the discredited administration of President Peña Nieto, especially in social media. He knew how to take advantage of it by reinforcing a yearning for change in a digital milieu that was already highly critical of the establishment. In a way, the 2018 electoral process took on a plebiscitary nuance in the social media in favor of or against what promised to be a transformation in the face of corruption, abuse, injustice, and violence. Throughout the campaign, the intensity of the debate in the social media reflected a society that was more participatory, active, and ultimately determined to push for a change. A likely hypothesis is that once in office, President López Obrador may have wanted to bypass the conventional media—which he despised—and instead keep the public conversation within the realm of social media. There are two teams officially in charge of digital communication in the Office of the Presidency of the Republic: one of them is in charge of managing the president’s digital accounts (Twitter, FB, Instagram, YouTube) under the General Directorate of Digital Communication of the President, and the other is in charge of the Federal Government accounts (@ GobiernoMx) under the General Directorate of Communication and Digital Strategy (Arista, 2020). However, since the end of the electoral campaign, a whole network of active supporters, apparently without official links to the government, has been in operation. They constantly function as a sounding board in favor of the government’s positions and as a swarm to counteract criticism. The weekly Proceso, in its June 7, 2020, edition, published as its main report an investigation into the functioning

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of this complex network (San Martín, 2020). According to the magazine, as distinct from President Peña Nieto’s government, when “a strategy of automation (bots) was used to replicate favorable messages, in [López Obrador’s government] his electoral social media network just transformed itself into the Red AMLO (AMLO network), whose aim is to discipline the president’s critics and create informative fences that capture the digital public discussion” (p. 13). This strategy combines perfectly with the President’s communication policy which is based on his daily morning conferences that, in theory, should explain government actions and decisions and openly answer journalists’ questions. At first glance, this exercise might seem to comply with two aspects of democratic government communication: to inform the public about the exercise of government power and the direction of public policy, and to be accountable. However, the space responds to propagandistic purposes and to a polarizing discourse based on simplistic dichotomous categories with strong class elements: the good poor people represented by the President’s project, and the neo-liberals and conservatives associated with obscure and corrupt interests. In this latter group, President López Obrador usually includes many of the national and international printed press—among the most often named are Reforma, El Financiero, El Universal, Grupo Fórmula, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and even Proceso. During the 18 years of the first alternation, the relations between many of the conventional media and the ruling politicians depended on old clientelistic practices of exchange, which helps to explain in part the persistence of deformations in the informative task.17 Since then, President López Obrador has reduced the spending on official advertising and promoted greater transparency, which are crucial to modifying the model. However, such modifications have not paved the way for a relationship of “healthy distance” that should characterize the exchange between media and governments in democratic regimes. In principle, governmental communication in modern democracies should be oriented toward seeking consensus, to uniting wills, to persuading with verifiable data and solid arguments based on inclusive perspectives. In reality, President López Obrador’s communication seems to be more prone to disqualifying all those views and perspectives that do not 17  From a preference for statement over investigation, to not publishing “inconvenient” information against the powerful, to the poverty of sources and the absence of contrast.

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match with his own, refusing to concede and include, fracturing the broad coalition of sectors that voted him into office, becoming increasingly militant and defining, instead, enemies, real and imaginary. In addition, his supporters use the social media to close ranks with him and fuel polarization even further. The reaction of most of the conventional media has not been any better. On the whole, it seems that a good part of these media—in the same way as the opposition—prefer to bet on the return of a status quo ante (the rebuilding of old practices and relations with the Federal Government), rather than profiting from the actual situation in order to fundamentally transform journalistic work. In this sense, the practices of most of the conventional media not only continue to rely on high-ranking politicians’ statements, stories with few sources, providing little contrast, without context and follow-up, but have also been focusing narrowly on highlighting the president’s constant gaffes, his contradictions and the anecdotes of little things that happen during his tours. At the same time, the majority of opinion columns dedicate a good part of their space to pointing out how the president’s obsessions are leading the country toward an unfathomable abyss. More than halfway into the six-year presidential term, the debate on the public agenda seems completely polarized without visible dialogue between increasingly confronted positions. Journalist Jorge Zepeda Patterson defines this “news cycle” as follows (Zepeda Patterson, 2020). From seven to nine in the morning the president makes a list of all the infamies committed against his government, responds to the attacks and opens new fronts […] In the following 22 hours, social networks, political columns and radio newscasts examine, draw consequences, ridicule and/or distort what the president said. The next day the cycle repeats… For a long time, I believed that at some point the president would put things right and invoke true concord, as he had done in his opening speech. However, it is becoming increasingly clear that he conceives of social change as a fight against vested interests. [For him] the intensity of resistance from his adversaries confirms that he is achieving his aims. And when his social policies and acts of government fail to generate that noise, he makes sure he gets it through the next provocation … An endless cycle.

Thus, insofar as the second alternation has not promoted any substantial change toward an accountable exercise of power, the media landscape maintains both the diversity and the conditioned independence of the

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previous period. What has changed, though, is that now the conditioning of independence no longer comes from the collusion of interests between media and government (as during the first alternation). The challenge comes from a perverse game that has arisen between the new governmental communication policy (centralized, austere, and aggressive) and militant rather than informative media with the same limitations in their professional journalistic work as in previous periods.

Final Remarks In a process of transition, the media, like other important actors, have the possibility of agency at different moments of uncertainty within certain structural limits. In Mexico, an unconsolidated democracy, these moments of uncertainty have occurred both during the processes of political liberalization and at the beginning of the two alternations (2000–2018 and 2018). During liberalization and the first alternation, most of the conventional media chose to maintain convenient exchanges with political actors (economic support for favorable coverage) instead of pushing for democratic consolidation through better professional information practices and functions. As for working practices, the predominant journalistic style relied heavily on notes rather than on any other genre, on declarations of officials rather than on research, using few sources, providing little contrast, and a lack of follow-up information. As for the functions, the economic and political interests of the owners and editors and their relationships with powerful groups, usually distorted the watchdog role of journalism. As a result, although there emerged an acceptably diverse media landscape, the independence of a large number of the conventional media remained conditioned and limited. Further, things do not seem to have improved during the second alternation, in which, although the use of official advertising as a key element of the old exchanges has been reduced, it has not been possible to lay the foundations for a functional relationship of respect for and distance from the media. In the context of a democracy that still lacks effective mechanisms of accountability, the media system maintains acceptable levels of diversity—not only because of the number of organizations, but also because of their ideological plurality (especially the digital natives)—while at the same time it has failed to consolidate its independence. The reasons have to do both with the new governmental communication policy and with the militant role many conventional press outlets have decided to

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adopt against the government. The outcome preserves the old vicious practices of journalism, and a large number of media are more interested in exhibiting the failures of the government than in informing society.

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DOF (2019b, April 17). Acuerdo por el que se establece la Política de Comunicación Social del Gobierno Federal. Diario Oficial de la Federación. https://dof.gob. mx/nota_detalle.php?codigo=5558048&fecha=17/04/2019. DOF (2020, April 23). Decreto por el que se autoriza a la Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito Público a recibir de los concesionarios de estaciones de radio y de televisión el pago del impuesto que se indica. Diario Oficial de la Federación. http://dof. gob.mx/nota_detalle.php?codigo=5592117&fecha=23/04/2020. Dunn, J. (1999). Situating democratic political accountability. In A. Przeworski, S. C. Stokes, & B. Manin (Eds.), Democracy, accountability and representation, Cambridge studies in the theory of democracy. Cambridge University Press. Dussauge, M. (2010). Combate a la corrupción y rendición de cuentas: avances, limitaciones, pendientes y retrocesos. In J.  L. Méndez (Coord.). Políticas públicas (pp. 207–252). México: El Colegio de México. FUNDAR. (2019). La nueva política de comunicación social es un paso importante pero insuficiente. FUNDAR.  Retrieved from https://fundar.org.mx/ comunicacion-­social-­publicidad-­oficial/ Granados Chapa, M.  A. (1981). Examen de la comunicación en México. El Caballito. Guadarrama, M. (2019). Publicidad oficial, ¿cuánto cuesta desinformar? IMCO. Retrieved from https://imco.org.mx/publicidad-­oficialcuanto-­cuesta-­des-­informar/ Guerrero, M. A. (2010). Los medios de comunicación y el régimen político. In S. Loaeza & J. Prud’homme (Coords.) Los grandes problemas de México (Vol. 14, pp. 231–300). Guerrero, M.  A. (2014). The liberal captured model of media systems in Latin America. In M. A. Guerrero & M. Márquez Ramírez (Eds.), Media systems and communication policies in Latin America. Palgrave. Guerrero, M.  A. (2019). Democracia y Medios: El papel del periodismo. In Cuadernos de Divulgación de la Cultura Democrática (Vol. 34). Instituto Nacional Electoral. Hallin, D.  C., & Mancini, P. (2004). Comparing media systems: Three models of media and politics. Cambridge University Press. Hobson, C. (2003). Rethinking democracy: The end of democratic transition? Melbourne Journal of Politics, 29, 56–67. Keane, J. (2013). Democracy and media decadence. Cambridge University Press. Levitsky, S., & Way, L.  A. (2002). The rise of competitive authoritarianism. Journal of Democracy, 13(2), 51–65. Loaeza, S. (1987). El Partido Acción Nacional: de la oposición leal a la impaciencia electoral. La vida política mexicana en la crisis, 77–106. Mazzuca, S. L. (2010). Access to power versus exercise of power: Reconceptualizing the quality of democracy in Latin America. Studies in Comparative International Development, 45(3), 334–357.

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Merino, M. (1999). Corrupción y servicio profesional en México: una mirada desde la cultura política. Bien Común y Gobierno, 5(56). Møller, J., & Skaaning, S. E. (2012). Systematizing thin and thick conceptions of the rule of law. Justice System Journal, 33(2), 136–153. Møller, J., & Skanning, S. E. (2010). Beyond the radial delusion: Conceptualizing and measuring democracy and non-democracy. International Political Science Review, 31(3), 261–283. Munck, G. L. (2016). What is democracy? A reconceptualization of the quality of democracy. Democratization, 23(1), 1–26. Negrine, R., & Papathanassopoulos, S. (2005). The Americanization of political communication: A critique. In R.  Negrine & J.  Stanyer (Eds.), The political communication reader (pp. 102–106). Routledge. Norris, P. (2012). Making democratic governance work: How regimes shape prosperity, welfare, and peace. Cambridge University Press. O’Donnell, G. (1999). Polyarchies and the (un) rule of law in Latin America. In J.  Mendez, G.  O’Donnell, & P.  S. Pinheiro (Eds.), The rule of law and the underprivileged in Latin America. Notre Dame Press. O‘Donnell, G. (1998). Horizontal accountability and new polyarchies. [Working Paper 253]. Helen Kellogg Institute for International Studies, University of Notre Dame. O’Donnell, G., & Schmitter, P. (1986). Transitions from authoritarian rule (Tentative conclusions about uncertain democracies) (Vol. 4). Johns Hopkins University Press. Pardo, M. C. (2009). Los mecanismos de rendición de cuentas en el ámbio ejecutivo de gobierno. www.rendiciondecuentas.cide.edu Pickel, S., Breustedt, W., & Smolka, T. (2016). Measuring the quality of democracy: Why include the citizens‘ perspective? International Political Science Review, 37(5), 645–655. Plasser, F. (2002). Global political campaigning: A worldwide analysis of campaign professionals and their practices. Praeger. Redacción, A. N. (2012, May 18). El estudiante que cuestionó, ‗¿cuál es el candidato de Televisa? Aristegui Noticias. Retrieved from https://aristeguinoticias. com/1806/mexico/el-­e studiante-­q ue-­c uestiono-­c ual-­e s-­e l-candidatodel-­televisa/ San Martín, N. (2020, June 7). El ‗ejército‘ presidencial en Twitter, de los ‗bots‘ a una red de carne y hueso. Proceso, 2275, 12–16. Siebert, F., Peterson, T., & Schramm, W. (1956). Four theories of the press. The authoritarian, libertarian, social responsibility and soviet communist concepts of what the press should be and do. Books for Libraries Press. Smith, P., & Ziegler, M. (2008). Liberal and illiberal democracy in Latin America. Latin American Politics and Society, 50(1), 31–57. Vaca, M. (2017). Four theories of the press: 60 years and counting. Routledge.

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Villalpando, A., & Morales, C. (2020, August 3). Recortes presupuestales: los costos del ahorro. Este País. Retrieved from: https://estepais.com/home-­ slider/recortes-presupuestales-los-costos-del-ahorro/. Voltmer, K. (2013). The media in transitional democracies. Polity Press. WJP. (2020). Índice de Estado de Derecho 2019–2020. Hallazgos. WJP. Retrieved from https://worldjusticeproject.mx/wp-­content/uploads/2020/04/mx-­ insights-­full-­2.pdf Zepeda Patterson, J. (2020, June 17). López Obrador como catarsis o ¿por qué se pelea el presidente? El País. Retrieved from https://elpais.com/ opinion/2020-­06-­17/lopez-­obrador-­como-­catarsis-­o-­por-­que-­se-­pelea-­el-­ presidente.html

CHAPTER 3

Legal Protection of the Freedom of Expression in Mexico During the Alternation: Progress with No Results Salvador DeLeón-Vázquez

The premise of this study is that the political alternation in Mexico that started in 2000 facilitated an expansion of the catalogue of laws that protect the freedom of expression, establishing the necessary legal framework for the work of social communication to be practiced in accordance with democratic standards. The increase in the number of laws represents significant progress from the situation in the second half of the twentieth century; however, ironically, it has not been enough to eliminate the main problems, such as violence against journalists, the precariousness of journalists’ work, a lack of accountability for public information, or discrimination and hate speech and the non-protection of digital rights. Why has this happened? This is the question that this chapter will try to answer. For this study, the socio-political processes of the last 20  years were reconstructed, especially in respect of the enactment of laws, in an attempt

S. DeLeón-Vázquez (*) Universidad Autónoma de Aguascalientes, Aguascalientes, Mexico e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 M. Echeverria, R. A. Gonzalez (eds.), Media and Politics in Post-Authoritarian Mexico, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36441-9_3

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to establish evaluative elements. Also, updated legal instruments were analyzed and contrasted with data regarding journalistic practice, taking into consideration that this is one of the most important modalities for the exercise of freedom of expression. The text is divided into four sections. The first provides a background and a review of checkpoints, identifying the body of knowledge published on the freedom of expression in Mexico. The second corresponds to the explicative methodology implemented. The third gives the results of the analysis, starting with a socio-historical reconstruction of the process of the legal-political definition of social communication at a federal level, showing how it permeated down to subnational levels in the formation of local legal instruments, and the implications for both of these levels. The fourth section presents an overall discussion.

The Alternation as a Point of Inflection in the Media Opening The second half of the twentieth century represented a stage of institutional consolidation for Mexico, but in fact, the democracy of the time was simulated. The period is known as that of the one-party regime. The Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) was imposed as the government of Mexico through a corporative apparatus and patronage, that controlled all the activities in the country, including the information and communication systems. This domination in the political area corresponded to arrangements in the economy, with the adoption of the industrialization development model and then that of import substitution, imposed in order to protect, and at the same time to control, production and domestic markets. In the same way, in the space of communications, a style of political and governmental communication came into play that reduced media and informative systems to being a corporative sector of the party, making them voices for the regime’s propaganda (Carreño, 2000). This was called news officialism and consisted of the reproduction of bulletins issued by state institutions (Hallin, 2000). By the end of the 1980s and during the 1990s, political, economic, and cultural conditions started to change Mexico. The railway workers’ movement of 1958, the students’ movement of 1968, the social movement caused by the earthquake of 1985, and the electoral fraud of 1988 created

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a more empowered civil society. Electoral processes were established on the basis of demands for democracy and for free trade with other countries, with the objective being that of creating a press that would question presidential power, but would also help to break the corporatism of the PRI, weaken the State as a part of neoliberal policy, and finally, open the borders to the global free market (Aguilar, 2005; Alonso, 1995; Camp, 2006; Cansino, 1998; Levy & Bruhn, 2006; Ramírez, 1995). The space of communications also suffered changes because of these political and economic transformations. The strong alliances between Mexican presidential power and the media sector that were established during the second half of the twentieth century had consolidated the media sector in the business sense, but put at risk the freedom of expression, auscultation, and research through different procedures into the propaganda apparatus of the State (Bohmann, 1994; Fernández, 1993). By the end of the twentieth century, and as a result of the weaknesses of State power because of the adoption of new liberal ideas, the Mexican press had a critical awakening,1 and new journalistic projects distinct from the official propaganda were created (Bohmann, 1994; Demers, 2000; Trejo, 1996). Table  3.1 heuristically synthesizes the determinants and effects in the space of communications during the process of the transformations. The new century started with alternation in the federal government, which also represented the beginning of a recognition of the lack of any formalization of the guarantees to protect the rights and freedoms of information and communication. Changes were not automatic. They were the consequences of battles, claims, and demands made both by Mexican society and from abroad that were able to come into play with a reformulation of the political space. In 1995, the Law of Social Communications started a revision of the Law on the Press and the Federal Law for Radio and Television; and it also started regulation of the right of information (Gutiérrez, 2005). All these changes were proposed in a reform of the State that in the end was not completed.

1  Projects of critical journalism have always been present in the Mexican media space. Examples are the case of the magazine Proceso and that of the newspapers Unomasuno and La Jornada, whose development was a consequence of an attack on the newspaper Excelsior for its position of questioning the State.

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Table 3.1  Interrelated effects that contributed to the configuration of public communications in contemporary Mexico Manifestation Second half of the twentieth Most recent period century (twentieth–twenty-first century) Determinants Economic

Political

Closed economy in the national space mainly characterized by the industrialization model and import substitution Belonged to a single party at all levels of government

Sociocultural

Effect

Closed public space characterized by official representation of the tendencies of the day Public Communications media communication and information systems subordinated to the government through mechanisms of domination to control information

Open economy with global market participation

The beginning of a political alternation process at different levels More open public space, decentralization of politics and public actors; for this, the representation of events Communications media and information systems become freer. Simultaneously and paradoxically, the control of information mechanisms has become more sophisticated

Source: DeLeón-Vázquez (2011, p. 46)

However, this effort represented an impulse that helped to bring the need to regulate the right of information into public discussion, as it was recognized in the Constitution but without a legal instrument to make it obligatory. In 2002, the first Federal Law on Transparency and Access to Public Information was enacted (Gutiérrez, 2005; Ramírez, 2008). The procedure was adopted after debates between civil society groups and political parties were finally reconciled. A topic not included in the formulation was the legal enforcement of the right of information of the audiences of the media as private companies. Media entrepreneurs had (and still have) factual power, which it is hard to override (Esteinou, 2015) because of the political profit that media visibility can give to public actors (Gutiérrez, 2005). The solution that was negotiated to prevent the media entrepreneurs from opposing the Law

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was to direct the regulation toward access to public information from the government, and this was seen as a politically correct solution (Gutiérrez, 2005), which meant in effect that the only party assuming an obligation was the State. The resulting mechanism would allow the media and citizens to monitor and scrutinize the federal government. Another discussion took place during the process of the creation of the Law. To start with, there were two different proposals for the text of the act; the first was a citizens’ proposal, in which civil organizations, journalists, and academics belonging to the Grupo Oaxaca took part; according to Ramírez (2008), this proposal was the most advanced and comprehensive of the two; and it was taken under the wing of lawmakers from the opposition party Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD) who would present the initiative to the federal congress. On the other side of the political spectrum, the renovated party Acción Nacional (PAN) formulated its own proposal. The wording of the Federal Law on Transparency and Access to Public Information that was later passed resulted from a negotiation between the two. This event was the beginning of two decades of political alternation in Mexico, when the regulations for social communication were formulated and revised. A diachronic analysis of the strengthening of the legal body on this subject, and its problems, will be presented in the following lines.

Methodology A documental review was conducted to establish the chronology of the creation of legal instruments on social communication; by contextualizing them it was possible to recognize that they responded to social and political reorganizations, and to reformulations of public policy during the last two decades. The review allowed us to establish that there was sufficient analysis related to federal legislation on social communication; and this was included in our work (Álvarez, 2018; Arroyo, 2015; Brambila, 2018; Gómez, 2018; Hincapié & López, 2018; Huerta & Becerra, 2016; Lay, 2013; Torres, 2011). However, there is a gap in the knowledge relating to state laws or the subnational entities. For this reason, an argumentative or formal exploratory analysis was conducted to cover it (DeLeón-­ Vázquez, 2020b). To be able to apply the analysis to the subnational level, a reflection that could be applied as a hypothesis was made; it consists of considering that

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the subnational concerns for constructing legal frameworks for social communication derive from the way in which debates on transparency, accountability, access to information, the protection of journalists, and regulations for government publicity, among others, have trickled down from the federal level. This consideration worked in two ways: one was through the legal obligation to fit in with the federal rules, for example with regard to access to information and personal data protection, and the other was due to the impulse of each locality and region to have protection for rights of information and communication that are not necessarily recognized or regulated at the federal level. A third aspect to be considered is that a complete approach to protection of the freedom of expression in Mexico requires taking into account how the federal and subnational levels of government interact, and seeing how public policies are formalized in both cases (Augusto et  al., 2017; Ríos & Soto, 2017; Rolandi & Merello, 2017). This information contributes to understanding the different forms and contexts of modernization, and degrees of progress in the various regions of the country (González & Echeverría, 2017). To systematize the information, an argumentative or formal analysis of subnational legal documents was conducted. This approach is one that seeks to understand how topics and premises in a text are structured and organized (Rapley, 2014); it consists of separating the discourse into sentences to be able to identify the structural and thematic relations in it (Thompson, 1998; van Emeren et al., 2001). The units of analysis chosen were the legal instruments of the subnational entities, and for the analysis, five categories were created: (1) accountability and data protection; (2) governmental communication; (3) freedom of expression and the rights of audiences; (4) regulations for media and audiovisual industries; (5) digital rights and electronic, digital and open government. These categories resulted from the synthetic integration of three theoretical criteria (DeLeón-Vázquez, 2020a, 2020b), as will be explained next. In the first place, the typology proposed by Hallin and Mancini (2004) was applied to the legislation for media systems in the Western States: (1) laws on defamation, privacy, and the right to reply; (2) hate speech laws; (3) laws on professional secrecy and the journalist’s conscience; (4) laws on access to governmental information; (5) laws that regulate the concentration, ownership, and competition of the media; (6) laws that regulate electoral campaigns and political communications; and (7) laws on licenses and concessions for broadcasting.

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The second criterion corresponds to the UNESCO (2010) indicators for the media development; one of which is the legal framework for regulating the media systems and guaranteeing the rights and freedoms of information and communication. UNESCO divides this category into (a) the legal and political framework; (b) the regulatory system for broadcasting; (c) laws of defamation and other legal restrictions on journalists; and (d) censorship. The third criterion corresponds to what is established in articles Six and Seven of the Political Constitution of the United Mexican States, where the following guarantees are recognized: (a) the right to have access to information: (b) the freedom to share ideas; (c) access to technologies of information and communication, broadcasting services, and telecommunications; (d) the protection of personal data; (e) rights of the users of telecommunications and audiences; and (f) the prohibition of censorship. On the basis of these methodological formulations, a diachronic review was conducted of the legislative processes undertaken to protect the freedom of expression, and also of how the legal framework for the operation of social communication was established. In the next section, the general findings of this analysis will be presented.

Progress Without Results Three Moves to Advance the Laws on Social Communications in Mexico In the two decades that have passed since the start of political alternation in the Mexican democracy, there have been several transformations in different areas. In the case of social communication and its legal framework, especially concerning the defense of rights and the recognition of freedoms, it is very clear that there were three important moves. The first move consisted of the promulgation of the Federal Law on Transparency and Access to Governmental Public Information, in 2002. The law was significant because it ended a conflict, that had started in the 1970s, over obtaining a regulatory instrument that would make it possible to require information, and the refusal to give it punishable. Also, the regulation improved, with the formation of the necessary institutional structure for its operation. To this effect, an autonomous citizens’ organism known as IFAI, the Instituto Federal de Acceso a la Información (the

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Federal Institute of Access to Information) was set up, responsible for guaranteeing compliance with the Law, and resolving conflicts. Promulgation of the Law on Transparency at a federal level led to the creation of laws on transparency in every region of the country; in the light of the federal Law, their unequal modernization in terms of the dynamics of their communications, became apparent (González & Echeverría, 2017). While some entities, like Jalisco, were able to integrate advanced legislation from the start, that turned out to be “one of the best in the country” (Gómez, 2007, p. 50), in other states, like Aguascalientes, there were strong critiques by the IFAI because of its limitations, with the Aguascalientes law coming to be considered the worst in the country, with a recommendation not to copy it (Rodríguez, 2005). It was also necessary to create mechanisms to make the Law effective in every state of the federation, and autonomous organisms to monitor its application. Over time, state regulations kept being modified until the constitutional reform of 2013, when all the laws on Transparency of the states became uniform in alignment with the federal law. The second move was related to the electoral reform of 2007. The polemical results of the presidential election of 2006 and questions that had arisen with regard to the behavior of the media during the campaigns (Tribunal Electoral del Poder Judicial de la Federación, 2008) motivated the revision and reform of the Federal Code of Electoral Institutions and Procedures, adding new rules to the use of radio and television during campaigns. The most important change was the prohibition against hiring space in radio and television, instead of which, interested parties would have to use official time that media would have to grant by order of the State: IFE [Instituto Federal Electoral] is the only authority at a federal and local level in charge of distributing and assigning the State’s shares of time for electoral purposes. It also prohibits political parties, pre-candidates, and candidates, from contracting or acquiring, on behalf of themselves or for other persons, times on radio or television, in any modality. Neither are the leaders or members of a party, nor natural or legal persons, allowed to contract times for personal promotion with electoral aims or to influence the electoral preferences of citizens. (Ramos et al., 2008, p. 53)

The measure was opposed by media entrepreneurs because it involved the cancelation of propaganda for electoral campaigns during elections.

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Carpizo (2008) reports that 95% of the public money received by the parties in the election of 2006 was used to contract radio and television space and alludes to the fight put up by the media entrepreneurs not only against the financial losses incurred but also against the limitation on their continued influence in elections. This influence was also recognized by Cantú (2005) according to whom, the Mexican media had represented themselves as “the great elector” up until then, because, as Echeverría & Bañuelos-Ramírez (2017) and Echeverría, et al. (2021) realized, and discussed, coverage bias, that is, the unequal amount of space designated to parties and candidates, and other practices of political publicity, seem to have a crucial effect on the final decision to vote taken by citizens. The electoral reform of this second move occurred in the broader framework of a reform of the State. As a part of which, the Law on Transparency and Access to Governmental Public Information was revised in order to make modifications and establish better conditions: among others, the anonymity of the request for information would be guaranteed, the figure of the positiva ficta (fictional affirmative) was introduced, and the deadlines for responding were fixed. In 2007, another relevant step in the progress made during this period was the addition of the Seventh Paragraph to Constitutional Article 134 to regulate governmental propaganda.2 Until that moment, there had been no criteria for establishing an operational framework for institutional broadcasting. For this reason, it was common for officials to encourage a positive media image of themselves on a discretional basis (DeLeón-­ Vázquez, 2012; Maldonado, 2018). The “Televisa Law,” a name given to it by the Mexican press, was another significant episode during this period. It was a decisive move in limiting the de facto power that media entrepreneurs had enjoyed; the process started with the formation of a “tele-bancada,” a group of legislators in favor of the interests of radio and television companies, whose job was to lobby for them inside the Congress. In 2006, Congress presented a proposal to reform the Federal Law on Radio and Television, using their support. Through this initiative they intended to facilitate broadcasters as 2  Paragraph Seven states: “Propaganda, issued under any modality of social communication, by public authorities, autonomous bodies, agencies and entities of the public administration or any other subject of the three levels of government, as such, should have an institutional character and serve informative, educational or socially oriented purposes. In no case will this propaganda include names, images, voices or symbols that imply the personal promotion of any public official.”

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providers of telecommunication services in the modality of triple play (television, telephone, and internet) and replace the cable television companies that already offered these services. The two chambers of Congress approved it; however, some senators of the Republic brought a case to the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation on the grounds of the law was going against the constitution. The magistrates recognized the unconstitutional nature of the reform and ordered the Congress to revoke it and never legislate on the subject in the same way again (Esteinou, 2009; Lay, 2013; Madrazo & Zambrano, 2007). In 2012, the elaboration and publication of the Federal Law on Journalists and Defenders of Protection for Human Rights ended this stage. During the presidential administration of Felipe Calderón (2006–2012) a great crisis of exacerbated violence was presented all over the country as the result of a frontal war against drug trafficking cartels (Pereyra, 2012; Pérez, 2011); in this context, activists and journalists became vulnerable groups subject to aggressions, from threats to murder. Groups of civil society in and out of the country demanded the State create a mechanism to protect journalists. The federal government elaborated it but avoided its application until the last months of the presidency of Calderón. The third great move corresponds to the constitutional reform of 2013. It transformed the institutional architecture of social communication in Mexico to a great extent and allowed separate aspects to be joined. As part of this reform, major modifications were made to Articles Six and Seven of the Political Constitution, that safeguard Mexican citizens’ rights and freedoms of information and communication. The reform was promoted by President Enrique Peña Nieto (2012–2018), but it is not possible to ignore the influence on its creation of the demands of citizens and the opposition to Peña Nieto’s candidacy which had taken shape in the youth movement #YoSoy132, led by university students. One of the causes that held the movement together was that of democratization of the media. Some of the media had said that the students who objected to Peña Nieto’s admission of responsibility for the act of repression in 2006 were not students but agents provocateurs, hired by political forces hostile Peña Nieto in his campaign to become President, but this was a lie that the students themselves cleared up in social media. Even though the movement #YoSoy132 was an important event leading up to the reform, it is necessary to note the existence of internal and external influences pushing the State to modernize its media and

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telecommunication regulations and open the industry up (Huerta & Becerra, 2016). As a result of this, all the legislation on electronic communication media was updated when the Federal Law on Telecommunications and Broadcasting was implemented, and the autonomous Federal Institute of Telecommunications (IFT), which has the faculties to grant and regulate concessions for radio, television, and broadcasting, with transparency, was created. There was no precedent for the IFT in Mexico, and before this reform, the Federal Executive Power had been in charge of concessions, acting discretionally in support of the elite made up of media entrepreneurs (Esteinou, 2015). Also, the newly created Law on Economic Competition served to complement the Law on Telecommunications and Broadcasting in relation to the industrial sector. According to what is established in the Law, the Federal Commission on Economic Competition (COFECE) and the IFT review the involvement of different companies in the market, to prevent them from forming a monopoly in the sector. The reform also established changes having to do with access to public information, which meant a suspension of the Law on Transparency and Access to Public information in order to create a new regulation more in line with the new spirit of Article Six of the Constitution. The creation of the General Law for the Protection of Personal Data in the Possession of Regulated Entities helped to detail this scheme. This new law complements the existing Law on Transparency and obliges all institutions in the country to establish measures for data of this kind not to be used, for any purpose, without the permission of the persons they refer to. The category of regulated entities includes the media and in general any instance that needs to keep the personal data of citizens to do its work. Later, in 2018, the General Law on Social Communication was issued as part of the same dynamic. With this, the legal framework of Paragraph Seven, Article 134, mentioned earlier, was established. During the process through which these three moves in establishing the legal definition of social communication in Mexico took place, there were inevitably still present the old discussions of the twentieth century. The main focus was on the high concentration of media ownership that had fostered an oligopoly. This can be seen in there being a controlled market, without much competition and with a dominant business élite who have shown a great capacity for political lobbying and protecting their economic interests (Huerta & Becerra, 2016).

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According to Huerta and Becerra (2016) all three moves, but mainly the constitutional reform of 2013 and the subsequent laws on regulation, created a new framework of relations based on four factors: (1) the recognition of the rights of audiences to have access to information, to media, to digital networks, and to accountability; (2) an institutional framework of autonomous organisms, specialized courts, and a public Mexican State broadcasting system; (3) regulation of competition and convergence taking into account foreign investment, the dominance of economic power, and new obligations, for example, “must carry” and “must offer,” the transition to digital television, and other matters, and (4) strengthening of the State as regulator and operator of the radio-electronic spectrum, broadband, and networks. By contrast, some aspects appeared that could be interpreted as risking a decrease in the rights of citizens. An example of this is in Title Eight of the Federal Law on Telecommunications and Broadcasting called “Collaboration with Justice”; it was established in this section that in cases of danger to public security, the telecommunications grantees would be obliged to reveal and share with the State, contents shared by users, data, and the location of mobile equipment, or even to interrupt the service. This is related to the State spying on citizens, particularly in mass mobilizations as in the case of the #YoSoy132 movement. This may be understood as a strategy by the State to disactivate the techno-political movements that “do not use technology as something complementary but as something synergic”; what happens in situ and what happens online are interwoven dimensions of the same phenomenon (Rovira, 2017, p. 137). Another mixed picture is seen in the General Law on Social Communications, whose objective was to regulate the government’s budgetary control of advertising. However, the law has wide gaps that have motivated arguments between commentators and actors in the public space (Fundar, 2019). The legal instrument does not present clear mechanisms for the distribution of public resources among the media, which continues to encourage discretionality instead of eliminating it. Another problematical issue is the obligation to sign up to a register of media held by Secretaría de Gobernación (Ministry of Interior) as a requirement for being contracted to provide official advertising, which can be interpreted as a form of government control over the media and journalists. For these reasons, the Court declared it unconstitutional and ordered its cancellation in 2021.

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The Freedom of Speech in Constant Crisis Even though expansion of the legal catalogue on social communication in Mexico has been fundamental to having a legal and institutional structure that provides certainty, it has not been enough. In actual practice, freedom of expression is seriously compromised in Mexico. There is evidence for this statement in the constant limitations and aggressions suffered by journalists, critical social media, and citizens exercising their rights on digital nets; as shown in the next section. Detailed analysis allows two great causes of the situation to be identified. First there is the authoritarianism or cacique attitude of state governors (Espino & Mendoza, 2015). These actors tend to punish the journalists’ critique by measures such as the withdrawal of government advertising, bringing legal charges against informants, or making threats and direct aggressions (Article 19, 2021a). Second, the weak State has lost its monopoly on the use of force because other illegal and paralegal agents act violently—often extremely—against citizens and especially against groups that disturb their interests, such as the press (Reguillo, 2013). With regard to the first cause, a solid body of research has documented the main forms of restriction of the freedom of expression at local and regional levels. These studies show the repeated use of agreements for advertising made between state governments and media elites as an instrument to control journalistic contents; there is evidence of this practice in Nayarit (Orozco, 2007), Sinaloa (Rodelo, 2009), Aguascalientes (DeLeón-Vázquez, 2011), Michoacán (González, 2013), Querétaro (Espino & Mendoza, 2015), Veracruz (Del Palacio, 2015), Jalisco (Hernández, 2016), Baja California (Merchant, 2018), Tamaulipas (Cepeda, 2017), and Estado de México (Maldonado, 2018), as well as elsewhere. The agreements for advertising are based on the profitability of political publicity which is far greater than that of commercial advertising (DeLeón-­ Vázquez, 2003). These studies show that political advertising is the main means of existence of local and regional media. Advertising agreements involve much more than publishing official information; they require favorable coverage and concealing compromising information; also, censorship and self-censorship, which injures the freedom of expression directly. Another characteristic of these agreements is their opacity. It is difficult to get hold of an original document, as it tends to have clauses that prohibit even mentioning its existence.

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With regard to the second cause, every year Mexico is declared to be one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists. UNESCO (2018) has for several years identified Mexico as occupying first place in the murder of journalists. Figure 3.1 presents comparative data of crimes against Mexican journalists according to information provided by the special prosecutor for attention to crimes against the freedom of expression, Fiscalía Especial para la Atención de Delitos contra la Libertad de Expresión (FEADLE, 2021) and the international civil organization Article 19 (2021b). Figure 3.1 shows that there is a difference between official FEADLE statistics and those of Article 19. This difference is the result of there being no systematic register of the crimes. One important issue is that perpetrators are not punished; this creates an atmosphere of impunity for aggressions suffered, a situation that got worse during the COVID-19 pandemic (Article 19, 2020). 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021

0

Article 19

FEADLE

Fig. 3.1  Murder of journalists in Mexico, figures according to FEADLE and Article 19, 2000–2021. Note. FEADLE was created in 2010; this is why data are presented starting then. Source: Created by the author with data from FEADLE (2021) and Article 19 (2021b)

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Violence against informants is not limited to murders, which are its most extreme expression. According to official statistics, between 2010 and 2021, there were 1426 cases of aggression against journalists; but only 263 cases led to criminal proceedings, in another 297 charges were not brought for several reasons, and in 62 cases, alternative solutions were found (FEADLE, 2021). Leaving a large number of cases still open. Table  3.2 shows the 39 crimes against journalists recognized by FEADLE (2021). The information in Table 3.2 shows some offenses that are of concern both because of the impact they have and for the frequency with which they are committed. Murders (99 cases) and attempted murders (21 cases), kidnapping (9 cases), illegal deprivation of liberty (72 cases), injuries (109 cases), and threats (643 cases) show different ways in which journalists are directly attacked. Then there is the abuse of authority (196 cases) in attacks made by agents of the State, and also, crimes relating to illegal access to equipment (22 cases), forced entry (10 cases), damage to property (58 cases), robbery (99 cases), intervention in private communications (5 cases), and the disclosure of secrets (3 cases), which show damage done to equipment, data, and infrastructure. This situation has generated the following dynamics: 1. A recognition that violence against reporters in Mexico comes from two great apparatuses: from the State through its agents, and from organized crime. Journalists are caught between two fronts, which makes them vulnerable and forces them to keep quiet (Brambila, 2018; Cepeda, 2017; Del Palacio, 2018; Ramírez, 2018; Rodelo, 2009). 2. The inaction of institutions has forced the most affected journalists to form self-organized networks to learn how to protect themselves (DeLeón-Vázquez et  al., 2018; González de Bustamante, 2014; Martínez & Ramos, 2020). 3. In practice, the mechanism to protect journalists provided by the law has been shown to have faults deriving from the lack of political will to provide it with resources and efficient protection. In addition to the federal mechanism for the protection of journalists, 12 states have assumed the responsibility of formulating their own local laws to resolve this problem in line with their competences (see Table 3.3). Because of the bad experiences journalists have had when they asked for

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Table 3.2  Total number of criminal investigations of offenses against journalists in Mexico, 2010–2021 No.

Offense

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34.

Abuse of authority Illicit access to systems and i.t. equipment Forced entry Threats Attack on public spaces of communication Against honor Against administration of justice Harm of persons defending human rights Damage to property Organized crime Denunciation of possibly criminal acts Improper exercise of public service Illegal enrichment Extorsion Falsification of declarations Falsification of documents Homicide Sexual harassment or sexual abuse Intervention in private communications Bullying (intimidation) Injuries General Law of National Assets Retail drug dealing Illegal deprivation of liberty Disclosure of secrets Robbery Kidnapping Attempted damage to property Attempted extorsion Attempted homicide Attempted illegal deprivation of liberty Attempted robbery Attempted kidnapping Cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishments Usurpation of functions Violation of correspondence Violation of the law on firearms and explosives Violation of the Federal Law on Copyright Torture Total

35. 36. 37. 38. 39.

Inquest 196 22 10 643 4 1 4 1 58 3 2 2 1 1 3 2 99 1 5 4 109 10 1 72 3 99 9 1 1 21 3 1 1 4 2 4 11 4 5 1426

Source: Fiscalía Especial para la Atención de Delitos contra la Libertad de Expresión (FEADLE, 2021)

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Table 3.3  State laws to protect journalists and defenders of human rights State

Name of the law

Mexico city Law to provide integral protection of persons defending human rights, and journalists, in Mexico City Coahuila Law to protect journalists of both sexes in the State of Coahuila de Zaragoza Durango State law to protect journalists and persons defending human rights Guanajuato Law to protect persons defending human rights, and journalists, of the state of Guanajuato Guerrero Law number 489 to protect persons at risk in the state of Guerrero Hidalgo Law for the protection of persons defending human rights and a safeguard for the rights needed for the practice of journalism Jalisco Law to protect persons defending human rights, and journalists, in the state of Jalisco Michoacán Law to protect persons defending human rights, and journalists, in the state of Michoacán Morelos Law to protect persons defending human rights, and journalists, in the state of Morelos Nayarit Law to protect persons defending human rights, and journalists, in the state of Nayarit Tamaulipas Law to protect persons defending human rights, and journalists, in the state of Tamaulipas Veracruz Law of the State Commission for attention to and protection of journalists

Starting date August 10th, 2015 July 18th, 2014 December 25th, 2014 October 26th, 2017 August 26th, 2014 August 27th, 2012 December 17th, 2016 August 18th, 2018 August 20th, 2018 July 27th, 2017 December 1st, 2017 December 3rd, 2012

Source. DeLeón-Vázquez and González (2020)

the protection of these laws, the doubt remains as to whether their enactment was for political gain, or came as the result of special pressures, or was out of a genuine concern for the reporters (DeLeón-Vázquez & González, 2020). The elaboration of these laws is an indicator of the participation by states of the federation in the protection of reporters, but the unequal transition to democracy has created lags, more in some regions than in others (González & Echeverría, 2017). This means that the mechanisms are applied with different degrees of efficacy, and so the violence continues. This feeds the mistrust of journalists anywhere in the country, who ask for the protection of these mechanisms in the knowledge that personal

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measures of self-protection will be more effective (DeLeón-Vázquez & González, 2020; González & Reyna, 2019). The implementation of local measures has shown at least seven problematic aspects that obstruct effectiveness, according to DeLeón-Vázquez & González (2020): (a) Insufficient funds for mechanisms of protection, or their unavailability when required. (b) The bureaucratic process, as it acts by request, not by procedure. (c) Slowness in the process of granting protection to journalists at risk. (d) Procedures that are too easy for perpetrators to predict: guards at fixed hours, signing in on specific days, registers, etc. (e) Penalties against journalists receiving protection should they give it up on the grounds that the measures to be taken are not safe. (f) The limiting definition of a journalist established in the laws, focusing on paid journalism, which leaves other ways of exercising the trade defenseless. (g) The omission from the laws of any mention of censorship as the principal cause of violence against journalists, which encourages the criminalization of the victims by questioning their activity of publishing information. Cybernetic attacks and cyber spies are of great concern because they put at risk the information and data that journalists have in their keeping. Between 2015 and 2016, the Mexican State installed the spy software Pegasus in the devices of journalists and activists; situations like this present a hidden risk to communicators, who still need to use technological devices to conduct their professional work (González & Rodelo, 2020). In 2017, the State attacked the rights of audiences in Mexico by disregarding the guardianship of these rights that had been granted to the IFT. The federal government tried to recover this prerogative and grant it to the Secretaría de Gobernación (Ministry of Interior). Supposedly the motive was to cancel the guidelines in favor of audiences that the IFT used, through its constitutional faculties, to force the concession holders for radio and tv to oversee the contents (IFT (s/f), n.d.; Negrete, 2017; Sánchez, 2016). This move was interpreted as a reversal that would allow the federal government to curry favor with the television concession holders. Civil

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society organizations, academic societies, and political actors brought a case as amicus curiae to the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation to serve an injunction against this decision by the legislature. The injunction was granted and Congress received the order not to legislate against the rights of audiences ever again (AMEDI, 2020).

Local Regulations on Social Communication The process of defining social communication in Mexico legally is not limited to the federal level. A virtuous effect of the decision at federal level was that political-legal concerns filtered down to the local spaces, forming a set of laws in which states have fleshed out the respective regulations and institutions; 20 years into the alternation it is possible to see a legal body formed of 144 state laws, by means of which standards for communication and information at the subnational level are consolidated. A formal or argumentative analysis of the state laws on social communication shows the presence of three great guidelines. The first corresponds to the obligation to legislate on specific matters as part of the state’s affiliation to the federal pact. In this line are the laws on transparency and access to information, and those for the protection of personal data, which appear without restriction in the 32 states and are in alignment with the federal laws. The second guideline is related to a range of concerns shared in most of the states. These are laws that help to order everything related to the freedom of expression, the rights of audiences, the activity of the government and public service media, and participation in audiovisual industries. Even though they correspond to shared legal interests, in their elaboration they have specific characteristics for each state. This situation reveals the presence of local legal agendas related to social communication. The third guideline refers to very new subjects, that recently have been incorporated into local legislative agendas. Here we can find topics like digital rights and open government. Table 3.4 shows the distribution of laws ordered in thematic categories proceeding from formal analysis. The information in Table 3.4 shows that almost half (45.14%) of existing legal instruments in the states belong in the accountability and protection of personal data category of the regulations. In this set, there are 32 laws of transparency and access to information, and 33 on personal data

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Table 3.4  Analytic distribution of local laws on social communication in Mexico Categories of laws

f

%

(1) Accountability and data protection (2) Freedom of expression and audience rights (3) Governmental and institutional communication (4) Public media, editorial funds, broadcast industries, and publicity (5) Digital rights, open and electronic government Total

65 27 23 17

45.14 18.75 15.97 11.81

12 144

8.33 100

Distribution of legal instruments by federative entity: Mean = 4.50; Mode = 5; Standard Deviation = 1.32 Source: DeLeón-Vázquez (2020b)

protection.3 All the states of the federation must have these laws as there is a constitutional mandate to pass them. This category corresponds to the first guideline. The next three categories, in the order of their percentages, correspond to laws elaborated to protect journalistic practice and the rights of audiences (18.75%), laws to regulate institutional dissemination and government communications (15.97%), laws on foreign advertising, support for editorial and audiovisual production, and judicial certainty for public state media (11.81%). This group of laws corresponds to the second guideline. Finally, the fifth category has a low percentage (8.33%), which is interpreted to indicate subjects just emerging on the political agendas of the states; this would be because the states are beginning to discuss the recognition of certain rights, mainly those related to digital communication. This category corresponds to the third guideline.

Discussion. Great Advances with Few Results The principal premise of this work is that political alternation, along with other internal and external factors of the country, has contributed to a dynamic of strengthening the Rule of Law in Mexico. As part of this dynamic, the catalogue of laws to safeguard the freedoms of expression 3  In the case of the personal data laws, there is one more law than there are federal entities, because the state of Morelos has two instruments, one of which corresponds to a law to regulate demographic and statistical data, placing those who provide the information under protection.

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and of social communication was reformulated and extended at the federal and subnational levels. Unquestionably, there has been a great and a positive change in legal protection of the freedom of expression, and of communication rights. However, the proper exercise of these rights and freedoms shows a serious lack of effectiveness because it has not been possible to dismantle important problems such as violence against journalists or the violation of basic rights, even by the State. This situation leads to the conclusion that the results have been poor, and have brought the process of a transition to democracy into question. Nevertheless, it is argued that progress has been significant because the federal and state legislation on social communication has been reinforced and modernized in relation to the existing catalogue during the second half of the twentieth century. This is important because the first step in getting one’s rights respected is for them to be recognized and formalized in legal instruments. Decisive moments have been the opening up of a debate on transparency and access to information in the first years of the decade starting in 2000, the electoral reform of 2007, and the constitutional reforms of 2013. These served to order and modernize the schemes of accountability, telecommunications, and the rights of information and communication of the media and citizens. These schemes had been lagging behind due to the strong influence of the media power that blocked any moves to make the necessary changes. Media entrepreneurs put up a fierce defense of their political and economic interests, often against procedures of democracy and citizens’ rights. Some examples of these were the episode of the Televisa Law and the attempted counter-reform that would have withdrawn the IFT’s duty to safeguard the rights of audiences. The reforms have not been perfect, and there have been intentional or unintentional gaps that will have to be corrected. Legislative processes are not static and far less are they over when a specific law has been elaborated. There are voices all the time from the three social spheres: namely, civil society, the market, and the State, and they all push for their various needs to be incorporated into the text of the law. Despite the recognition of formal advances in defense of the freedom of expression, challenges remain. The regulations that have been introduced, the institutional framework that has been constructed, and the procedures that have been established have still not had a positive impact on the actual exercise of the freedom to communicate and to be informed

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in Mexico that would allow them to be enjoyed without restrictions and without danger because they are guaranteed. There is still a very wide gap between advances in the law and the risks of freely expressing oneself in the public space. This is presented as a consequence of the persistent authoritarianism in regions, of economic and political interests over the interests of citizens in questions of social communication; also, because of the degradation of social relations as a consequence of violence and corruption, that has not yet been recovered from.

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Merchant, D.  D. (2018). Censura y manipulación de la información en Baja California. Argumentos, 30(85), 65–83. https://argumentos.xoc.uam.mx/ index.php/argumentos/article/view/20 Negrete, J. (2017). Derechos de las audiencias son un logro que no debe regatearse— Amedi. https://bit.ly/2SnEK8U. Orozco, R. (2007). Relaciones prensa-gobierno en Tepic: hacia una caracterización de prácticas predominantes en el periodismo local de México. [Master’s degree thesis, not published] Universidad de Guadalajara, México. Pereyra, G. (2012). México: Violencia criminal y “guerra contra el narcotráfico”. Revista Mexicana de Sociología, 74(3), 429–460. https://bit.ly/2UQuCug Pérez, J. E. (2011). La guerra contra el narcotráfico ¿Una guerra perdida? Espacios Públicos, 30, 211–230. https://www.redalyc.org/pdf/676/67618934014.pdf Ramírez, J. (2018). Sin justicia y sin prevención: Seguiremos enterrando colegas. In R. Trejo & J. Trejo-Quintana (Eds.), Persecusión a periodistas (pp. 237–252). Comisión Nacional de los Derechos Humanos. https://bit.ly/38gjpGG Ramírez, J. M. (1995). ¿Movimientos ciudadanos o ciudadanos en movimiento? La difícil y esperanzada construcción de la ciudadanía. In H.  Orozco (Ed.), Cultura de la comunicación y sociedades contemporáneas (pp.  55–72). ITESO. https://bit.ly/3sNyuZt Ramírez, J. M. (2008). El acceso a la información pública gubernamental. In La gestación de una ley desde las organizaciones cívicas. ITESO. Ramos, E., Márquez, L., & Sánchez, M. (2008). Análisis comparativo de la reforma electoral constitucional y legal 2007–2008. IFE. https://bit.ly/3jglg4p Rapley, T. (2014). Los análisis de la conversación, del discurso y de documentos en investigación cualitativa. Morata. Reguillo, R. (2013). De las violencias: caligrafía y gramática del horror. Desacatos. Revista de Ciencias Sociales, 40, 33. https://doi.org/10.29340/40.254 Ríos, J., & Soto, L. F. (2017). Instituciones judiciales subnacionales en México, 1917–2014. Colombia Internacional, 91, 243–263. https://doi.org/10.7440/ colombiaint91.2017.08 Rodelo, F. V. (2009). Periodismo en entornos violentos: el caso de los periodistas de Culiacán, Sinaloa. Comunicación y Sociedad, 12, 101–118. https://doi. org/10.32870/cys.v0i12.1637 Rodríguez, S. (2005, agosto 3). Recibe críticas la ley de transparencia del estado. Cuestiona el IFAI que se deje a la voluntad del funcionario hacer pública la información. El Heraldo de Aguascalientes. Rolandi, M. L., & Merello, M. (2017). Consideraciones teóricas-metodológicas para el análisis de la política internacional subestatal. Colombia Internacional, 90, 223–250. https://doi.org/10.7440/colombiaint90.2017.08 Rovira, G. (2017). Activismo en red y multitudes conectadas. Comunicación y acción en la era de Internet.

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Sánchez, K. (2016). Sobre los derechos de las audiencias en México. Comunicación y Sociedad, 27, 188–252. https://doi.org/10.32870/cys.v0i27.1318 Thompson, J.  B. (1998). Idelología y cultura moderna. Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana. Torres, E. (2011). Una nueva legislación para la democracia mexicana. La reforma electoral 2007–2008 y los medios de comunicación. Estudios Políticos, 9(24), 107–129. https://doi.org/10.22201/fcpys.24484903e.2011.24.27402 Trejo, R. (1996). Prensa y gobierno: las relaciones perversas. Los medios, espacios y actores de la política en México. Comunicación y Sociedad, 25–26, 35–55. h t t p : / / w w w. p u b l i c a c i o n e s . c u c s h . u d g . m x / p p e r i o d / c o m s o c / pdf/25-­26_1996/35-­55.pdf Tribunal Electoral del Poder Judicial de la Federación. (2008). En doce días, el TEPJF resolvió agravios planteados por el PRD. https://www.te.gob.mx/ front3/bulletins/detail/144/0. UNESCO. (2010). Media development indicators: A framework for assessing media development. UNESCO. https://bit.ly/3znB6jf UNESCO. (2018). Sancionar el delito, no la verdad. UNESCO. https://bit. ly/2UTbVpP van Emeren, F.  H., Grootendorst, R., Jackson, S., & Jacobs, S. (2001). Argumentación. In T. A. van Dijk (Ed.), El discurso como estructura y proceso (pp. 305–334). Gedisa.

CHAPTER 4

The Salinas Years, 1988–1994: Watershed in the Opening of Mexico’s Print Media Andrew Paxman

Salinas Offered Something New: Did He Deliver? Like seven Mexican presidents before him, in a ritual dating from 1952, Carlos Salinas de Gortari stood before the assembled leaders of the nation’s print media and gave a speech to celebrate ‘Freedom of the Press Day’. It was 7 June 1989, a mere four months after he had (so it was said) sent veteran publisher Manuel Becerra Acosta into exile as payback for the role of his newspaper, Unomásuno, in opposing him during the 1988 election. Using one of his buzzwords, Salinas promised to ‘modernise’ relations

This chapter is based in part on a forthcoming book about the history of the Mexican press since 1988, for the University of North Carolina Press. My thanks for comments on early drafts to Juan Larrosa-Fuentes and Laura Edith Bonilla de León and to the anonymous peer reviewers of this volume.

A. Paxman (*) Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (Center for Research and Teaching in Economics), Mexico City, Mexico e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 M. Echeverria, R. A. Gonzalez (eds.), Media and Politics in Post-Authoritarian Mexico, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36441-9_4

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between the state and the press. He also promised to ‘respect the full and responsible exercise of freedom of speech’ (Rodríguez Castañeda, 1993, pp. 307–319). The president’s audience would have been right to be sceptical. Almost as a matter of tradition, predecessors since Miguel Alemán in 1952 had made similar pledges. Like Salinas, they used the word ‘responsible’ to remind journalists that there were limits to the definition of freedom—and that it was the president’s prerogative to set those limits. But the word ‘modernise’ was new, and Salinas elaborated upon it by offering to put an end to government control of the newsprint monopoly. So, which of the two signals would be borne out in practice during the five-and-a-half years that remained of the presidency: the apparent ouster of Becerra Acosta or the olive branch of June 7th? For better or worse, the sexenio (six-year term) of Salinas, from 1 December 1988 to 30 November 1994, is generally considered a political watershed: the first fully neoliberal Mexican regime. It was also a watershed in the history of Mexico’s press: a period of unprecedented relaxing of governmental controls and professionalization of newsroom culture that produced an enduring (if incomplete) openness and holding-to-­ account in news coverage. To many journalists at the time it may not have seemed like a watershed, for the period witnessed many of the injustices that had long characterized press-state relations. It began with the co-­ opting of Unomásuno. Later, two high-profile print journalists, Manú Dornbierer of Excélsior and Jesús Cantú of El Porvenir, resigned following internal or governmental pressures; at least 18 media workers were recorded as murdered; and the country’s most influential media platform, Televisa newscast 24 Horas, took on a more propagandistic, pro-­ government role than ever.1 However, there were many advances, especially regarding the opening and autonomy of the print media. Some were political, enacted by Office of the President: an end to the protected monopoly of state-owned newsprint supplier PIPSA; an end to free passage for media accompanying the president on trips; an end to presidential payoffs to reporters. Others were sociological, arising in newsrooms: a greater  For the 1988–1994 role of 24 Horas (not discussed here), see Fernández & Paxman (2021, pp. 386–88, 393–97, 493–500), Novelo (2017). 1

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emphasis on scoops and unusually bold coverage. Still others were economic: owing to negotiations over the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the influx of foreign investors they prompted, there was an unprecedented boom in the advertising market, which lessened newspapers’ dependence on state subsidies. Finally, there were entrepreneurial advances that owed much to a mix of the previous three factors: the launch of more properly independent print media, first in the provinces and then in the capital, notably Reforma. This chapter argues that the liberalizing of the press experienced under Salinas was broader and longer-lasting than that of any previous sexenio, despite the persistence of political pressures and the apparent ambivalence of the regime. Thus, the analysis differs in a matter of degree to that of two of the three most complete studies of Mexico’s print media during the 1990s, Lawson (2002) and Hughes (2006).2 It differs more greatly from the analysis of the third, Trejo (1997), which downplays the importance of the sexenio’s media advances.3 Besides its general, holistic argument for the importance of 1988–1994 as an era of exceptional change, my analysis differs from those works in several ways. First, without losing sight of the longue durée, it considers the Salinas sexenio itself as an important era of study, due in part to the Mexican tradition of presidentialism that concentrates decision-making in one person and in part to the unprecedented degree of opening seen in this period.4 Second, it ascribes greater importance to economic factors and considers them in greater detail: both the economic context of the era and the nature of print media as businesses. Third, it incorporates for the first time, via personal interviews, the views not only of journalists of the era but also of the three political personages who exercised greatest impact on press-state relations, the former presidential spokesmen Otto Granados (9 May 2019) and José Carreño Carlón (8 Oct. 2019) and former president Salinas (29 June 2021).

2  Another work that sustains (and contextualizes) the media opening under Salinas and his successor Ernesto Zedillo is Preston and Dillon (2004, Chap. 14). 3  A notable essay that similarly downplays the media opening under Salinas is Sánchez Ruiz (2005, pp. 429–34, 440–47). 4  On Mexican presidentialism, see Camp (1996, pp. 12f, 230f), Krauze (1997).

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A Brief Historiography of the Salinas-Era Press Popular beliefs about relations between the print media and the state in the Salinas era were cemented even before the sexenio was over, with the 1993 publication of the bestselling Prensa vendida (Sell-Out Press), by Rafael Rodríguez Castañeda, then news editor of the  magazine Proceso. This chronicle regards the Salinas years as a continuation of each sexenio since that of Alemán (1946–1952), in the sense of ‘a press that is stalwart and submissive’ towards the state, a situation owing firstly to how ‘government agencies have assumed the task of courting, corrupting, and even repressing’ the press, and secondly to how many media ‘have made a habit of courting and letting themselves be courted’ and of ‘putting themselves at the government’s service’ (1993, p. 13). Rodríguez Castañeda registers several positive changes under Salinas, such as the end of the PIPSA monopoly, but his tone suggests that at heart nothing has changed. A similar scepticism towards change is found in Trejo’s Volver a los medios. ‘Salinas wanted to use the media, not transform them’, he judged (1997, p.  36). (In addition, he viewed evidence of media opening as somewhat counterweighed by a new sensationalism and lack of ethical practice.) Eight years later, Enrique Sánchez Ruiz concluded likewise: ‘The government carried out some legal and policy modifications … But … there were no substantial structural transformations’ (2005, p. 430). Such scepticism also pervades the A Culture of Collusion, edited in 1997 by William Orme of the Committee to Protect Journalists. As well as affirming much of what had been set out by Rodriguez Castañeda, the book focuses on violence against journalists, especially in the provinces. In his introduction, Orme admits that ‘1994 was the year in which the press began to break free of its historic patterns of conformity and control’, but he adds that (by early 1997) ‘much of the Mexican news media remains mired in [a] self-censoring, synergistic relationship with the ruling party’, that being the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), in power since 1929 (1997, p. 4). The cited books by Lawson and Hughes benefit from a more historical perspective, having been published after the end of the decade. Further, they employ a more neutral tone than do Rodriguez Castañeda and Orme. Nonetheless, their appraisal of media opening is more ambivalent than that proposed here. For Lawson, the sexenio ‘witnessed incipient liberalizing measures’, but ‘salient features of the old system remained intact’

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(2002, p. 27; emphasis mine). For Hughes, the Salinas era appears as one step more in the slow evolution between 1980 and 2000 of an emboldened press (2006, pp. 76–82). This chapter argues that the media opening of the Salinas sexenio was deeper and longer-lasting than these authors have recognized (although it shares with both Lawson and Hughes the conviction that the opening helped cultivate the country’s electoral democratization). This argument stands on documented evidence, but it also derives from personal conviction, based on having worked as a journalist in Mexico between 1991 and 2000. It further derives from awareness that our common understanding of the Salinas years has been distorted by a tendency—in some circles now an article of faith—to consider Salinas as the Machiavelli, even the Dracula, of Mexico’s politics, the blood-sucking ‘Chupacabras’ of its economy, and the architect of the majority of the ills to have struck Mexico since 1994 (Morris, 2015; Quinones, 1999).5 There thus exists a general reluctance to attribute achievements to his administration and, as a consequence, a need to consider the evidence anew.

Episodes of Press Opening Before 1988 As is the case in Mexico’s historiography generally, the year 1968 is often signalled as a watershed in a long process of media opening: ‘… 1968 was the beginning of the end of that self-interested love between the press and the state’, comments veteran journalist Humberto Musacchio (2016, p.  216). First, it was the year in which Julio Scherer took the helm at Excélsior and gradually began to incorporate critical content. Second, the trauma of having witnessed, if indirectly, the student massacre at Tlatelolco and the acquiescence of almost the entire press to the official whitewash of the episode left many journalists with a desire to participate in media with greater independence, a desire only fulfilled in later decades. Another watershed occurred in 1976–1977, with the founding of two unprecedentedly critical media, Proceso and Unomásuno, by members of the ‘diaspora’ of Scherer-era Excélsior—those who left because of a ‘coup’ 5  Images of Salinas as Dracula or architect of the nation’s malaise persist to this day in the cartoons of La Jornada and the press conferences of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador; for example, Rocha, ‘Una boca colmilluda’, 13 May 2019, p. 5; ‘Salinas debe ser enjuiciado: AMLO’, Forbes.com.mx, 21 Feb. 2020 (quoting López Obrador: ‘Salinas is the father of modern inequality’).

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orchestrated against the paper by President Luis Echeverría. And there was a third in 1984–1985, with the founding of La Jornada (1984) and its explicit and investigative coverage of the massive earthquake of the following year—qualities also seen, if to a lesser and short-term extent, in other media, even Excélsior, which had returned to its party-line journalism of old (Mussachio, 2016, pp. 232–8; Freije, 2020, Chap. 5). However, media openings prior to the Salinas sexenio were limited by one or more of three factors. First, they chiefly involved media whose existence or independence endured no longer than a few years. Such is the case with the magazines Presente (born in 1948 and killed off in 49) and Política (born in 1960 and economically squeezed to death in 1967); also with the dailies El Día (born in 1962 and co-opted in 68), Scherer’s Excélsior (1968–1976), and Unomásuno (born in 1977, weakened by a mass exit of talent in 1983, and co-opted in 1989) (Smith, 2018, pp. 97–110, 125–7; Keller, 2018; González, 2006, pp. 58–70, 85–103; Musacchio, 2016, pp. 204, 209f, 216, 224–7, 232–4).6 Second, previous openings tended to involve media that were more or less sui generis: as either newspapers or magazines, they were exceptions to the submissive media of their era. Not until the 1980s could readers choose between an ample variety of critical media, thanks to the coexistence of the Mexico City dailies Unomásuno, El Financiero (1981), and La Jornada, the Monterrey dailies El Norte and El Porvenir (both born decades earlier but now fully independent), a few other regional media, like Mérida’s El Diario de Yucatán, León’s A.M., Hermosillo’s El Imparcial, and the weekly Zeta of Tijuana, along with the persistently prickly Proceso and the high-brow monthlies Vuelta (1976) and Nexos (1978) (Lawson, 2002, pp. 67–76; Hughes, 2006, pp. 100, 113–5). Third, even the critical media of the late 1970s and 1980s—those labelled by Hughes as ‘first-wave civic newspapers’ (i.e. responsive to public concerns)—suffered in their majority from the same limit to independence as had marked the entire industrial press since the founding of the Porfirian daily El Imparcial (1896–1914): a dependence on government advertising and other state subsidies. The available evidence suggests that, among the critical media mentioned above, only Proceso (as of the ad boycott initiated by President José López Portillo in 1982), El Norte, El 6  A longer-lasting exception is magazine Siempre!, founded in 1953, as president Adolfo Ruiz Cortines sought to distinguish his style from that of corrupt predecessor Alemán, and still critical during the events of 1968 (Brewster, 2002).

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Diario de Yucatán, and Zeta managed to last without financial help (Riva Palacio, 2004, p.  158; Hughes, 2006, pp.  4, 113; Musacchio, 2016, p. 135; Lawson, 2002, pp. 69, 71f; Smith, 2018, pp. 118f).7 Among the capital city’s 30 or so daily papers, prior to the launch of Reforma in 1993, only El Financiero and several tabloids achieved financial self-sufficiency, if one uses the traditional definition in industrialized countries of break-even based upon street sales, subscriptions, and private advertising (González, 2006, pp. 132, 135–37; cf. Lawson, 2002, p. 90).8 La Jornada, for all its famed left-wing independent-mindedness, never achieved this. As a result, most critical media had to choose their battles. Suffice it to recall how La Jornada, a majority of whose ad revenue until 2003 (as again today) came from the government, afforded the centre-right presidents Miguel de la Madrid (1982–1988) and Salinas flattering front-page coverage of each State of the Nation address (Hughes, 2006, 204f; Carreño Carlón interview).9

Salinas-Era Changes: (i) Political The Salinas sexenio witnessed an opening of media culture that owed to distinct kinds of factors: political, sociological, economic, and entrepreneurial. The first concrete changes occurred in the political field, at the initiative of the Office of the President. These started with the decision of Salinas—aired in 1989 and realized in 1990—to strip the parastate company PIPSA of its protected monopoly, by eliminating high tariffs on imported paper. Thus he sent strong signal to the press that the 7  Notes: (i) The great Guadalajara dailies, El Informador and El Occidental, possibly did not need government advertising to survive, but they readily accepted it and offered acquiescent coverage (Larrosa-Fuentes, 2018, pp. 201f, 232f); (ii) Other dailies like El Noroeste of Sinaloa and El Imparcial of Hermosillo, though possibly not dependent on government ads, probably survived due to subsidies from the business elites that owned them; (iii) El Porvenir of Monterrey was successful until the 1980s, but after a loss of readers it became vulnerable to a federal ad boycott in 1990–1991; see below. 8  Notes: (i) The finances of El Financiero were more precarious, especially after Reforma took much of its talent and its market as of 1993. Bankrupt and heavily indebted, it would be sold in 2012; (ii) The tabloids believed to be self-sufficient were La Prensa, Ovaciones, and (probably) the sports daily Esto (Vanden Heuvel & Dennis, 1995, p.  31; cf. Trejo Delarbre, 1990). 9  See, for example: ‘Llamó al esfuerzo conjunto para superar los problemas’, La Jornada, 2 Sept. 1985, p. 1; ‘Reformar el Estado para garantizar la justicia: CSG’, La Jornada, 2 Nov. 1989, p. 1.

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government was surrendering a potential tool for censorship, a Sword of Damocles (as the publisher of El Dictamen of Veracruz once put it) that had been hanging over the heads of the print media for half a century. The signal was a key factor behind Alejandro Junco’s decision to launch Reforma; after all, his Monterrey daily El Norte had suffered PIPSA boycotts in 1973 and 1979 (Rodríguez Castañeda, 1993, pp. 307, 319, 322; Lawson, 2002, pp. 33, 76–77). In parallel with this move, but without any announcement, spokesman Otto Granados put an end to the presidential embute: the fortnightly payment made for decades to reporters on the presidential beat to foster their loyalty to the regime. Granados’ successor as of April 1992, José Carreño Carlón, soon announced an end to free flights and hotels to those media accompanying the president on international tours. At the end of the year, Carreño also announced a 50% cut in government ad spend and in early 1993 he instructed all other ministries and agencies to halt embute payments too; the latter reform would take rather longer to be implemented. These five changes (the latter four being at the initiative of the spokesmen) are the best-known and probably those of greatest impact—symbolically as well as tangibly—in initiating a phase-out of press submission and dependence on the state (Rodríguez Castañeda, 1993, 367f; Riva Palacio, 1997, p. 26; Lawson, 2002, pp. 36, 76; González, 2006, p. 193; Granados, Carreño, and Salinas interviews; interview with Raymundo Riva Palacio, 21 Sept. 2021).10 A complementary decision was to sell off the daily El Nacional, founded in 1929 as the organ of the PRI, becoming an organ of the government as of 1941. Although it was state-owned, its distribution within the massive public bureaucracy helped give it a print-run that by 1990 was only surpassed (among non-tabloids) by Excélsior, and the editorship of Carreño Carlón (as of December 1988, before he was named presidential spokesman) raised its quality. However, when El Nacional was included within a package of public media assets to be auctioned in 1993, the winner chose not to assume the paper’s ownership. Gradually deprived of subsidies,  Lawson notes four additional reforms that Salinas implemented between 1991 and 1993 to ‘modernise’ press-state relations: (i) setting a minimum wage for journalists; (ii) cutting traditional subsidies like tax deferrals and free utilities (electricity and water); (iii) applying value-added tax to newsprint; (iv) obliging media to pay their Social Security (IMSS) contributions in cash, rather than via advertising exchanges (2002, p.  76). Leticia Singer adds another: as of January 1993, federal press offices were forbidden by the Treasury (Hacienda) from spending on promoting the image of officials (1993, p. 26). 10

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readers, and raison d’être, it disappeared in 1998 (Rodriguez Castaneda, 1993, pp.  351–3; Musacchio, 2016, p.  249).11 Nonetheless, Salinas’s decision to do away with this well-known propaganda channel was symbolically significant. In the reading of Lawson, who has most carefully studied Mexico’s press opening within its political context, these reforms owed to a programme of ‘modernisation’ of the press that complemented Salinas’s economic project, which privileged market rationalization and NAFTA (Lawson, 2002, p.  76).12 A more holistic explanation would take into account a factor Lawson mentions but does not explore with respect to media: the crisis of legitimacy facing Salinas after his 1988 election, widely perceived as fraudulent (Lawson, 2002, pp.  18f; cf. Preston & Dillon, 2004, Chap. 6). And so, the fostering of a press more independent of the state, hence more disposed to criticize it, can be seen to some extent as a presidential  tactic to recover credibility. As of 1989, a host of foreign NGOs came to Mexico to study and monitor press freedom, which was a theme of concern to many U.S. and Canadian politicians in the context of debates over NAFTA (Article 19, 1989; Americas Watch, 1990, Chap. VIII; Canadian Committee to Protect Journalists, 1992; Committee to Protect Journalists, 1994). Thus, the opening of the press functioned as a tool with which to persuade Mexicans and foreigners alike that Salinas and his regime were in fact democrats. A further explanation, ignored in all other studies, is the personal interest of Salinas in a freer press. As the former president puts it today: ‘The press is indispensable to the exercise of governmental responsibility: it’s an intermediary between the public and political authorities’. (This assertion resembles Hughes’ definition of civic journalism.) As for the mechanisms and incentives used by his predecessors to direct the press, he adds that they did not work: ‘They were counterproductive, because they obstructed dialogue with the public. They were an anachronism’ (Salinas interview). Although such assertions may appear self-serving or insincere to those used to reading Salinas through a Machiavellian lens (Carlos Monsiváis once ironically observed that Salinas would ‘dialogue with the people’ 11  In 1990, Excélsior printed 90,000, El Nacional 69,000, and El Universal 65,000; however, Lawson estimates that by 1996 El Nacional sales (likely far inferior to its print-run even in 1990) had dropped to 4000 (Trejo Delarbre, 1990; Lawson, 2002, p. 225n32). 12  Oddly, Lawson considers the impact of the economic programme on freedom of the press as ‘unintended [sic] positive consequences’, a judgement that ignores the famously close attention that Salinas paid to media matters, as I note below.

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from the TV screen), they have their own justifying logic in the president’s famous self-confidence. Salinas liked debate, or at least the idea of it, because he was convinced of the rightness of his policies and his powers of persuasion. Julio Scherer of Proceso offers a fine-grained testimony of these qualities in his memoir of the sexenio, Estos años. Historian and presidential confidant Enrique Krauze, talking of both Salinas and his cabinet of technocrats, summarizes: ‘their weapons would be quick decisions, the careful selection and manipulation of information, not violence…’ And in a reading that admits that Salinas did not rely on charm alone, New York Times reporters Julia Preston and Sam Dillon add: ‘correspondents in Mexico City got used to getting phone calls at dawn in which he browbeat them about some analysis in their copy or urged them to consider angles he deemed overlooked’ (Scherer, 1995; Krauze, 1997, p. 773; Preston & Dillon, 2004, p. 182; Sarmiento, 2005, p. 280). Salinas browbeat correspondents in private, but he did not harangue them in public or vilify them as opponents of his regime. Further, even by the standards of a presidential tradition of seeking the friendship of intellectuals and perusing the press each day, Salinas felt comfortable among writers and was (as Preston and Dillon signal) an avid consumer of news. Since childhood, Salinas had come to know various big names: Octavio Paz and Carlos Fuentes luncheoned at the home of his father, Raúl Salinas Lozano, a cabinet member under Adolfo López Mateos (1958–1964). At high school he had founded two newspapers, both short-lived but of long-lasting impact on his personal interest in news production. A little later, he struck up a friendship with Francisco Martínez de la Vega, a veteran of El Nacional, El Día and the magazine Siempre! and a political aide to several presidents. He studied for his doctorate at Harvard during the very years in which the Washington Post and the New York Times matured as watchdogs, notably with their revelations about Watergate (1972–1974). As a likely presidential candidate in 1987, he was a special guest a luncheon of the Atheneum of Agangueo, a grouping of some of the leading journalists and writers of the era, and there he sowed friendships that lasted throughout his sexenio, even with those such as Carlos Monsiváis who openly opposed his neoliberal vision. In other words, despite certain authoritarian impulses (either personal or inherited from Mexican presidentialism), his life experiences and friendly relations with these and other independent-minded journalists—such as Proceso’s Scherer, Jesús Blancornelas of Zeta, or the Menéndez brothers of Mérida (El Diario de Yucatán, Por Esto)—suggest a more sincere commitment to

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a freer press than has been admitted by Trejo and others (Osorno & Aldrete, 2017; Salinas interview; interview with Adela Navarro, 20 June 2019).

Salinas-Era Changes: (ii) Newsroom Culture Changes that might be termed sociological arose in the newsrooms of the civic media, a theme amply researched by Hughes. They were ‘sociological’ in the sense that they had to do with the agency of journalists in facing the structural restrictions of their media, which for decades had fostered a deferential press. On the one hand, there was a new devotion to editorial independence among some publishers and many senior editors. Some belonged to the so-called Generation of 68 and who at last occupied positions of authority in the media, a trend already noted in La Jornada in the 1980s but by the nineties seen at various papers (Musacchio, 2010, pp. 173–88). Others had spent time abroad, typically in the United States or Western Europe, where they had witnessed a much freer press; Spain’s El País (1976) is the most-cited source of inspiration. Others were migrants and exiles from South America, who again offered a distinct vision (Hughes, 2006, pp.  114, 119, 124f; interview with Enrique Gaucher, 8 March 2021). All these people wanted to develop a press that would function as an accountability mechanism, all the more so after the tempestuous period of 1982–1988, with its devaluations, revelations of corruption during the previous sexenio, the earthquake, and electoral fraud in Nuevo León (1985), Chihuahua (1986), and nationwide (1988). Critical coverage of such crises was usually limited to the minority of media that were civic in nature; it prompted insufficient repercussions at the ballot box to generate changes of regime (Freije, 2020, Chaps. 4–6). On the other hand, there arose a new generation—more professionalized and more idealistic—of reporters both male and female; the latter category is important, as it was not until the Salinas years that major newsrooms approached gender parity, starting with La Jornada and Reforma.13 These young people were more professionalized in the sense 13  The first Mexico City paper to reach gender parity, as early as the 1970s, was the minor left-wing daily El Día. Viétnika Batrés estimates that when she left La Jornada in 1987 the newsroom was close to 40% female. Daniel Moreno estimates that when he joined Reforma in 1993, newsroom was fully 40% female, higher than at his previous employers, Unomásuno and El Financiero (both 20%), or than at El Economista (30%) (Sen Santos, 2013; interviews with Batrés, 23 Oct. 2020, Moreno, 24 May 2019).

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that at last a majority of them had attended university, often at the fastgrowing number of communications departments founded in the 1980s (Hernández, 2004, pp. 116–18). They were more idealistic in the sense that—thanks in part to that university training and in part to a more cosmopolitan view of the world, shaped by international TV channels, trips and study abroad, and socializing with the growing foreign correspondent community—they were more opposed than their older colleagues to the customs of typing up press releases as news reports or taking embute and other bribes. Moreover, as Hughes records on the basis of 50 interviews conducted in 1999, their experiences during the Salinas sexenio strengthened their commitment to independent journalism, above all among those who covered the uprising in Chiapas of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) or the murder of presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio, both occurring in early 1994 (Riva Palacio, 2001, p.  208; Lawson, 2002, 82–8; Hughes, 2006, pp. 9, 121–5). As a result of these changes in newsroom culture, journalists were more disposed than ever to offer critical or civic coverage on a constant basis. This marked a difference from the 1970s and 1980s, where such coverage was usually limited to major scandals too difficult for the state to contain, such as the tumbling of many buildings during the 1985 earthquake; afterwards, reporters at traditional media returned to trotting out the government line (Freije, 2020, Chap. 5). Events of equivalent impact during the Salinas years—the killing of Cardenal Posadas Ocampo, the EZLN rebellion, the Colosio killing, and the massive peso crash of December 1994—not only received critical coverage (albeit often partial, based on single-source denunciations, or tarred by conspiracy theory), they also fuelled a greater investigative journalism and questioning of authority, both of which would persist under Ernesto Zedillo (1994–2000) and Vicente Fox (2000–2006) (Sarmiento, 1997; Riva Palacio, 1997, pp. 26–8; Lawson, 2002, pp. 140–45; Hughes, 2006, pp. 81f, 121f, 195f; Lara Klahr & López Portillo Vargas, 2006, pp., 29f, 33, 45). Put another way, civic journalism was seen on an ever-more regular basis in El Financiero, La Jornada, El Norte, and Reforma. Their largely youthful contingents of reporters, together with veteran gadflies like Miguel Ángel Granados Chapa (a renowned columnist who spent time at each of those four dailies), felt that representing the people and holding the powerful to account comprised the fundamentals of their duties. In his analysis of 12 political and law-enforcement scandals covered by the media between 1991 and 1996, Lawson persuasively concludes that their

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proliferation owed most to a greater assertiveness in the Mexican press, as opposed to a greater frequency of scandalous events, more stringent public standards of behaviour, or institutional changes elsewhere that facilitated the revelations (although the latter, such as strengthening opposition parties and civic groups and a recently created National Human Rights Commission, did play a role). Hughes also gauges and quantifies a rise in journalistic assertiveness during the sexenio, with a spike in 1994 (Lawson, 2002, pp. 127–9, 132–7, 140–51; González, 2006, pp. 133–5; Hughes, 2006, pp. 5–10, 76–87, 120; Musacchio, 2010, pp. 173–87). The new tendency of taking elites to task was notable not only in the civic media. Thus, for example, the famous ‘collection-plate banquet’ of 1993, gathering magnates who each pledged US$25 million to the campaign coffers of the PRI, was a scoop not in Proceso (where it surely would have appeared in decades prior) but in the conservative financial daily El Economista (Barradas, 1996, pp. 101–9; Oppenheimer, 1996, Chap. 5). At the same time, the scandals and crises of 1993–1994 sometimes produced journalism that failed to meet high standards of fact-checking, impartiality, protection of privacy, and right of reply. Seasoned observers of the media such as Trejo condemned the sensationalistic trend. Whether in response to such criticism or as part of a general trend to incorporate best practices from abroad, newspapers began to formulate and publish codes of ethical conduct. El Economista was the first, in June 1993, followed by Reforma that December, and El Nacional in August 1994, while in October 1994 Trejo penned an influential essay for Excélsior, ‘A code of ethics for Mexican media’. The sensationalism would continue under Zedillo, but the public discussion of ethics, which would continue too, had at least prompted another move towards professionalism (Trejo Delarbre, 1994a, 1994b; Alcántara Machuca, 2011, pp. 358–60).

Salinas-Era Changes: (iii) Economic Changes in the economic landscape, which emerged chiefly due to the negotiation and approval of NAFTA and secondly with the privatization of parastate companies, are themes underplayed in the cited studies. Trejo ignores them altogether. Sánchez Ruiz pooh-poohs the importance of NAFTA.  Orme dedicates several pages of his introduction to the economy, claiming the Salinas-era media opening owed more to privatization, deregulation, and NAFTA than media policies themselves, but he offers neither examples nor figures and focuses instead on an apparent lack of

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correlation between a free market and a free press. Lawson only mentions NAFTA in passing, although he does note that privatizations reduced government control over the respective firms’ ad spend. Neither does Hughes explore the theme, although she does analyse the growing long-term capacity of Mexico’s largest companies to impel media self-censorship and she mentions (without quantifying) the ad-spend boom among privatized firms. Perhaps typifying the discomfort with which many communications scholars regard statistics, a promisingly titled edited volume, Mass Media and Free Trade: NAFTA and the Cultural Industries, offers no quantified economic analysis whatsoever, whether of print or electronic media (Trejo Delarbre, 1997; Sánchez Ruiz, 2005, pp. 433f; Orme, 1997, pp. 9–15; Lawson, 2002, p.  76; Hughes, 2006, pp.  94–100, 115; McAnany & Wilkinson, 1996).14 It is worth emphasizing, as economic historian Stephen Haber among others has done, that despite its name NAFTA was designed much more to foster investment than trade, for its main goal was to afford property rights protection to foreign investors. NAFTA thus stimulated an important influx of foreign investment into Mexico, made by firms that soon became advertisers, thereby causing the ad market to balloon. Similarly, privatized companies like airline Mexicana de Aviación, monopoly telco Telmex, and all of Mexico’s banks (Bancomer, Banamex, etc.) increased their ad spend. Significantly, this process was visible several years before NAFTA went into effect on 1 January 1994: many foreign companies opted to invest or increase their presence as of 1990, when the Salinas government first declared its intent to seek a trade pact with the United States and Canada. Whether with NAFTA or without it, overseas investors could already see the doors opening: from Mexico’s accession to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade in 1986; from the first wave of privatizations, begun by Salinas’s predecessor De la Madrid (based on legal reforms enacted as early as 1983), including the sale of airline Aeroméxico in 1988, and resumed in 1989 with the sale of its rival Mexicana; and from early and drastic manoeuvres by Salinas to reduce the power of unions in most sectors. Notably, the lengthy privatization of 14  Notes: (i) Weirdly, Sánchez Ruiz includes an interesting table showing changes in private ad spend per type of media, between 1990 and 2002, without any comment; (ii) As Hughes focuses on daily papers, she ignores the frequency with which Proceso investigated and exposed Mexico’s magnates.

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Telmex, completed in December 1990, allowed foreign companies to participate in the bidding consortia (Haber et al., 2008, pp. 73–7; MacLeod, 2010, Chap. 3). Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) thus increased notably between 1989 and 1990 and, following two years in which the rate remained stable, it increased again in 1993. It then doubled in 1994. In sum, new FDI quadrupled from around US$2.5 billion in 1989 to more than US$10 billion in 1994 (Haber et al., 2008, p. 75). Together with increasing ad spend by the Mexican private sector, FDI growth caused an unprecedented boom in the ad market. The effect was notorious in the TV industry, in which ad spend rose from US$223 million in 1990 to US$778 million in 1994, which helped propel Televisa owner Emilio Azcárraga Milmo up the Forbes global billionaires list (TV International, 1996). Without figures to hand regarding ad spend on print media, one may still estimate its growth by cross-referencing spend on TV and the proportion of the advertising pie allocated to each kind of media.15 Thus, the US$233 million spent on TV in 1990, representing 64% of the total, indicate an ad pie of US$364 million; of this, 13% was spent on the press, that is, US$47 million. In 1994, the US$778 million spent on TV represented 74% of the total, giving an ad pie of $1.051 billion; of this, 10% was spent on the press, or US$105 million. Therefore, although Mexico’s newspapers lost a little of their share of the ad market, the huge increase in overall spend allowed them a total advertising income that more than doubled within four years. This increase allowed the press to depend ever less on the public purse during the Salinas sexenio. Of course the reduction in this dependence, and thus in the vulnerability of print media to regime pressures, was fostered also by the above-mentioned reduction  in official advertising of 1993, and furthermore by gains in cover sales and subscriptions. We have no reliable figures for the latter, since the papers habitually exaggerated their print-runs and the trustworthy estimates made by Trejo for 1990 do not find a comparable study for 1994 (Trejo Delarbre, 1990). Still, it is reasonable to infer that, following the ‘lost decade’ of the 1980s, newspaper readers grew in number after the economy began to rebound in 1989. Moreover, many journalists recall 1994, with its multiple crises and political murders, as a year of unequalled interest in the news and consequently one of soaring print-runs (Rodríguez Munguía, 1999, p.  34; Levario Turcott, 2003; interview with Ramón Alberto Garza, 15 Oct. 2019).  I refer here to the above-cited but under-used table in Sánchez Ruiz, (2005), p. 433.

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The ‘NAFTA effect’, as the Anglo media called it, was further visible, if indirectly, in the proliferation of foreign journalists based in Mexico. By 1988 there was already quite a collection, their ranks swollen by the 1985 earthquake and its consequences: a boom in civil-society organizing in Mexico and aid flows from the United States and the deepening of fissures within the PRI that caused its left wing to break away and back a presidential opposition candidate. In 1988, the Foreign Press Association represented 240 correspondents from 26 countries, and English-language bureaux included the Associated Press, The Baltimore Sun, the BBC, The Boston Globe, BusinessWeek, CBS, The Chicago Tribune, The Christian Science Monitor, Cox Newspapers, The Dallas Morning News, The Dallas Times-Herald, The Financial Times, The Houston Chronicle, The Los Angeles Times, NBC, The New Orleans Times-Picayune, The New  York Times, Newsday, Newsweek, NPR, Reuters, The Sacramento Bee (representing the McClatchy chain), The San Diego Union (representing Copley Press), The San José Mercury-News (representing Knight-Ridder), Time,  Toronto’s Globe and Mail, United Press International, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. Many of their reporters had been focusing on the Central American wars, but they returned to Mexico for Salinas’s contested election. During the NAFTA talks several of these operations increased their staff. By 1994, Anglo media with full-time correspondents also included The Arizona Republic, Bloomberg, The Economist, Environment Watch, The Guardian, The Journal of Commerce, The San Antonio Express-News, and Scripps Howard News Service, together with trade magazines such as Automotive News, Travel Age, and Variety. Adding to this number was an increase in correspondents from continental Europe, especially Spain; freelancers from the world over who worked simultaneously for several publications; correspondents for newer TV networks such as CNN; and perhaps another 50 foreign reporters and editors employed by the English-­ language daily The News, the weeklies El Financiero International and The Colony Reporter of Guadalajara, and the magazines Business Mexico (of the American Chamber of Commerce) and Mexico Insight (at Excélsior). After Salinas’s economic programme swelled the ranks, the Zapatista rebellion brought another wave of journalists.16 16  The author belonged to this community of foreign journalists from 1991 to 2000. My thanks to former correspondents Dudley Althaus and Michael Tangeman for their help in compiling these lists.

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This broad presence of expatriate journalists brought about an unprecedentedly rigorous and detailed coverage of Mexico by the foreign press. While the majority of the stories and features about Salinas and his policies were positive, investigative and critical journalism was also practised. As Lawson and Orme have noted, controversial exposés in the international press were sometimes published by Mexican media in translation or led to follow-up stories by local reporters. This is not to say that the investigative, scoop-driven, or critical journalism practised by foreigners arrived as an epiphany: media including Proceso, El Norte, La Jornada, El Financiero, and more recently Reforma were already capable of causing the powerful discomfort. But the expanding activity of foreign reporters did give Mexican papers new leads to follow and possibly a degree of protection against reprisal (Orme, 1997, p. 9; Lawson, 2002, p. 77).17

Salinas-Era Changes: (iv) A More Independent Civic Media During the Salinas sexenio a series of civic and independent media came to be launched, a trend attributable to business decisions stimulated by a combination of the three kinds of factors discussed so far. In Puebla, a large city with a notable tradition of deferential journalism dominated by El Sol de Puebla and its evening sister paper La Voz de Puebla, the year 1990 saw the debut of what would prove a series of regional La Jornada franchises: La Jornada de Oriente. In 1992, the same city saw the start-up of two more independent papers: a franchise of El Universal and the stand-­ alone Síntesis, the latter edited by a Uruguayan (interviews with Alejandro C.  Manjarrez, 12 Nov. 2018, Rodolfo Ruiz, 16 Nov. 2018, Aurelio Fernández Fuentes, 29 Oct. 2019, and Enrique Gaucher). In Acapulco appeared El Sur (1993), again with the help of La Jornada; this daily would become the newspaper of record for the state of Guerrero. And in Guadalajara emerged Siglo 21 (1991), a daily that in less than six months revolutionized local journalism through its unequalled coverage of gasoline-based explosions near the city centre that caused more than 100 deaths. Its success also had a ripple effect, in that editors of other papers keen to practice or improve a more incisive journalism—El Noroeste 17  For example, stories written by U.S. reporters for The News about the possibly criminal dealings of Manuel Bartlett, PRI candidate for governor of Puebla, prompted further reports on the same theme in Proceso; see Proceso 840, 6 Dec. 1992.

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of Sinaloa, A.M. of León, the still-in-the-works El Sur and even El Universal—visited Siglo 21 to talk with its editor, Jorge Zepeda Patterson, and seek his advice (Larrosa-Fuentes, 2018, pp.  192–8; Lawson, 2002, pp.  68, 73–5, 85; interviews with Juan Angulo, 5 April 2019, Jorge Zepeda Patterson, 22 May 2019). In the capital at least four news magazines launched with an independent vision, although they accepted government advertising: Mira, cofounded by Granados Chapa and photographer Pedro Valtierra (1990); Este País, founded by Federico Reyes Heroles (1992); Etcétera, founded by Raúl Trejo (1993); and the English-language fortnightly Mexico Insight, launched by Michael Zamba with the backing of Excélsior but with editorial autonomy (1993). Towards the end of the sexenio debuted a Mexican edition of Spain’s El País (1994) (Musacchio, 2010, pp. 173, 179–81; Basáñez & Ortiz Pinchetti, 2020; Serna, 2015, pp. 304f; Trejo Delarbre, 1998; interview with Michael Zamba, 16 July 2020). But the event of greatest impact was the November 1993 launch of Reforma. Its impact was multifaceted: (i) it was the first capital-city daily to offer readers a combination of modern design (page layout limited to an average four stories), colour photographs and highlights, frequent charts and graphs (including opinion polls), multiple U.S-style themed sections, and front-page allocation of stories according to newsworthiness rather than political expediency; (ii) it was the first capital city daily to forbid its reporters from taking bribes or accepting gifts, unlike at La Jornada and El Financiero, where these practices were frowned upon but not banned, and its payment of relatively high salaries prompted other newspapers to pay better too; (iii) it brought an attitude of questioning to official declarations and press releases that contrasted with the so-called declaracionitis (rote and deferential reproduction of declarations) commonly seen in most other media; La Jornada also offered this attitude, but in Reforma the questioning was less ideological in tone (Lichfield, 2000; Lawson, 2002, pp.  77f; González, 2006, pp.  188–95; Hughes, 2006, pp. 126f, 140–47; Esquivel Hernández, 2008, pp. 153–58); (iv) Reforma went unaccompanied by a hidden political or economic agenda, at least during its early years; even though Junco was a social and economic conservative, he did not let his personal leanings override his professional commitment to pluralism (e.g., columnists included right-wingers, left-­ wingers, and centrists). Similarly, he was a press baron first and foremost, with 90% of his assets in the news business (Fromson, 1996, pp. 131–35). So Reforma did not exist as a promotional vehicle and political lever for

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businesses in other sectors, unlike, for example, Rómulo O’Farrill’s Novedades (television), Gabriel Alarcón’s El Heraldo (real estate), or, during 1993–1995, Jacobo Zaidenweber’s Unomásuno (textiles). Perhaps most importantly: (v) given the commercial success that the above innovations produced,18 Reforma influenced other dailies to reinvigorate themselves in subsequent years. This was seen most clearly at El Universal, especially after the appointment to editor of Roberto Rock in August 1996, but also at a number of other papers, such as Novedades, and regional dailies; some of the latter reproduced entire sections of Reforma via licensing deals (Lawson, 2002, p.  78; Riva Palacio, 2004, p.  82; González, 2006, p. 39). One might add that the design (if not also the content) of Reforma influenced the ‘reader-friendly’ format of Mexico City dailies launched subsequently, such as Crónica (1996), Milenio (2000), Diario Monitor (2004), and, under new ownership, a revamped Excélsior (2006). The impact upon El Universal and other dailies is important because it illustrates a ripple effect scarcely evident after the launch of previous cutting-edge newspapers. The critical daily of greatest impact during the previous sexenio, La Jornada (1984), did not influence other papers until the early 1990s, and only in the provinces, with the launches of La Jornada de Oriente in Puebla and El Sur in Acapulco. The novelty of Reforma can be illustrated with several of its front-page stories during its first year or so of existence. Its first lead, on 20 Nov. 1993, did not address the president or the PRI, as was customary when a paper debuted, but announced the presidential campaign launches of the PAN and PRD. On 6 Feb. 1994, five weeks after the Zapatista uprising, the paper led with ‘Salinas should resign if he can’t handle it. – Cárdenas’, a challenge to the president (in this case from the PRD candidate) of the kind that no other paper, bar the partisan La Jornada, would dare to run. On 9 Dec. 1994, the front page included the ironic headline ‘He calls himself Doctor; he isn’t’, over an exposé about how Zedillo’s new Public Education Minister, who claimed to have a doctorate from Harvard, had failed to finish his studies; in January, the man would resign. Hitherto, such ‘gotcha’ scoops were almost the sole preserve of Proceso.

18  Reforma is said to have broken even in 13 months, with a circulation of 50,000 or so, which climbed to around 100,000 during 1995; by 1997, it ranked second in advertising lineage to El Universal and third in non-tabloid readership rankings (Hughes, 2006, p. 118; Garza interview, 15 Oct. 2019).

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Salinas-Era Setbacks Reconsidered The media record of the Salinas administration was stained by several episodes and trends that threatened freedom of the press. These are episodes that have led various observers to doubt the sincerity of the president’s commitment to openness. At the least, they suggest that Salinas and his inner circle dealt with the media with a certain ambivalence, reluctant to cease goading them by means less ‘modern’ than mere persuasion (Trejo Delarbre, 1997, pp. 34–7; Orme, 1997, pp. 7–9.).19 In some cases, these episodes merely marked a continuity with the bad practices of old. One was editorial self-censorship (possibly under government duress, possibly in anticipation of it), as in the case of a star columnist at Excélsior, Manú Dornbierer; two of her columns were spiked for their political content, an act of self-censorship that prompted the writer to resign in June 1991 (Rodríguez Castaneda, 1993, p. 341; Conger, 1997, p. 106). Another was the withholding of government advertising to force a change of tone, as occurred in the case of Jesús Cantú, publisher of Monterrey’s once-conservative but recently left-wing El Porvenir; Cantú’s consequent resignation in November 1991 was forced upon him by members of his family, the paper’s owners (Rodriguez Castaneda, 1993, pp. 345f; Esquivel Hernández, 2019, pp. 62f). Still another was phone-­ tapping, a tradition well attested in the archives of the secret police, publicly accessible for the years to 1985 in the National General Archive (AGN) and reaffirmed by editors, journalists, and columnists active under Salinas (Conger, 1997, p. 103; Zamba interview; cf. Smith, 2018, pp. 53–5). While TV and radio are tangential to our interest here, several high-­ profile instances of the silencing of senior voices surely gave many print journalists pause. In January 1989, Salinas’s second month of office, Televisa’s breakfast news anchor Guillermo Ochoa aired a lengthy archived interview with Joaquín ‘La Quina’ Hernández Galicia, the head of the oil worker’s union, whose arrest the president had ordered three days before on firearms trafficking charges. Salinas and Ochoa’s boss Azcárraga were both furious at what seemed like a defence of a known enemy of the president, and Ochoa, Mexico’s second-best-known anchor after 24 Horas host Jacobo Zabludosky, was fired. A spate of high-profile ousters and  Examples of such methods include federal ad boycotts against La Jornada in 1991 and 1994, fiscal audits imposed upon La Jornada in 1992, threats from the Ministry of Government (Gobernación) against the editors of Este País in January 1993, and pressure upon the Kystal Hotels chain not to advertise in Proceso in early 1994 (Lawson, 2002, p. 32; Seid, 1993; Basáñez & Ortiz Pinchetti, 2020; Proceso, 2006, p. 240). 19

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resignations-­under-duress on major radio stations in 1993 was attributed by Lawson to Salinas regime worries as the PRI prepared to unveil its presidential candidate for 1994. These included René Delgado, a commentator on Stereo Rey’s popular breakfast show Para Empezar; Adolfo Aguilar Zinser, a commentator at Radio Fórmula; and Granados Chapa, host of a programme on Radio Mil. After the election, in August 1994, Enrique Quintana at Stereo Cien was reportedly warned by the station’s owner, after interviewing a prominent critic who alleged a cabinet member’s links to a drug cartel, and told to screen listeners’ calls; Quintana quit in response. The radio cases are doubly interesting because each except Aguilar Zinser involved journalists who had made their name in print: Delgado and Granados Chapa at Unomásuno and La Jornada, Quintana at El Financiero; all three would be working at Reforma by the end of the sexenio (Torres, 1997, pp.  105–07; Fernández & Paxman, 2021, pp. 399f; Lawson, 2002, pp. 42f). Other setbacks involve more nuances than have usually been admitted. Perhaps the most commented-upon case of Salinas-era censorship is the purchase of the critical leftist daily Unomásuno in 1989, followed by its immediate adoption of a deferential tone. According to the most popular version of the story, Salinas, upset over the paper’s favouritism towards opposition candidate Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas during the 1988 election campaign, manoeuvred so that its founding publisher and editor Manuel Becerra Acosta should agree, under threats from the Ministry of Government (Gobernación), to abandon the country and accept US$1 million for the purchase of the paper. Salinas himself, however, alleges today that Becerra Acosta voluntarily reached a mutual agreement with Fernando Gutiérrez Barrios, head of the ministry, given that his paper was bankrupt and deeply indebted. Certainly, by 1989, Unomásuno was in financial crisis, with debts to the Finance Ministry and PIPSA reportedly totalling US$1.5 million and with many readers having been lost to La Jornada, which was founded by the dozens of talented personnel who had quit Unomásuno in 1983. Trejo’s (1990) study shows that its print-run had fallen to 20,000, versus the 40,000 of its junior rival (Rodríguez Castañeda, 1993, pp. 309–11, 316–9; Orme, 1997, pp. 116f; González, 2006, pp. 100–5; Serna, 2015, pp. 288–92; Salinas interview).20  The usual version of this story draws on an interview Becerra gave six months after starting his exile in Madrid; Becerra’s successor, Luis Gutiérrez, claims Becerra was drunk at the time he gave it (Marín, 1989; Serna, 2015, p. 290). Becerra later admitted that he had long desired to retire to Spain and that ‘No-one literally obliged me [to leave]’ (Martínez, 2001, pp. 99, 137). 20

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The gravest trend of the sexenio, again decried by many observers, both at the time and afterward, was the killing of journalists in the provinces. This trend has been viewed as proof of a lack of guarantees made by Salinas and his government of freedom of speech, a culture of judicial impunity that persisted through the sexenio, and thus, the lack of a sincere commitment by the regime to a free press (Conger, 1997, pp.  101–3). Undoubtedly, a president must share part of the responsibility for the violence that takes place during his mandate. However, the commonplace that the Salinas era was unprecedentedly violent is wrong (cf. Piccato, 2018, p. 53). While several NGOs have tabulated lists of media workers killed during the sexenio, there is only one study that places it within a long-term consideration of the phenomenon: Oficio de muerte by Carlos Moncada. Moncada’s book details 4 murders during the sexenio of Echeverría, 10 under López Portillo, 20 under De la Madrid, and 18 under Salinas (not all of them, in each case, necessarily as a consequence of their journalistic activities). So, the high level of murder was established before Salinas took office. The general upwards trend can be attributed to a combination of the meddling by federal armed forces, who as of the 1970s built drug-trafficker protection rackets and brutally suppressed those who refused to pay (first the Federal Judicial Police, then the Federal Security Directorate [DFS]), thereby prompting increased narco-related violence; the growth of links between the traffickers and political elites in Mexico’s states, journalistic investigations into which prompted reprisals; and an increasing electoral competition in the states, which led to the repression by the political old guard of many critics and opponents of the PRI, not only journalists, but also human rights defenders and leftist party activists (Moncada, 2013; Smith, 2021, Chaps. 16, 18 y 19; cf. Yáñez Delgado, et al., 1987).21 As Moncada’s survey illustrates, the setbacks of the Salinas era need to be considered in historical context. There were multiple episodes of censorship and self-censorship during each sexenio, from that of Manuel Ávila Camacho (1940–1946) to 1988, as researchers including Rodríguez Castañeda, Lawson, Monsiváis, and Smith have documented (Rodríguez 21  Notes: (i) By contrast, the National Centre for Social Communication (Cencos), an NGO dedicated to human rights, documented 35 ‘violent deaths’ of journalists under Salinas, compared with ‘more than 20’ under De la Madrid (Conger, 1997, p.  99); (ii) Political killings in the provinces, which bridged the De la Madrid and Salinas sexenios, have been attributed in part to repression orchestrated by Salinas of the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), founded in 1989 ( see, e.g., Monsiváis, 2003, p. 260).

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Castañeda, 1993; Lawson, 2002, Chaps. 3 & 4; Monsiváis, 2003, pp. 138–239; Smith, 2018).22 Relative to this precedent, episodes of censorship and self-censorship under Salinas do not seem so severe. Focusing for example on the best-known or most repressive episodes, there occurred none that featured a co-option of media so brutal as that of 1968, under Gustavo Díaz Ordaz; nor was there a blow so harmful against a critical medium as that of Echeverría against Scherer’s Excélsior in 1976; nor was there the killing of so influential a journalist as that of the columnist Manuel Buendía, under De la Madrid in 1984—nor indeed, any killing so brazenly carried out by a federal agent. Furthermore, the detention in 1989 of the alleged mastermind of the Buendía hit, former DFS chief José Antonio Zorrilla, with the apparent approval of Salinas but after a great deal of pressure from the newspaper columns of Granados Chapa, followed by his 35-year jail sentence in 1993, would represent one of the few cases (even today) in which the murder of a journalist did not go unpunished (Rodríguez Castañeda, 1993, pp.  314f; Orme, 1997, p.  142; Musacchio, 2010, pp. 143, 155). All this said, the murders compiled by Moncada for the Zedillo sexenio totalled only eight, ten fewer than on Salinas’s watch, which again suggests that a president may indeed exert an influence over levels of violence (perhaps, among other things, by establishing a tone of tolerance of media criticism).23 Despite setbacks of their own, the sexenios of Zedillo and Fox—the latter including passage of an unprecedented Federal Law of Transparency and Access to Information (2002)—would prove even more open in terms of freedom of the press.24 Finally, it must be admitted that by the end of Salinas sexenio, several key aspects of the Mexican press and its relationship to power remained unchanged. The vast majority of Mexico City and regional newspapers still relied on government subsidies. A majority of beat reporters continued to accept embute (or its ad hoc equivalent, chayote) and advertising commissions from the sources they covered; the trend would persist especially in the provinces. Senior officials carried on making calls to editors to request 22  The previous sexenio, that of Lázaro Cárdenas (1934–1940) is recalled as one of an unusual degree of media freedoms (Monsiváis, 2003, pp. 128–38). 23  The decline in media worker murders under Zedillo may be explicable in part due to the decline in the homicide rate in general; however, the latter decline continued under Fox, whose sexenio witnessed a great rebound in violence against the press, with 22 killings (Moncada, 2013, Chap. VII). 24  I develop this argument in my forthcoming book.

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they kill or tone down certain stories. Proceso remained subject to a partial advertising and information boycott by the federal government. The newscasts of Televisa and (to a lesser extent) TV Azteca continued to flatter the government. And the total count of daily papers remained absurdly high, with more than 30  in Mexico City, the combined circulation of which was reportedly less than that of the San Diego Union-Tribune. Thus persisted the tradition whereby most newspapers were created or maintained to represent political and economic interest groups, not to be self-­ sustaining, reader-driven businesses (Vanden Heuvel & Dennis, 1995, pp. 21–47; DePalma, 1994; interviews with Wilbert Torre, 16 Oct. 2019, Álvaro Delgado, 23 Sept. 2021).25

Postscript: The Opening Continues Under Zedillo If one can measure the achievements of a sexenio by the state of play during its final year, the press emphatically looked more open in 1994 than in 1988. Suffice it to compare the space afforded opposition parties during the elections of those two years, or as several of the authorities cited here have done, to consider the deep vein of criticism that pervaded coverage of the EZLN rebellion or the killing of Colosio. In March 1994, the Times-Mirror Center of Los Angeles (today’s Pew Research Center) unveiled a poll undertaken in the NAFTA member countries and five European nations, which reported that Salinas enjoyed greater domestic popularity (72%) than any other leader (Jean Chrétien of Canada came second with 53%) and Mexico’s papers also enjoyed fairly high credibility, despite a broad perception that the government continued to meddle in them. Per these findings, a more democratic relationship between president and press appears to have served both parties well (El Norte, 1994). Although the subject of broadcast media is tangential here, it is worth noting that during the Salinas sexenio there were also important journalistic advances in that realm (and due to a similar mix of external and internal forces). Talk radio experienced a boom. It had begun during the 1970s and strengthened its place with its coverage of the 1985 quake, but now it was notable for the unprecedented popularity of hosts such as the combative José Gutiérrez Vivó on Radio Red, Pedro Ferriz de Con on Stereo Rey, and Eduardo Ruiz Healy on Radio Fórmula. Broadcast television saw 25  On the persistence of embute, chayote, and advertising commissions in the provinces, see Espino (2016).

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the privatization of TV Azteca in 1993, which led a year later to the debut of Hechos, the first well-funded rival to Televisa’s long-running 24 Horas; as Lawson has shown, the new competition would foster a significantly democratizing coverage of the mid-term elections of 1997. Cable TV and private satellite dishes facilitated the entrance into Mexico of foreign news channels, free of Mexican government interference, such as CNN International and Canal de Noticias NBC (Paxman, 1993; Variety, 1996; Sarmiento, 1997, pp.  31f; Lawson, 2002, Chap. 9; Musacchio, 2016, pp. 242f; Fernández & Paxman, 2021, p. 538). Just as these advances came to be consolidated during the Zedillo sexenio (e.g., with the 1997 bow of CNN en Español and the unusually impartial coverage by Televisa and Azteca of that year’s elections), the press made hay with the liberalizing set in motion during the Salinas years. It could be said that the depth of the Salinas-era opening was confirmed by its continuity under Zedillo. Four key factors made it so. First, the new civic media founded in the early 1990s generally prospered during the rest of the decade. The outstanding example is Reforma, which managed to establish itself as the country’s newspaper of record and which drew so many readers from El Universal that the latter had to reinvent itself, with a new editor, a new design, a less deferential tone, and a team of investigative journalists. In 2003, Sergio Sarmiento estimated that the two papers were tied in first place for circulation among the non-­ tabloid capital city dailies (Riva Palacio, 2004, pp.  62, 79, 165–8; Sarmiento, 2005, p. 289; Hughes, 2006, pp. 14–16, 65f, 125–8). Second, the scandalous, tragic, and disastrous events of 1994 not only elicited coverage that consistently held the powerful to account but also gave many theretofore submissive or semi-independent papers the confidence—and to many younger journalists the resolve—to continue with a critical line or questioning tone as of 1995 (Riva Palacio, 2004, p. 184; Lawson, 2002, pp.  78f, 87, 146f; Hughes, 2006, pp.  122–24). Third, the debut of Reforma, Siglo 21, and other cutting-edge print media had a second ripple effect, in that many young (and not-so-young) employees trained in those newsrooms took their talent, experience, and devotion to civic journalism to other media during the Zedillo and Fox sexenios (González, 2006, p.  206; Hughes, 2006, p.  120; Zepeda Patterson interview). Fourth, Zedillo committed himself to continuing and deepening his predecessor’s democratization efforts, a general policy that included a greater reluctance to interfere in the press and a further reduction in federal ad spend (probably to an all-time low) (Lawson, 2002, pp.  20, 27; Riva Palacio

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interview).26 It is possible that the sincerity of his commitment to ‘the rule of law’, to cite a phrase he used often, finds affirmation in the relatively low rate of journalist murders on his watch. As a corollary of those trends, print media publishers and the majority of their columnists felt free to back the candidate of their choosing—or none of them—during the electoral race of 2000. Many reporters threw themselves into exposing the campaign-finance skulduggery of the PRI and Reforma continued its by-now renowned practice of publishing opinion polls. Taken together, these advances constituted an exercise of freedom of speech that did not make inevitable but did contribute to a change of ruling party, after 71 consecutive years of government by the PRI (Anderson, 2000; Trejo Delarbre, 2001, pp. 458–60; Preston & Dillon, 2004, Chap. 9; Riva Palacio, 2004, pp. 193–5).

References Alcántara Machuca, E. (2011). Códigos de ética. In C.  Avilés et  al. (Eds.), Periodismo en México: Recuentos e interpretaciones. Mexico City. Americas Watch. (1990). Human rights in Mexico: A policy of impunity. Americas Watch. Anderson, J.W. (2000, June 22). Mexican papers use impartiality to influence change. Washington Post (p. A20). Article 19. (1989). In the shadow of Buendía: The mass media and censorship in Mexico. Article 19. Barradas, F. (1996). El día que me dieron la noticia. In M. A. Sánchez de Armas & O. Raúl Martínez (Eds.), De reporteros. Universidad Regiomontana. Basáñez, M. & J.A.  Ortiz Pinchetti (2020, Oct.). El Grupo de los Nueve, 1985–2000. Este País. Brewster, C. (2002). The student movement of 1968 and the Mexican Press: The cases of Excélsior and Siempre!’. Bulletin of Latin American Research, 21(2), 171–190. Camp, R. A. (1996). Politics in Mexico. Oxford Univ. Press. Canadian Committee to Protect Journalists. (1992). The press and the perfect dictatorship: An investigation of press freedoms in Mexico. Canadian Committee to Protect Journalists. 26  According to various commentators, Zedillo spectacularly violated freedom of the press when he ordered or greenlit the detention of Juan Francisco Ealy, owner and Publisher of El Universal, in 1996 (e.g., Orme, 1997, pp. 1–3; Hughes, 2006, pp. 143f). As I argue in my forthcoming book, Ealy’s arrest likely had more to do with financial issues and less with an assault upon freedom of speech.

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Committee to Protect Journalists. (1994). Free trade without a free press? Mexican media and the culture of collusion. Committee to Protect Journalists. Conger, L. (1997). From intimidation to assassination. In W. A. Orme (Ed.), A culture of collusion: An inside look at the Mexican Press. Coral Gables, FL. Delgado, Y., et al. (1987). El régimen legal y la vigencia de la libertad de expresión en México en la prensa escrita. In Y.  Delgado et  al. (Eds.), Apuntes para el estudio de la comunicación masiva en el sexenio de Miguel de la Madrid. UAP. DePalma, A. (1994, Nov. 20). Despite gains, press freedom in Mexico is still limited. New York Times (p. 3). Espino Sánchez, G. (2016, Sept). Periodistas precarios en el interior de la república mexicana. Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Políticas y Sociales, 61(228), 91–120. Esquivel Hernández, J. L. (2008). Reforma: Un grupo con Ángel. Cerda. Esquivel Hernández, J. L. (2019). El Porvenir, a cien años de distancia. Cerda. Fernández, C., & Paxman, A. (2021). El Tigre: Emilio Azcárraga y su imperio Televisa (4th ed.). Grijalbo. Freije, V. (2020). Citizens of Scandal. Journalism, secrecy, and the politics of reckoning in Mexico. Duke Univ. Press. Fromson, M. (1996). Mexico’s struggle for a free press. In R.  Cole (Ed.), Communication in Latin America. Wilmington, DE. González, C. (2006). Escenas del periodismo mexicano. Fundación Manuel Buendía. Haber, S., et al. (2008). Mexico since 1980. Cambridge Univ. Press. Hernández, M.  E. (2004, Jan). La formación universitaria de periodistas en México. Comunicación y Sociedad, 1, 100–138. Hughes, S. (2006). Newsrooms in conflict. Journalism and the democratization of Mexico. Univ. of Pittsburgh Press. Keller, R. (2018). Testing the limits of censorship? Política magazine and the “Perfect Dictatorship,” 1960–1967. In P. Gillingham, M. Lettieri, & B. Smith (Eds.), Journalism, satire and censorship in Mexico. Univ. of New Mexico Press. Krauze, E. (1997). Mexico: Biography of power. HarperCollins. Lara Klahr, M., & López Portillo Vargas, E. (Eds.). (2006). Violencia y medios 2: Reporteros de policía. Insyde/CIDE. Larrosa-Fuentes, J. (2018). Los periódicos de Guadalajara entre 1991 y 2011. In M.  E. Hernández-Ramírez (Ed.), Estudios sobre periodismo en México. Universidad de Guadalajara. Lawson, C. (2002). Building the fourth Estate: Democratization and the rise of a free press in Mexico. Univ. of California Press. Levario Turcott, M. (2003, April). ¿Crisis en La Jornada? Etcétera. Lichfield, G. (2000, July). La declarocracia en la prensa. Letras Libres. MacLeod, D. (2010). Downsizing the state: Privatization and the limits of neoliberal reform in Mexico. Penn State Press. Marín, C. (1989, Oct. 2). Pagó directamente la Secretaría de Gobernación… Proceso (pp. 6–11).

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Martínez, A. (2001). Manuel Becerra Acosta: Periodismo y poder. Plaza y Janés. McAnany, E., & Wilkinson, K. (Eds.). (1996). Mass media and free trade. Univ. of Texas Press. Moncada, C. (2013). Oficio de muerte: Periodistas asesinados en el país de la impunidad (2nd ed.). Grijalbo/Proceso. Monsiváis, C. (2003). Señor Presidente…. In J. Scherer & C. García, Monsiváis, Tiempo de saber: Prensa y poder en México. Aguilar. Morris, S. (2015). Salinas de Gortari, Carlos (1948-). In E. Zolov (Ed.), Icons of Mexico. ABC-Clio. Musacchio, H. (2010). Granados Chapa: Un periodista en contexto. Planeta. Musacchio, H. (2016). Historia crítica del periodismo mexicano. Luna Media. El Norte (1994, Marsch 18). Creen más en la Iglesia que en la prensa. El Norte (p. 10f). Novelo, H. (2017). La representación televisiva del sexenio de Carlos Salinas de Gortari a través del noticiero 24 Horas (1988–1994) (doctoral dissertation, Colegio de Michoacán). Oppenheimer, A. (1996). Bordering on Chaos: Guerrillas, Stockbrokers, Politicians, and Mexico’s Road to Prosperity. Little, Brown & Co. Orme, W. A. (Ed.). (1997). A culture of collusion: An inside look at the Mexican press. North-South Center. Osorno, D.E. & Aldrete, A. (Directors). (2017). La muñeca tetona [Motion picture]. Mexico: Bengala. Paxman, A. (1993, Aug. 1). Radio climbs where TV refuses to tread. Mexico Insight (pp. 20–24). Piccato, P. (2018). Notes for a history of the press in Mexico. In P. Gillingham, M.  Lettieri, & B.  Smith (Eds.), Journalism, Satire and censorship in Mexico. Univ. of New Mexico Press. Preston, J., & Dillon, S. (2004). Opening Mexico. FSG. Proceso (2006, Oct.). Proceso 30 años (special ed.). Quinones, S. (1999, April 7). The man Mexico loves to hate; Salinas. Baltimore Sun, www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-­xpm-­1999-­04-­07-­9904070306-­story.html. Riva Palacio, R. (1997). A culture of collusion. In W. A. Orme (Ed.), A culture of collusion: An inside look at the Mexican Press. Coral Gables, FL. Riva Palacio, R. (2001). The nightmare of Tlatelolco. In R.  Giles & R.  Snyder (Eds.), 1968: Year of media decision. New Brunswick, NJ. Riva Palacio, R. (2004). La prensa de los jardines: Fortalezas y debilidades de los medios en México. Plaza & Janes. Rodríguez Castañeda, R. (1993). Prensa vendida: Los periodistas y los presidentes. Grijalbo. Rodríguez Munguía, J. (1999, March 28). Proceso, la ruptura. Milenio Semanal (pp. 30–37).

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Sánchez Ruiz, E. (2005). Los medios de comunicación masiva en México, 1968–2000. In I. Bizberg & L. Meyer (Eds.), Una historia contemporánea de México: Actores. Mexico City. Sarmiento, S. (1997). Trial by fire: The Chiapas revolt, the Colosio Assassination and the Mexican Press in 1994. In W.A. Orme (Ed.), A culture of collusion: An inside look at the Mexican Press. : North-South Center. Sarmiento, S. (2005). The role of the media in Mexico’s political transition. In A. Peschard-Sverdrup & S. Rioff (Eds.), Mexican governance: From single-party rule to divided government. Center for Strategic and International Studies. Scherer, J. (1995). Estos años. Océano. Seid, R. (1993, March 3). Christian science monitor. Much Press, Little Real Freedom. Sen Santos, X. (2013). De cuando ellas conquistaron la información general. In E. Hernández Carballido (Ed.), El género es el mensaje: Mujeres periodistas en México. Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Hidalgo. Serna, A. M. (2015). “Se solicitan reporteros”: Historia oral del periodismo mexicano en la segunda mitad del siglo XX. Instituto Mora. Singer, L. (1993). Mordaza de papel. El Caballito. Smith, B.  T. (2018). The Mexican Press and civil society, 1940–1976. Univ. of North Carolina Press. Smith, B. T. (2021). The Dope: The real history of the Mexican drug trade. Ebury. Trejo Delarbre, R. (1990, June). Periódicos: ¿Quién tira la primera cifra? Cuadernos de Nexos. Trejo Delarbre, R. (1994a, Feb. 3). Medios: la ética extraviada. Etcétera (p. 53). Trejo Delarbre, R. (1994b, Oct. 17). Un código de ética para los medios. Excélsior. Trejo Delarbre, R. (1997). Volver a los medios: De la crítica a la ética. Cal y Arena. Trejo Delarbre, R. (1998, Jan.). 20 años de prensa: Cronología mínima. Nexos (p. 241). Trejo Delarbre, R. (2001). Mediocracia sin mediaciones: Prensa, televisión y elecciones. Cal y Arena. TV International (1996, May 6). Country profile: Mexico. TV International (p. 6). Vanden Heuvel, J., & Dennis, E. (1995). Changing patterns: Latin America’s vital media. Freedom Forum Media Studies Center. Variety (1996, March 25). Latin American satellite channels. Variety (p. 64).

PART II

The Burden of Being a Journalist in Mexico: Risk, Security and Censorship

CHAPTER 5

Defective Democracy, Erosion of Press Freedom, and the Perils of Being a Journalist in Mexico Two Decades After the Democratic Transition Ruben Arnoldo Gonzalez and Osiris S. González-Galván Introduction Over the past two decades, more than half of all democracies1 have deteriorated, mainly in terms of the functioning of government, freedoms, and the rule of law (Freedom House, 2020). In fact, the latest edition of 1  Croissant and Merkel (2019) distinguished two types of contemporary democracies: embedded and defective. The former has the necessary components for a liberal democracy deeply rooted; for instance, an institutional superstructure which frames free and fair elections, respect to political participation rights, guarantees civil rights, promotes horizontal accountability, and strengthens mechanisms for representatives to exercise power. While in the second one, the defective democracy, at least one of the aforementioned partial regimes is not functioning properly due to economic factors, social inequalities, and previous patterns in the political culture.

R. A. Gonzalez (*) Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, Puebla, Mexico e-mail: [email protected] O. S. González-Galván Université Laval, Quebec City, QC, Canada © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 M. Echeverria, R. A. Gonzalez (eds.), Media and Politics in Post-Authoritarian Mexico, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36441-9_5

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Democracy Index confirmed that only 5.7% of the world’s population reside in countries where liberties are fully respected (EIU, 2020). In this regard, Latin America has few embedded democracies; in general, most countries face governance challenges, including respect for civil rights and horizontal accountability (Croissant & Merkel, 2019). Mexico transitioned to democracy in the early 2000s, and national democratization had repercussions at the local level. In particular, it promoted the empowerment of local governments and redistributed power to various centers, allowing the emergence of political actors which defended local territory from federal interventions; but also gave way to the creation of new authoritarian local powers with total control of local congresses, the judicial system, and autonomous institutions (Gibson, 2013; Olvera, 2020). The new polycentric configuration of power, led by the state governors, changed dynamics at the political, electoral, and institutional levels; and to some extent, it also led to the erosion of the national structure resulting in a defective democracy which has deployed its electoral system, but it has left aside the development of the State, and the protection of citizen rights (Chaguaceda, 2019). In turn, the dilapidation of the power and the weakness in the rule of law brought greater inequalities for citizens. In 2020, the World Justice Project reported that in 19 Mexican states the effectiveness of the government in guaranteeing people’s security decreased, and it was also reported that it was more difficult for citizens to access justice mechanisms (WJP, 2020). Among the most affected groups are media workers and activists, who suffered an increase in attacks up to 45% by government authorities and non-state actors (RSF, 2020a). On this matter, violence against journalists has been widely studied in Mexico (see for instance Marquez, 2015; Del Palacio, 2015; Bartman, 2018; Hughes & Marquez, 2018; González, 2021); but there is still limited empirical evidence regarding the implications of a defective democracy for the free practice of journalism. This chapter aims to fill this gap by studying the factors that the subnational political regimes impose on journalists. The authors propose that a defective democracy has eroded press freedom in two ways. On the one hand, the weakness of the law and the limited action of institutions has encouraged the emergence of practices of media control and structural violence against journalists. On the other hand, the media system has established strong links, among state and non-state actors, that have prevented authorities’  accountability and journalists’ professionalization.

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Therefore, this study examines how these determinants of press freedom are perceived by journalists. To achieve this goal, 93 interviews were conducted with Mexican journalists across the country. The findings revealed a widespread perception of a weakening democracy which is reflected in increasingly diversified attacks against media workers, limited freedom to inform accurately, and the absence of professionalization opportunities. The document is organized in five sections, including the introduction. The next section presents the main characteristics of the democratic regression in Latin America. Then, the authors take a look at Mexico to explain specific components of democratic setbacks in this country. In a third section, a summary of the context of violence in which journalism is practiced in Mexico is presented. The next section is dedicated to the methods, followed by the findings, and finally the authors move on to the conclusions and the future for the practice of journalism in Mexico.

Democratic Setbacks to Freedoms in Latin America Latin America currently has diverse forms of political organization, namely under democratic elected governments. According to the Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA), since the late 1970s the region’s governments have promoted structural reforms to balance social dynamics and to address citizen demands (Morlino, 2014). This form of social and political organization was framed in the so-called third-­ generation democracy, which implied the extension of democratic equality, respect for differences, and the expansion of individual rights (Demers, 2008). In the last 50 years, democratic traits have promoted, in a more or less stable way, fairer and free elections, citizen acquisition of political and social rights, and government transformation through structural reforms of the State. Nevertheless, several studies have pointed out a degradation of democratic values in the region, especially over the past decade (Mainwaring & Pérez-Liñán, 2015; Monsivaís Carrillo, 2019). The decrease has involved the reduction of desirable circumstances during electoral processes and governance failures. In fact, some evaluations have indicated that democracies in the region have fallen back to levels seen ten years ago, mainly due to a decline in the quality of electoral processes, and the loss of civil liberties (EIU, 2020; Freedom House, 2020). As a result, nowadays it can be observed minor political participation, the stagnation of the rule of law, the undermining of the independence of the justice system, and an

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increasing restriction of freedoms by governments (IDEA, 2019). Special concerns have been raised due to growing autocratic tendencies, so much so that by 2020 there were six recognized autocracies in the region: Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, Cuba, and Venezuela. Besides, the sustained democratic regression has shown an increasing challenge for governments to cope with economic pressures and to meet citizens’ demands (BTI, 2020). The most fragile dimension has been the protection to civil liberties and citizens’ rights (Mainwaring & Pérez-Liñan, 2013). As a result, Latin America has become the most violent region in the world (BTI, 2020). A special feature widely affected has been the protection to freedom of expression, and even the State has become an enemy for the press. Since 2013 attempts made by governments to censor the media have intensified in Venezuela, Nicaragua, Mexico, Chile, and Brazil, (V-Dem, 2019). In turn, freedom of expression has lost ground due to the polarized political environment, particularly in Brazil, Venezuela, Cuba, El Salvador, and Mexico (Article 19, 2020). Harassment to journalists, media stigmatization, misinformation, and online attacks are now the main challenges facing media professionals (RSF, 2020b; González & Rodelo, 2020). Besides, a new vulnerability of the media has also developed because they have become the new adversaries of the Presidents in the absence of a clear opposition, and the dismantling of the judiciary system (Kellan & Stein, 2016). A comparison of the evolution of media environments in Latin American countries confirmed that there has been no substantial improvement in the conditions in which journalism is practiced, only six countries had some advances. Up to 2014, 11 nations remained with legal, economic, and social limitations observed at the beginning of the century. In addition, five countries, including Mexico, worsened the necessary conditions for critical and investigative journalism. To summarize, only Costa Rica is considered a free country to practice journalism in the region because criticism of the government is part of the dialogues that are established in the public sphere (Whitten-Woodring & van Belle, 2017).

The Impasse of Democratic Development in Mexico The democratization in Mexico resulted from a set of reforms that squandered the concentration of power, and finished the hegemony of a single party (Nacif, 2007). The implementation of a more plural electoral system

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began in the seventies, but it was in the late nineties when more equitable and peaceful elections were achieved, allowing—for the first time—political alternation (Woldenberg, 2012). Concurrently, the Federal State initiated a decentralization process which distributed power in three ways: first, greater functions were delegated to the regional level through administrative deconcentration. Second, power and resources were ceded to other levels of government, such as States and municipalities. Third, civic agents were incorporated into government through the institutionalization of civil society (Cabrero Mendoza, 2001). While political alternation and decentralization of the State2 provided more options to citizens, it also led to the fragmentation of the national political system (Bolivar Meza, 2013). Nowadays, the country is considered a defective democracy, with a later development, compared to other countries in the region, due to the recent start of competitive elections, and the uneven development of civil liberties and political institutions (Andersson & Lindberg, 2016). Following Gibson (2013), among the consequences was the rupture of the link center-periphery (between the President of the Republic and the states), allowing local actors to enter into a negotiation which culminated in new power configurations that placed the governors at the head of the local structure. As a result, authoritarian sub-national governments were consolidated in the states, accompanied by the establishment of de facto powers, such as criminal groups (Olvera, 2020). This situation led to a remarkable fall in democracy traits from 2006, which became even deeper from 2012 (Monsivais Carrillo, 2019). Among the most visible effects of this trend is civil freedom’s erosion across the country. The consolidation of the rule of law and the strengthening of institutions is now a challenge in most of the states, as there are no efficient institutional arrangements to guarantee security and access to justice (WJP, 2020). According to a recent Human Rights Watch report, human rights violations, such as torture, forced disappearances, abuses against migrants, extrajudicial executions, and attacks against independent 2  At the federal level, the arrival of different parties into the power has materialized three times. The first occurred in 2000 when the National Action Party (PAN) came to power, then the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) returned in 2012, and finally, the arrival of the National Regeneration Movement Party (MORENA) in 2018. At the subnational level, political alternation is also a reality. Until 2019, at least 20 states in Mexico were already governed by parties other than the PRI (Arista & Badillo, 2019).

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journalists and human rights defenders have continued in Mexico, mainly due to impunity (HRW, 2021). Accountability and transparency are another of the great pending issues that democratization has left behind, in spite of the emergence of a more democratic communication system (González-Galván & Demers, 2019), and the modernization of media outlets (González & Echeverria, 2018). Indeed, recent studies have shown a trend of opacity in the State’s practices; for instance, Sandoval-Almazán (2020) found that despite proactive transparency laws, over the past five years the State’s efforts to make information accessible to the public have been limited, especially at the local level. The 1990s forged a new face for civil society, more attentive to democracy and the performance of the government (Olvera, 1997). However, democratic Mexico also inherited a highly centralized institutional framework, which retarded the development of civil society and that it has only allowed the introduction of modest contributions which institutionalize citizen participation, such as the creation of new institutions for the promotion of rights (Olvera, 2010).

Violence Against Journalists in Mexico The twenty-first century has been particularly dangerous for journalism worldwide. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (2023), 1772 news workers have been killed across the globe. During the same period, 142 journalists were assassinated in Mexico, positioning this country as one of the most dangerous places in the world for the press (CPJ, 2023). Considering this situation, the aim of this section is to offer an overview of the endemic anti-press violence that Mexican journalists have to face on a regular basis. In doing so, there are four key issues that will be discussed: diversification of assaults, aggressors and victims, geographic dispersion of the attacks, collusion between authorities and aggressors, and impunity. Violence against Mexican journalists is a multifaceted phenomenon, because it is not limited to killings. On the contrary, there is a diversity of aggressions that media staff have to constantly face (Article 19, 2020). That is, although physical attacks (e.g. beatings, torture, and kidnappings) are the most blatant assaults, there is a plethora of other less visible violations such as threats, online/offline harassment, smear campaigns, and hacking, to mention just a few (González & Rodelo, 2020; Article 19, 2020).

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Consequently, the wide array of attacks has facilitated an equally diverse set of aggressors and victims. On the one hand, different actors have been consistently accused of perpetrating anti-press violence. The more common assailants are government authorities, members of organized crime, powerful business people, and even protesters (WOLA & PBI, 2016; Del Palacio Montiel 2015; Article 19, 2020). On the other hand, despite the inherent risks associated with the coverage of the so-called War on Drugs or government corruption (Hughes & Márquez, 2018; Salazar, 2019), those investigative reporters are no longer the only victims of violence. Conversely, there is an increasing number of journalists working on other beats (e.g. local information, sports, and even entertainment) that have been attacked (Del Palacio  Montiel, 2018; González & Reyna, 2019; Article 19, 2020). Although the killings of journalists are more or less concentrated in certain regions such as Tamaulipas, Chihuahua, Sinaloa, or Veracruz (Relly & González de Bustamante, 2014; Brambila, 2017; Hughes et al., 2017; Del Palacio, 2018), other kinds of aggressions are widespread across the country (González & Reyna, 2019; González & Rodelo, 2020; Article 19, 2020). Consequently, there is a generalized sense of risk among Mexican news workers, even though they do not necessarily live in a particularly dangerous spot (González & Reyna, 2019). This situation is frequently promoted by the collusion between certain government authorities and aggressors (Relly & González de Bustamante, 2014, 2017; WOLA & PBI, 2016; Hughes et  al., 2017; Del Palacio Montiel, 2018; De León & González, 2020; Article 19, 2021). Thus, it has a twofold outcome: first, several public servants do not solve any of these crimes because they receive bribes from powerful actors (for instance, drug lords, local politicians, or business community), who are accused of those aggressions (Relly & González  de Bustamante, 2014, 2017; Hughes et  al., 2017; Del Palacio  Montiel, 2018; De León & González, 2020). Second, in certain states like Veracruz, the main suspects of attacking journalists are very often the members of the state government (WOLA & PBI, 2016; Del Palacio Montiel, 2018; Article 19, 2021). Therefore, it can be argued that the diversity of aggressions, their geographic distribution, and the blatant collusion between government authorities and criminals is the result of the endemic impunity. That is, just as many other crimes in Mexico, most of the assaults on media staff end up unsolved (WOLA & PBI, 2016; Relly & González de Bustamante, 2017;

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Hughes et al., 2017; Del Palacio Montiel, 2018; De León & González, 2020; Article 19, 2021). This is because nearly nine out of ten of those accusations are never solved, considering that many of them were not even properly investigated (De León & González, 2020).

Methods This chapter draws on a set of semi-structured interviews, conducted between February 2017 and August 2018, which aim to explain the impact of the aggressions upon Mexican journalists.3 The sample size includes 93 informants (see Table 5.1), who were selected according to the following criteria: firstly, regardless of the type of news outlet (newspaper, magazine, radio, television, online publication, or news agency), they had to be current practitioners in either newsrooms or freelancers, with—at least—a couple of years of experience as reporters, photojournalists/cameramen, editors, anchor-persons, or chief-editors. Secondly, they should currently cover—or have covered—hard news, especially War on Drugs or corruption-related topics. Even though having been a victim of any aggression was not a requirement, many of them unfortunately were. The selection of the interviewees followed a non-­random snowball logic. The sample—62 men and 31 women—included local reporters and state correspondents of the so-called national media (located in Mexico City) such as Proceso, La Jornada, Reforma, El Universal, Televisa, TV Azteca, and Imagen Televisión. It also included journalists from prestigious local and regional news outlets: El Informador, El Siglo, A.M., El Diario de Juárez, Zeta, and Río Doce, to mention just a few. Members of independent hyper-local online news sites were considered too, as well as staff of national and international news agencies (for instance, Notimex, EFE, and AFP). Finally, some of the informants were award-winning journalists, both at a national and international level. The aim of this study was to have a national scope. For that reason, the geographic distribution of the sample had a twofold rationale (see Table 5.1): On the one hand, in order to have a better coordination of the 3  The questionnaire included ten questions, organized in three broad topics: an overview of the context of anti-press violence in Mexico; the impact of the attacks at the individual, organizational, and societal levels; and the use of technology during dangerous coverages. However, this chapter will only draw on the answers collected from the opening question of the first topic: “Why do you think that Mexican journalists are under attack?”

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Table 5.1  Geographic distribution of the sample Zone Northwest Northeast West Centre Southeast

Selected states and sample Baja California (9), Chihuahua (6), Sinaloa (6), and Sonora (5) Coahuila (3), Nuevo León (4), San Luis Potosí (4), and Tamaulipas (4) Aguascalientes (1), Guanajuato (2), Jalisco (6), Michoacán (7), and Zacatecas (3) Mexico City (4), State of Mexico (2), Guerrero (2), Morelos (1), and Puebla (8) Chiapas (3), Oaxaca (3), Quintana Roo (4), Tabasco (1), and Veracruz (5)

fight against crime, in 2013 the National Council for Public Security determined five zones of action: Northwest, Northeast, West, Centre, and Southeast. On the other, every year the NGO Article 19 publishes a report on anti-press violence in Mexico, which summarizes—among other things—the number of aggressions and the state where they occurred. Therefore, the selection of the states included in this study considered the data of the 2016 and 2017 reports. In that sense, the 23 selected states were those which concentrated most of the incidents during that period, distributed within the aforementioned zones. Due to the sensitive nature of the answers, the identity of all the interviewees will be kept anonymous. Thus, whenever necessary, they will only be identified as I (Informant) and a number (for instance, I29). In addition, it will be indicated their gender, activity, and the region where they live (e.g. I29, female freelance reporter, West Region). Finally, it is important to mention that the analysis of the data followed an inductive logic based upon the principles of the Grounded Theory (see Charmaz, 2006; Charmaz & Belgrave, 2015). That is, the answers were coded in order to develop a set of categories (e.g. external and internal determinants in this chapter). However, those categories were not preconceived classifications. On the contrary, they emerged naturally from participants’ direct statements regarding their own concerns, perceptions, and experiences.

Findings It was discussed in a previous section that anti-press violence is a multi-­ faceted phenomenon, and the following findings reinforce this argument. In other words, according to the participants of this study, the origins of the constant assaults on Mexican journalists have a twofold explanation

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related to external and internal determinants associated with the democratic stage of the country. Whereas the former are linked to the overall political and economic context, the latter represent certain inherent risks of the profession. Therefore, both aspects will be presented in the next pages.

External Determinants The first set of answers provided by the interviewees when reflecting on the reasons why Mexican journalists are under attack point to fundamental problems of the political, cultural, and economic system. That is, violence against news workers in this country is the outcome of both a “weak democracy” and structural violence. “Weak Democracy” Just as other Latin American countries, Mexico can be defined as a defective democracy, because it has recently undergone a democratic transition after the 70  years of the hegemonic regime of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (López Guzmán, 2016). In spite of some evident achievements of the political system, such as a more competitive electoral system, there are several signs of an incomplete transformation. For instance, as a result of changes in the presidency, a fragmentation of political power has occurred as well. However, since the head of the federal government could no longer exert control over the whole country, local political strongholds gained salience. That is, while the presidential figure weakened, mayors and governors strengthened their positions and, hence, power was concentrated without a system of checks and balances (Guerrero, 2010; Guerrero & Márquez, 2014; Tuckman, 2015). This situation fosters what I6 (female freelance reporter, Centre Region) define as a “weak democracy,” characterized by an endemic lack of the rule of the law. Following this point, 21 other answers offer diverse ideas derived from this issue, which may be organized in three broad indicators: clientelism, collusion, and limited press freedom. The first one refers to the exchange of favors for loyalty, which is one of the hallmarks of the media-politician relation in Mexico (González, 2013; Salazar, 2018). I33 (male chief-editor of a local news site, West Region) describes it like this: “Very frequently, a powerful agent, either a politician or drug

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lord, openly sponsors friendly media.” Nevertheless, more than a mere means of economic revenues, in the midst of a generalized anti-press violence this strategy is—literally speaking—a matter of life or death: If you read the local newspapers, you will realize that the coverage of the state government – and to a lesser degree the municipal government – is uniform. This means that there is a commercial relationship. Therefore, the chances of anti-press violence are minimal when there are these kinds of agreements. (I60, male chief-editor of a local news site, Southeast Region)

Commercial agreements are government advertising contracts that take place at an institutional level between a news organization and political authorities (González, 2013; Salazar, 2018). However, patron-client relations are also established between politicians and individual news workers. That is, many reporters, photographers, anchor-persons, or editors may also receive money in exchange for friendly coverage. Politicians are not used to being criticized. They are only used to being flattered. Thus, in the absence of clear rules regarding government advertising allocation, many of our colleagues accept bribes. This situation fosters aggressions, because you cannot expose someone who is paying you. You just cannot say anything. (I85, male reporter of a regional news agency, Centre Region)

The second indicator associated with the notion of “weak democracy” is collusion between government authorities and drug lords. Just like several studies emphasize (e.g. Del Palacio  Montiel, 2018; Salazar, 2020; De León & González, 2020), the informants acknowledge that the coordinated operations between political actors and members of criminal organizations is particularly dangerous for the free practice of journalism in Mexico: “Since the press exposes collusion between government and organized crime, the best way to stop it is to silence media. Therefore, reporters become an obstacle, and that puts them at risk” (I9, male state correspondent of a national magazine, Southeast Region). As part of the powerful elites, politicians and cartels—either individually or colluded—try to keep their status at all costs. In doing so, suppressing critical voices or potentially compromising reports are just a means to an end. The following answers illustrate this point:

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Drug lords are not interested in attacking the press, because they see it as an ant, something very small... In my experience, the real enemy is the State, maybe even colluded with organized crime… The real enemy of the press is the government and they attack us [journalists] as a distraction. If they divert our attention, we cannot do our job. We are supposed to investigate corruption, and tell the story of wrongdoings, but if they attack us we lose the sight (I21, male reporter of a local news site, Southeast Region). There are several themes that are forbidden for the press in Mexico and, hence, are difficult to report on. Organized crime is one of them. It is especially dangerous when a journalist publishes in the same region in which he/she lives. Another issue is government corruption, particularly outside Mexico City. It means that if you live in a region that is far from the center, it will be more difficult for you to do your job. This is because—at the local level—political and economic power holders are intertwined. Small town, big hell, you know. (I64, male radio anchorman, Northwest Region) On the one hand, we are victims of corrupt politicians, who want to hide their wrongdoings. On the other hand, there is organized crime. The worst part, which is becoming more frequent here [Northwest state], is the collusion between these two actors. (I69, male reporter of a regional newspaper, Northwest Region)

Finally, limited press freedom is the third indicator related to the category of “weak democracy.” Before presenting the informants’ answers, it is important to mention that this issue has been constantly evaluated by diverse NGOs. For example, in the latest World Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders (2023), Mexico ranks in the position 128 out of 180 countries, because it scored 47.98.4 Having that in mind, the participants of the study consider that powerful elites do not promote press freedom because it could be potentially dangerous for their own interests. That is, direct aggressions against journalists prevent accountability and, hence, promote the diffusion of biased information. “Organized crime and politicians want to shut reporters’ mouths and attack press freedom in Mexico,” says I38 (male reporter of a regional newspaper, West Region). Under those circumstances, citizens may only get propaganda or irrelevant news from mainstream and/or social media. Consequently, as I15 (male photographer of a local news site, Southeast Region) states, “society could be controlled by controlling the media.” 4  For the purposes of comparison, Norway leads the ranking with 95.18 whereas North Korea has the worst score with 21.72 (RWB, 2023, 2020a, 2020b).

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Structural Violence Structural violence represents the second category that integrates the external factors of defective democracies caused by the constant aggressions against Mexican journalists. This concept entails a set of conditions that constantly facilitate the violation of human rights and, as a result, hinder the rule of the law (Galtung, 1969; Jiménez, 2012). In other words, it is a kind of indirect violence promoted by the political and social system, and the poor institutional performance of the judicial authorities (Galtung, 1969; Jiménez, 2012). Its structural character makes it difficult to be perceived by the people and, thus, it becomes naturally accepted (Galtung, 1969; Jiménez, 2012). “Anti-press violence is just the tip of the generalized iceberg of violence. It has been normalized, and it might as well become invisible in the future,” emphasizes I32 (male photographer of a national magazine, West Region). In that sense, 19 other interviewees’ answers suggest that structural violence involves two indicators: the endemic impunity facilitated by the Mexican legal apparatus, and the existence of diverse vulnerable groups which constantly face assaults. As discussed in a previous section, impunity is one of the hallmarks of anti-press violence in Mexico and, hence, it represents the paradigmatic example of structural violence. According to different reports (e.g., FEADLE, 2019; RELE-CIDH, 2019; De León & González, 2020), the vast majority of crimes against Mexican journalists remain unsolved, because most of them are not even properly investigated. “This situation has to do with impunity. The country is full of acts of corruption, violence, and different ways of breaking the law. This is boosted by the lack of punishment, arrests, and convictions. Impunity is this country’s cancer,” said I13 (male reporter of a national TV station, Centre Region). In other words, the absence of strong consequences for aggressors promotes the increasing assaults on news workers. These excerpts are also consistent with this point: Certain actors attack journalists simply because they can, because of the existing impunity. The role of the press is to expose corruption and wrongdoings. Thus, power holders seek to avoid harsh criticism through different means such as threats, advertising boycotts, control over newsprint, or TV licenses. Today, institutional and de facto powers consider the free press as an enemy, and attack it in diverse ways. They do it because they can, because nothing happens

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in this country. Anyone can threaten a journalist, and even kill him/her, and no one gets arrested. (I20, male freelance reporter, Southeast Region) Impunity is the main cause of anti-press violence here in Mexico. Since aggressors reckon that there are no consequences after attacking a reporter, it becomes an incentive then. They say ‘it is not that hazardous, no one goes to jail for that’. (I70, female reporter of a regional newspaper, Northwest Region)

Nevertheless, journalists are not the only persons that suffer attacks and impunity in Mexico. On the contrary, the existence of several vulnerable groups—such as Human Rights defenders or women—points to a diversity of victims amid an increasingly dangerous environment. Therefore, the second indicator of the structural violence has to do precisely with those members of society and NGOs whose lives are also in constant jeopardy. The participants of the study acknowledge that there is a spiral of violence that affects the citizenry as a whole. For that reason, news workers are just another vulnerable group that is likely to face an assault. In short, “anyone who might represent a potential threat to a powerful actor could suffer an attack as well” (I30, female photographer of a national newspaper, West Region). However, it may not necessarily be a violent attack (e.g. beatings, kidnappings, or killings), because there might also be psychological, economic, and professional aggressions. Journalists integrate a vulnerable group. This is because our profession is still not well appreciated by neither authorities nor society. This is particularly evident in the case of critical independent reporters. On the contrary, news outlets that belong to a powerful media group enjoy several advantages that most of the individual journalists do not. (I83, female reporter of a local newspaper, West Region)

Internal Determinants Besides the contextual conditions prevailing in Mexico, there is another approach to the origins of the constant assaults on journalism, and it involves the inherent features of the trade. That is, when news workers perform their job according to the highest standards of their profession, they may become targets of powerful groups that do not want their wrongdoings to be exposed. In other words, the practice of factual,

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detached, balanced, and investigative reporting very often puts journalists at risk (Relly & González de Bustamante, 2014; Hughes & Márquez, 2017; González, 2018). Drawing on the rest of the collected answers, the internal factors associated with the implications of anti-press violence for the defective democracy in this country are operationalized in two broad categories: media promote accountability and professional journalism. Media Promote Accountability As a normative ideal, in a democratic regime citizens have the right to be informed and, hence, the government has the obligation to inform about its activities. Therefore, journalists act as mediators between these actors. Consequently, the aim of the press is to promote transparency (Siebert et al. 1956 [2000]; Blumler & Gurevitch, 1995; Hallin & Mancini, 2004). In that sense, the informants suggest that when news workers fulfil the aforementioned duty, they enhance people’s right to know, but—in doing so—they affect powerful actors’ interests. For that reason, this category is built upon these two indicators. Interestingly, this aspect is the most robust, because it includes 37 answers. Considering that news stories are one of the main sources of information for the average citizen, reporters are expected to provide factual messages related to government performance in terms of economy, health, security, etc. (Blumler & Gurevitch, 1995; Hallin & Mancini, 2004). Thus, “Mexican society needs to be informed. We [journalists] must inform [the public] about the problems the people are facing,” said I16 (male reporter of a local newspaper, Southeast Region). This is crucial because, as stated by I2 (male chief-editor of a local news site, Centre Region), “the press is the critical conscience of society.” However, there is a potential danger when media enhance citizens’ right to know: Attacks on journalists have a specific reason: We are the link between government and citizens. Our job is to tell the people how the government is performing its duties. But there is also a sort of parallel government: organized crime, and – once again – our job is to inform people about criminal activities. (I18, male correspondent of a national magazine, Southeast Region)

Notwithstanding, Mexican elites are not particularly interested in keeping society informed. On the contrary, they would like to control media: “Rather than as a foundation of society, powerful groups consider the

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press as a tool for achieving their own interests” (I25, female freelance reporter, Centre Region). Thus, the second indicator of this category is represented by the impact of journalism on powerful actors’ interests. That is, a thorough investigative story on a public figure’s wrongdoings is likely to affect that person’s interests. If the exposed individual does not have the evidence to prove the contrary, he/she is likely to respond with aggression. This is simply because—as it was discussed before—there is a good chance that he/she ends up unpunished for both the wrongdoing and the assault on the journalist, due to the high levels of impunity in Mexico. I22 (anchorman of a local TV station, West Region) explains that “every piece of investigative journalism presents information that may affect someone’s interests. There are certain powerful actors whose reaction is violence when they feel exposed.” I35 (male correspondent of a national newspaper, West Region) adds that “critical journalism affects elite groups’ interests whose members consider us their enemies. However, we [journalists] are neither friends nor foes. We are just professionals who try to do our job the best way we can.” Hence, as I44 (male correspondent of an international news agency, Northwest Region) argues “if, as a journalist, you expose government wrongdoings, you are affecting interests. Thus, anti-press violence is a way of retaliation.” In sum, If you publish a story that damages certain political or economic interest, that is when you become a target. Obviously, I am not saying that I am going to defame someone just because. But if I have proofs and the information is double-­checked, I have to publish it. However, there are a lot of things that cannot go public precisely due to the same political or economic interests. (I90, female photographer of a local newspaper, Northeast Region)

Professional Journalism Even though the concept of professionalism has been widely contested in the field of journalism studies, it is commonly accepted that it entails—at least—two key elements: routines and role orientation. Whereas the former involves a set of shared practices such as factual reporting or the separation between information and opinion (Tuchman, 1978; Shoemaker & Reese, 1996; Wahl-Jorgensen, 2007; González & Echeverría, 2022), the latter is associated with the adoption of an ideal-type of journalist, for example civic-oriented or watchdog (Deuze, 2005; Mellado, 2015;

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González & Echeverría, 2022).5 Therefore, as a category for this inquiry that was present in 27 answers, professional journalism is operationalized precisely through the aforementioned key indicators. Regarding the practices associated with the news-making process, some informants acknowledged that there are several signs of professionalization in certain Mexican news organizations. Consequently, there is an increasing number of journalists that are “improving their reporting techniques” (I62, male correspondent of a national TV station, Northwest Region). According to the interviewees, a professional performance includes factual reporting, fact-checking, diversity of sources, and visual story-telling, to mention just a few. This situation differentiates news workers on the field, just as I48 (male publisher of a local newspaper, Northeast Region) argues, “some years ago, less prepared reporters preferred to cover crime news, but that is exactly where some of them were hired as spokespersons of cartels. They stopped being journalists and became mouthpieces of drug lords.” In addition, I73 (male correspondent of a national TV station, Northeast Region) mentions that: For many years, a lot of journalists were spokespersons of the government. People realized it, and criticized it. Now, there is a new generation of journalists, and we say the things as they are. We seek to tell the truth in a well-documented way: Cold and hard facts described without any bias.

The transition from a somewhat less professional to a more developed practice of journalism is directly connected with anti-press violence, which has also been recently discussed in the literature on Mexico (e.g., Hughes & Márquez, 2017; Salazar, 2019; González,  2021; Díaz-Cerveró & Barredo, 2020). That is, reporters who are improving their performance have become targets of powerful actors, whose wrongdoings are exposed. “Anti-press violence is mainly focused on those who are doing a good job. 5  The liberal canon of Western journalism has been widely contested, because there is not only one way to produce news. On the contrary, there is a plethora of approaches to the journalistic practice and, hence, there are “multiple journalisms” across the world (see Waisbord, 2006; Roudakova, 2009; de Albuquerque, 2012). Notwithstanding, the Mexican case suggests that journalists and media in this country have adopted and adapted the liberal model in their daily job. Therefore, as these answers imply, even though Mexico is a defective democracy, the press is still inspired by the liberal framework, at least at a discursive level. For a more elaborated discussion on this issue, the authors suggest the reading of Reyna et al. (2020) study.

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Not everyone is attacked. Those who expose corruption acts are the most frequent victims” (I55, female freelance reporter, Southeast Region). The following answers reinforce this argument: Professional journalism exposes powerful elites’ wrongdoings and corruption. Even though they have every right to legally contest or reply to any compromising news story, they do not have the proper elements to justify their actions and, hence, they simply choose to intimidate or attack us. (I10, male chief-editor of a local news site, Southeast Region) Anti-press violence is particularly focused on critical and independent journalists. The reason is quite obvious: Powerful actors do not like to be questioned by the media, because their corruption and impunity could be exposed. Those actors like news outlets that could be dependent on their favors and, hence, would offer a friendly coverage. Therefore, critical investigative reporters are the most frequent victims of assaults from powerful elites. (I87, male reporter of a local news site, Northeast Region)

Finally, the second indicator of professional journalism in the context of this study is related to role orientation. It means that every reporter’s job is guided by the perception of his/her societal function. In other words, the way news workers understand the aim of their job determines the content they produce (Mellado, 2015; Xu & Jin, 2017; González & Echeverría, 2022). There are diverse journalistic professional roles, but the watchdog approach is one of the most popular aspirations worldwide (Blumler & Gurevitch, 1995; Hallin & Mancini, 2004). This concept entails the practice of investigative journalism, which is oriented towards keeping political and economic elites accountable. In doing so, the media promotes citizens’ right to know by adopting a surveillance stance in front of powerful groups (Blumler & Gurevitch, 1995; Hallin & Mancini, 2004). The collected empirical evidence suggests that Mexican journalists share that role orientation, because their answers explicitly point to the main features of the watchdog approach. That is, the informants assume that their duty is to keep powerful actors under public scrutiny. Nonetheless, adopting this stance puts them at constant risk, as these excerpts show: We are attacked because we criticize, because we investigate, because we think, and we want the people to think. We want the people to know when the government is using public money in a wrong way. We want to tell society that there are authorities colluded with drug lords. Neither the government nor the car-

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tels want us to inform our audience about their activities. (I65, male chief-­ editor of a regional magazine, Northwest Region) Journalism is the only way to expose many things that would remain hidden otherwise. Journalism is a synonym of investigation and, hence, we handle a lot of information that not everybody has. Sometimes we look for it, but sometimes our sources provide it, because they trust that we are going to publish it. That is precisely when aggressions come. (I75, female anchor-person of a local radio station, Northwest Region) We [journalists] are currently the public enemy number one to government authorities. They do not seem to understand that they cannot kill the truth by killing a journalist. We do not kill anybody, we do not display dead bodies on the street, we do not carry guns. We just take pictures and tell the people what is going on here. We are an inconvenient element for the political elites, because they live in their own bubble thinking that everything is fine. We bother politicians because we are committed to society, but not to them. That is the truth, and that is why we are getting killed. (I89, male chief-editor of a local news site, Northeast Region)

Conclusions This chapter aims to understand the impact of defective political systems on freedoms. The systems that tend to be illiberal and delegative, as in the case of Mexico, hinder the exercise of rights, and access to justice for citizens. It erodes the inherent characteristics of democracy, such as press freedom, the right to information access, the rule of law, and pluralism, among other issues. Contrary to the initial expectations, the democratic transition in Mexico did not bring a safer environment for the free practice of journalism, due to the dilapidation of power, and the weakening of the rule of law. In that sense, the previously analyzed findings suggest two main conclusions: First, the features of a defective democracy substantially increase the inherent risks that Mexican news workers have to face when they do their job. Second, the arrival of oppositional parties to municipal, state, and federal governments promoted a reconfiguration of power relations; thereby creating local political strongholds, to the detriment of the presidential figure, which also affected press freedom. Regarding the first issue, the empirical evidence points to two types of obstacles to Mexican journalism: internal and external. The former is associated with the inherent risks of the watchdog orientation. That is, very frequently any investigative reporter faces the potential hazard of

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retribution (e.g. legal actions and/or economic sanctions) when he/she publishes harsh stories. However, these are somewhat calculated risks that journalists willingly assume everywhere. Nonetheless, Mexico presents a set of external factors that makes more difficult—and even hazardous— the free practice of journalism. Aspects such as structural violence, clientelism, and collusion between government authorities and criminals, significantly reduce reporters’ autonomy and safety. In other words, contrary to an embedded democracy with enough institutional strength to defend press freedom, a defective democracy—such as Mexico—not only inhibits the free practice of journalism, but it even punishes it. This is a key finding, because it has been widely discussed that the practice of watchdog journalism in Mexico increases the chances of receiving a threat (Hughes & Márquez, 2018; Salazar, 2019). That is, threats, economic pressure, isolation, and dangerous beats (such as crime news, organized crime, and government corruption) are predictors of censorship (Hughes & Márquez, 2017). Nevertheless, this chapter contributes to the academic literature by explaining—from the journalists’ perspective—how the interaction between political, economic, and social factors also jeopardizes news workers’ safety. As a result, this situation hinders accountability and, thus, impedes Mexican citizens’ right to know. Interestingly, both of them were some of the expectations of the democratic transition in Mexico. Regarding the dilapidation of power arising from the democratic transition, it is important to say that in the same way that Mexico underwent a process of democratization from the periphery, it is currently possible to observe a new wave of authoritarianism that has started in the states—with caudillos as governors—and recently has reached the federal level, with a president centralizing power and overruling the other powers. This scenario has introduced emerging challenges for journalists, because political actors are taking advantage of polarization and a weak political opposition to expose the media as the new rivals to be defeated, and this is one of the most perilous findings of this chapter. At this point, we are uncertain about the consequences that the stigmatization of media workers will have on journalistic routines, and if it would promote new and diverse anti-­ press attacks. Nonetheless, the increasing number of journalists killed during Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s  current administration (42 from december 2018 to august 2023) does not offer an optimistic panorama. Furthermore, as the results indicate, there is a generalized perception of vulnerability among the interviewees throughout the country (see also

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González & Reyna, 2019). In other words, despite the region they live and work, Mexican news workers are well aware of the risks they have to face on a regular basis. Although killings tend to be more or less limited to certain states (for instance Baja California and Michoacán at the beginning of 2022, or Veracruz from 2010 to 2016), the sense of safety has evidently decreased for media staff in both large cities and small rural towns. Considering this inquiry as an initial step, the authors suggest a follow­up study—either quantitative or qualitative—which could explore from a comparative approach the implications of the democratic erosion for the practice of journalism in other Latin American (or Global South) countries. It would also be interesting to analyze the increasing populist profile of authorities in emergent democracies and its impact on the journalist-­ source relation. Finally, it may also be relevant to understand audiences’ expectations of press performance within a defective and/or embedded democracy.

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CHAPTER 6

Still Dreaming of Democracy: How Professional Identities from the Political Opening Shape Risk and Resiliency in Democratic Mexico Sallie Hughes

Introduction: Norms, Professionalism, and Institutional Change Research about Mexican democratization and journalism highlights the role of normative drivers of institutional change in journalism during a period of accelerated liberalization of politics from the 1980s through about 2003, when a major reform enhancing government transparency was enacted (Hughes, 2006). For a number of journalists during this period, a combination of personal, occupational, and societal influences

S. Hughes (*) Department of Journalism and Media Management, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 M. Echeverria, R. A. Gonzalez (eds.), Media and Politics in Post-Authoritarian Mexico, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36441-9_6

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increased the legitimacy of using journalism to monitor power and denounce injustice in line with ideals commonly assigned to the press in liberal democracy. Journalists’ uneven discursive support and performance of these roles reflected emerging occupational norms aligned with an increasingly active and autonomous civil society. Mexico’s democratic opening has thus far been considered “minimalist,” without institutionalization of measures of accountability and the effective provision of justice with human rights (Trejo & Ley, 2020: 33). Without transformations of local government and police that dismantle authoritarian protection rackets, Trejo and Ley (2020) offer evidence that electoral democracy destabilized authoritarian social controls in ways that encouraged organized crime to expand into local government and engage in prolonged violent contests over territory. At the same time, state governors became more powerful in national politics, but not necessarily more accountable at the local level (Langston, 2017). This created incentives for governors, police, and organized crime to silence news exposés that might activate national public opinion or other opposition (Gibson, 2005; Durazo Herrmann, 2010). Obviously, these conditions create strong incentives against the performance of journalism based upon public interest norms that were strengthened during the period of political liberalization and electoral transition. Yet, these norms continue to influence the practice of journalism in defiance of pressures to instrumentalize their work from commercial, political, and criminal actors (Guerrero, 2016: 61–64; Salazar, 2019). Occupational norms are understood in this chapter as shared expectations that guide journalism practice. Scholars have argued that occupational norms provide journalists with benchmarks for a self-reflective professional identity and shape the boundaries they construct between “good” and “bad” journalism (Singer, 2015). Occupational norms may be in harmony or discord with other occupationally relevant values and worldviews that a journalist holds, as well as whether a journalist can act in accordance with accepted norms without jeopardizing physical, psychological, or economic security. To alleviate the stress of dissonance between norms, values and worldviews, and their safe performance, journalists turn to various strategies that enhance safety while continuing to report autonomously, and in a way that foregrounds the public interest (Chandler & Munday, 2011; Hughes et al., 2021). Occupational norms, along with relevant values and worldviews, provide the basis of an occupational identity. For workers who view their

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occupation as a calling, there is evidence that self-reflective identification as a member of this occupation is associated with positive mental health (Skorikov & Vondracek, 2011), even in challenging conditions (Dworznik-­ Hoak, 2020; Hughes et al., 2021). A public service calling is a characteristic of journalists’ professional identity in democracies. Deuze (2005) argues that journalists across electoral democracies define their work as having a public mission, among other things, although how the public mission is achieved adapts to national contexts. Similarly, a public service mission and the autonomy to enact it are two of the three conditions Hallin and Mancini associate with journalism professionalism in democratic settings, with the third being shared occupational norms that are distinct to the group and monitored horizontally rather than imposed from the outside (2004: 34–37). In their study of European and Anglo-­ American democracies, the authors call attention to the contingency of the adoption of journalism as a public service mission and the need to understand its “differential development” in different societies. The adoption of an ideology of journalism as a “public trust” is an important historical development and should not be dismissed as “mere ideology” any more than it should be accepted as pure altruism. It is a historically specific conception of the journalist’s role in society with important consequences for the practice of journalism and the relation of the media to other social institutions (Hallin & Mancini, 2004: 36). I argue in this chapter that the bundle of occupational norms, values, and worldviews that were legitimized for journalists during the democratic opening have become a basis of professional identity two decades into Mexican democracy and provide a framework within which journalists’ daily decisions are made. Professional identity shapes how journalism practice may contribute to the necessary strengthening of vital institutions so that Mexican democracy moves past its minimalist version, but also how journalists attempt to stay safe physically, emotionally, and economically during the current period in which monitorial journalists are particularly vulnerable to harm. Thus, in the current Mexican context characterized by multilevel assaults on journalists’ safety, professional identity plays a crucial and dualistic role. On the one hand, a democratic professional identity motivates journalists to consider engaging in reporting that attracts the attention of powerful people who may feel threatened and act to silence the journalist. In other words, acting in harmony with a democratic professional identity may put a journalist in danger. On the other hand, professional identities

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motivate a search for ways to continue to work in accord with democratic goals, and also shape how journalists resist encroachment on their autonomy by forming the basis of solidarity upon which collectives form to resist encroachment. Further, key aspects of democratic identity are drawn upon for emotional resiliency, which allows journalists to continue to try to enact professional norms. To summarize, by creating a framework within which journalists make daily decisions, professional identities based on democratic norms, values, and worldviews structure possibilities for resistance to encroachment on autonomy to perform what is viewed as a public service or civic mission in democracy. Professional identities encourage journalists to cover dangerous but vitally important topics for democracy, including crime, corruption, and human rights, while they also provide the bases of solidarity for collective resistance and emotional resiliency that are necessary to resist and be emotionally resilient in an era that is more dangerous and uncertain than the political transition period. The remainder of this chapter supports my interpretation by reviewing the dangers that performance of democratic professional identities creates for journalists in the contemporary era and then how these same identities open avenues for resistance and emotional resiliency.

Dangerous Performances What I described as civic-oriented occupational norms diffused across the field of Mexican news organizations in the 1980s and 1990s from “entrepreneurial” outlets in the 1980s that set a new standard in resistance to the predominate political and economic incentives of the time, to a wider subset of news organizations in the 1990s as the incentives and prestigious referents for journalism changed (Hughes, 2006). The civic turn in Mexican journalism bundled values, worldviews, and practices that reflected expectations of what journalism professionalism during democracy should be. Civic norms were strongly contested by other norms, most notably logics of commercialism, clientelism, and partisanship, at the end of the electoral transition. However, civic norms that included monitoring power and denouncing abuses became more accepted at the discursive level as the way journalism should support participatory democracy. These norms were put into practice where and when the organizational and external environment for news allowed. Occupational norms that reflected

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understandings and expectations of journalism’s contributions to accountability and social justice in democracy became part of an aspirational professional identity for many journalists. Some 20 years into Mexico’s electoral democracy, the context for the expression of democratic professional identities in journalism has shifted, making their performance in some arenas extremely risky. Advances toward accountability and justice with human rights created during the transition include the establishment of public institutions charged with protecting free and fair elections, government transparency, and human rights. In the electoral arena, citizen activism has produced alternation of political power at the federal level and in all but four of Mexico’s 31 states and the then-­ Federal District. Importantly, poverty and extreme poverty almost halved between 2000 and 2018, according to the World Bank.1 Despite these gains, electoral democracy has been unable to produce effective accountability, rule of law, and protection of rights across Mexico’s territories. In fact, violence increased to epidemic levels (Schedler, 2014). Across the 2000s, the expansion of organized crime into local government and local officials’ corruption and human rights abuses became prominent features of the current era (Trejo & Ley, 2020). Silencing journalists who might draw attention to these misdeeds also became prominent. At one point in Mexico’s transition, nine former governors were under investigation, indictment, or in jail for corruption. In some of these cases, release of state records showed state payments to media companies and individual journalists. If the carrot of clientelism didn’t work to silence critical journalists, a stick was used. Mexico’s chapter of the human rights group Article 19 reports that 150 journalists were killed for reasons related to their work between 2000, when the PRI lost the powerful Mexican presidency for the first time, and February 2022. The level of impunity for those killings is nearly total. Non-lethal threats and aggressions are far more common, however, and also go unpunished in most cases. They range from physical assaults, sexual harassment, death threats, kidnapping, stalking, attacks on media installations, and online harassment. Reports of non-lethal aggressions overwhelmingly attributed them to local government officials in the first half of 2021, then political parties and

1  World Bank, Development Research Group. Poverty headcount ratio at $5.50 a day. Available at: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.UMIC?end=2019&start=201 9&view=bar.

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then civilian police, according to Article 19. Aggressions from organized crime or the armed forces were much less frequently reported in 2021.2 These reports stand in contrast to aggressors reported in a national survey of journalists from 2012 to 2014, suggesting organized crime has effectively silenced fearful journalists or local politicians have become more aggressive toward the press. In that survey, 40% of journalists reported having received one or more direct threats because of their work since 2000. Of those, most were attributed to reporting about organized crime (42.8%), then politics (34.9%), then business (2.6%), and finally another origin or a combination (19.7%). Participants in the survey reported responding to threats in ways that attempted to protect their ability to enact democratic occupational norms, including being more careful to verify facts and receiving training to report more safely about sensitive topics and areas. In addition to resistance, retreat was also a prominent response. Measures that curtailed professional autonomy included reducing coverage at news scenes and self-censoring altogether (Hughes & Márquez-Ramírez, 2017). Labor conditions in the 2020s also make it harder to enact democratic norms and professional identities. Labor informality is not new in Latin American journalism, especially outside of major news organizations. However, as Márquez-Ramírez, Amado and Waisbord note (2021), labor precarity in journalism understood as job insecurity, economic uncertainty, and intensification of work pace has become more generalized. This is the result of the neoliberal economic model that stripped social protections from Latin America’s urban workforce in the late twentieth century and the acceleration of individualized by-the-piece pay arrangements in the 2000s. Precarity is reflected in “decimated newsrooms, appallingly low salaries, lack of benefits, and reporters who hold multiple jobs and are expected to file numerous stories daily and weekly on a range of issues” (Márquez-Ramírez et al., 2021, online abstract). Márquez-Ramírez et al. (2022) argue that democratic norms become irrelevant when journalists must meet production quotas to retain employment or make a living on “gig” freelance work (Márquez-Ramírez et  al., 2021: 147), causing in turn demoralization, stress, and abandonment of the profession (Reyna, 2021).

2  See Lo más relevante del año (The most relevant of the year). Available at. https://articulo19.org/lo-mas-relevante/.

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Precarious labor conditions also undermine journalists’ ability to enact democratic norms safely. Based on interviews with journalists across a variety of local news contexts, Brambila argues persuasively that precarious labor conditions weaken journalists’ ability report in accordance with their occupational norms, values, and worldviews (2018, 171–177). Freelancers in her sample from the mid-2010s reported being more vulnerable because they were less likely to receive safety training or employer support after an attack, but so also were journalists who worked in local news organizations that embraced clientelistic quid-pro-quos with local politicians, according to Brambila. Some of her informants even reported being fired after receiving a threat because their reporting has disrupted owners’ clientelistic exchanges with police or mayors.

Identity, Resistance, and Resiliency Given all of the incentives not to enact democratic professional identities, why would journalists engage in activities that threaten their physical, psychological, or economic integrity? Empirical evidence suggests a twofold answer emphasizing the role that democratic norms and identities play in shaping journalistic performance: first, journalists who express higher levels of support for democratic professional norms are those who are most threatened, and second, journalists who cannot be silenced with payments are threatened to stay quiet. Quantitative analysis of survey data from a representative national sample of Mexican journalists in news organizations during the mid-2010s identified support for monitoring power and fostering social change as powerful predictors of threats related to work, beyond covering risky newsbeats or the level of violence or corruption in the wider context of work (Hughes & Márquez-Ramírez, 2018). At the same time, the survey also found evidence that normalizing expectations that journalism should support powerful actors or engage in clientelistic relationships with government officials lessened the chance of being threatened. After controlling for contextual violence, the type of news outlet, gender of the journalists and various occupational conditions, journalists who expressed higher levels of support for monitoring power were much more likely to have received repeated threats due to their work. Using a five-­ point scale to measure support, a journalist on average was 70% more likely to be repeatedly threatened with each additional degree of support expressed for using journalism to monitoring power. Said another way, a

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journalist who strongly supported the expectation that journalism should monitor power was 2.8 times more likely on average to be repeatedly threatened for work compared to a journalist who did not support monitoring power at all. Similarly, supporting journalism as a facilitator of social change also predicted being threatened, but less frequently. With the same controls for other possible causes, a journalist who strongly supported the role of using journalism to foster social change was 3.3 times more likely on average to have received one or two threats related to work compared to a journalist who did not support journalism for social change at all. The survey also offered evidence about a relationship between work-­ related threats and normalization of clientelism or support for the powerful. Journalists who gave highest levels of support for using journalism to favor political or economic actors were 24% less likely to report having received frequent threats compared to those who rejected this role for journalism. In addition, journalists in states where more of the population believed their state officials were dishonest were much less likely to report receiving work-related threats. My co-author and I interpret this initially unexpected finding as an artifact of clientelistic, often under-the-table payments to journalists and media owners. This evidence suggests that journalists who receive payments from officials do not need to be threatened because they do not as strongly support democratic professional norms. Despite the numerous incentives not to enact professional norms, many acts of individual and collective resistance to encroachment on democratic norms, both every day and extraordinary in nature, have been documented (González de Bustamante & Relly, 2021). In a qualitative study of job stress and coping among journalists (Hughes et  al., 2021), journalists called forth a public service mission to explain why they carried on after receiving threats and physical aggressions. “If we are silenced then they win,” said a journalist who relocated in Mexico City with her family after receiving death threats and requiring counseling to overcome suicidal thoughts. “I feel a personal responsibility,” said another journalist. “This is the trench where I stake out my position of resistance in the face of everything that is happening.” Journalists have formed associations and informal collectives to provide safety training so they can continue to work within a democratic normative framework. Some collectives provide support for attacked journalists, put public pressure on authorities who stall or block investigations into attacks on journalists, and offer social support, counseling and help to

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relocate. As newsroom numbers dwindled, journalists also have formed non-profits and freelancer associations to report collaboratively as a means to continue investigative journalism for accountability and social justice even in financially insecure times. Not least important, collegiality and solidarity among journalists have helped muster emotional resiliency in very challenging circumstances. Collective acts of resistance occur among journalists who share similar goals about how to report based on shared visions of journalism’s roles in society. Professional norms and solidarity among colleagues were widely evoked as resources for coping and sources of mental fortitude in a study of occupational stress and coping mechanisms across three different contexts of insecurity in Mexico. Monitoring power and advocating for change, and voicing resistance to encroachment on editorial autonomy, helped journalists cope with stressful working conditions in a challenged democracy. In describing their colleagues and advocacy work, journalists tended to mingle concrete protective actions and advocacy with the emotional support gained form them. A journalist in Puebla explained her participation in an advocacy group publicizing violations of press freedom “as a protection mechanism, to take care of each other.” Another in Tamaulipas, one of the most dangerous areas for journalists, did the same: “Training workshops, sharing time together and supporting one another, and taking collections for funerals... being part of a community with the same problems.” At the same time, journalists expressed frustration when they had to retreat from harms’ way through self-censorship, changing beats, switching outlets, and even moving to another city. A journalist who had to change employers and newsbeats after being beaten because of a story she wrote was indignant when recalling what her ordeal. She called it an injustice because dishonest journalists could work unharmed. “This happened because I was an honest journalist,” she said (Hughes et al., 2021: 10).

Conclusion: Aspirational Democracy Scholars of institutions point to normative frameworks as brakes on change, or accelerants when new norms gain legitimacy. Norms associated with the roles of journalism in democracy spread across the trans-­ organizational field of Mexican journalism in the 1980s and 1990s as they gained legitimacy, and they remain important today. I have argued and shown available evidence that these norms, together with occupationally

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relevant values and worldviews, have become part of how journalists define themselves and distinguish their “good” work from others. The effects of democratic professional identity in a dangerous context are dualistic, encouraging behavior that makes journalists more vulnerable and at the same time offering resources for individual and collective resistance and resiliency. This evidence is partial and there is equally compelling evidence that journalists leave the profession out of frustration (Reyna, 2021) or adapt their performance to the constricted environments in which they find themselves (Hughes & Márquez-Ramírez, 2018). The implications of this for journalists’ human rights and whether journalism can contribute to moving beyond the “minimalist” version of democracy that Trejo and Ley (2020) describe are quite stark.

References Brambila Ramirez, J. A. (2018). Reporting dangerously in Mexico: Capital, risks and strategies among journalists. (Doctoral dissertation, University of Leeds). Chandler, D., & Munday, R. (2011). A dictionary of media and communication. OUP Oxford. Deuze, M. (2005). What is journalism? Professional identity and ideology of journalists reconsidered. Journalism, 6(4), 442–464. Durazo Herrmann, J. (2010). Neo-patrimonialism and subnational authoritarianism in Mexico. The case of Oaxaca. Journal of Politics in Latin America, 2(2), 85–112. Dworznik-Hoak, G. (2020). Weathering the storm: Occupational stress in journalists who covered hurricane Harvey. Journalism Studies, 21(1), 88–106. Gibson, E. L. (2005). Boundary control: Subnational authoritarianism in democratic countries. World Politics, 58(1), 101–132. González de Bustamante, C., & Relly, J. E. (2021). Surviving Mexico: Resistance and resilience among journalists in the twenty-first century. University of Texas Press. Guerrero, M. A. (2016). Democracia y medios en México: el papel del periodismo. Instituto Nacional Electoral. Hallin, D.  C., & Mancini, P. (2004). Comparing media systems: Three models of media and politics. Cambridge University Press. Hughes, S. (2006). Newsrooms in conflict: Journalism and the democratization of Mexico. University of Pittsburgh Press. Hughes, S., Iesue, L., de Ortega Bárcenas, H.  F., Sandoval, J.  C., & Lozano, J. C. (2021). Coping with occupational stress in journalism: Professional identities and advocacy as resources. Journalism Studies, 22(8), 971–991.

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Hughes, S., & Márquez-Ramírez, M. (2017). Examining the Practices That Mexican Journalists Employ to Reduce Risk in a Context of Violence. International Journal of Communication, 11, 499–521. Hughes, S., & Márquez-Ramírez, M. (2018). Local-level authoritarianism, democratic normative aspirations, and antipress harassment: Predictors of threats to journalists in Mexico. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 23(4), 539–560. Langston, J.  K. (2017). Democratization and authoritarian party survival: Mexico’s PRI. Oxford University Press. Márquez-Ramírez, M., Amado, A., & Waisbord, S. (2021). Labor precarity and gig journalism in Latin America. In Newswork and precarity (pp.  137–150). Routledge. Reyna, V. H. (2021). “This is my exit sign”: Job control deficit, role strain and turnover in Mexican journalism. Journalism Practice, 15(8), 1129–1145. Salazar, G. (2019). Strategic allies and the survival of critical media under repressive conditions: An empirical analysis of local Mexican press. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 24(3), 341–362. Schedler, A. (2014). The criminal subversion of Mexican democracy. Journal of Democracy, 25(1), 5–18. Singer, J. (2015). Out of bounds: Professional norms as boundary markers. In M.  Carlson & S.  C. Lewis (Eds.), Boundaries of journalism: Professionalism, practices and participation (pp. 21–36). Routledge. Skorikov, V. B., & Vondracek, F. W. (2011). Occupational identity. In Handbook of identity theory and research (pp. 693–714). Springer. Trejo, G., & Ley, S. (2020). Votes, drugs, and violence: The political logic of criminal wars in Mexico. Cambridge University Press.

CHAPTER 7

Violence, Trauma, and Reflexivity: Methodological Issues and Challenges in Conducting Research in Mexico’s Conflict Zones Jeannine E. Relly and Celeste González de Bustamante

Listening to gunfire erupting on the Mexican side shortly after we crossed the border into the United States. Processing and analyzing first-hand accounts of torture and abduction. Knowing that we likely were being surveilled at times during our fieldwork. These were just a few of the moments that we reflected upon throughout our ten-year study of the rapidly changing environments for journalists in Mexico’s conflict zones.

J. E. Relly (*) The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA e-mail: [email protected] C. González de Bustamante The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 M. Echeverria, R. A. Gonzalez (eds.), Media and Politics in Post-Authoritarian Mexico, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36441-9_7

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Undoubtedly, our risk paled in comparison to most of the participants involved in our study. By the end of the second decade of the millennium, dozens of armed conflicts were transpiring at any one time around the world with a minimal scholarship about how to conduct research in these war zones. In 2020 alone, there were 34 armed conflicts with one officially declared conflict in the Americas, 15 in Africa, 9 in Asia, 6 in the Middle East, and 3 in Europe (Escola de Cultura de Pau, 2021). During our study in Mexico (2000–2020), which spanned the period in which the country witnessed the end of 71 years of one-party rule, there was episodic violence and street combat in cities and towns throughout the country. It was a period in which more than 150 journalists were killed, and levels of impunity hovered around 95 percent. As we write this chapter about research in zones of conflict, four Mexican journalists have been killed in less than a month, the first murders of media professionals in the country in 2022 (Committee to Protect Journalists, 2022). The violence in Mexico often has been meteoric and could last for months and sometimes years and often moved from one jurisdiction to another as one organized crime group gained control over a geographic area controlled by another group. The violence spiked dramatically after then Mexican President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa proclaimed  a war on organized crime in 2006. Since Calderón’s inauguration there have been more than 150,000 deaths related to organized criminal violence and there are some 200 drug trafficking cells operating in throughout the country (Beittel, 2020; Council on Foreign Relations, 2022). When our fieldwork began in 2011, there was little academic research on how the ongoing conflicts breaking out in Mexico had affected journalists, who witnessed an average of one journalist being killed every month in the last decade (Hughes, 2006; González de Bustamante & Relly, 2021). Though we were far in many ways from the conflict, living just  an hour’s drive from the Mexico border and north of the state of Sonora, we felt a deep sense of obligation to engage in the study of this critical issue as former journalists and researchers. As academics, throughout the decade of fieldwork for our study, which focuses on the new millennium for journalists in Mexico, we reflected continuously about our decisions with this work. This type of reflexivity has been used as a concept in journalism studies to examine how journalists make decisions and how they assess the profession (Ahva, 2013; González de Bustamante & Relly, 2016). We expand the use of

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reflexivity to discuss how and why we might move forward in future studies involving risk, journalists, and zones of conflict. We embrace Guillemin and Gillam’s (2004) definition of reflexivity in terms of conducting research as “an active, ongoing process that saturates every stage of the research…. reflexivity in research is thus a process of critical reflection both on the kind of knowledge produced from research and how that knowledge is generated” (p. 274). We would add that even after the research has been conducted, reflexivity continues through the publication stage and beyond. In our work, we have noted that the majority of journalists in Mexico have been killed in what we define as either a peripheral or an extreme peripheral zone. These zones are often the most violent and corrupt. The extreme periphery or “double periphery” “refers to both the extremely marginalized work status of journalists as well as the extreme geographical, political, and economic margins of certain regions of the countries” (González de Bustamante & Relly, 2021, p. 8). Working as researchers in the country’s extreme peripheries also had implications for and influenced the way we conducted our study and how we interacted with research participants in these volatile regions. We want to note how not one geographical area is necessarily the same or near the same in Mexico or for that matter, any other country. Though shared experiences can serve to illuminate various contexts, we would suggest utilizing the expertise of local sources/informants and resources that are specific to the context. That said, this chapter attempts to provide researchers with a sense of what to expect and what is difficult and, at times, impossible to know. We discuss the planning that we did in advance, our mixed methods approach, precautions that we took, limitations of this type of research, and lessons learned through our reflexive approach. Our academic essay draws on the limited research that focuses on conducting research in conflict zones (Barakat & Ellis, 1996; Goodhand, 2000; Romano, 2006; Williams et al., 1992; Wood, 2006) and is mindful of more extreme conditions that are discussed, say, in terrorism studies or studies of research in all-out war (Dolnik, 2011; Kovats-Bernat, 2002; Loyle & Simoni, 2017). These studies have criticized conflict or terrorism-­ related research for being event-driven, standing on weak methods, descriptive, limited in the scope of time, and lacking fieldwork (Dolnik, 2011, p. 5). From the research design to fieldwork to community considerations, we discuss and debate ethical issues reflexively through use of “gate keepers” who give access to study participants; through positionality

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or power imbalances, that is researchers having a greater level of safety than participants, and the concept of research fatigue or participants sometimes feeling abandoned by researchers (Espinoza, 2020).

Assessing Risks and Evaluating Ethics: Preparing for Fieldwork and Data Collection in Regions of Conflict Study design and preparation are critical for all research, and when it comes to conducting studies in conflict zones, decisions made during this stage could quite literally mean the difference between life and death for study participants and the researchers. Scholars have pointed out that some of the most common ways of conducting research can be ‘insufficient, irrelevant, inapplicable, imprudent, or simply naiveté  in zones of conflict (Kovats-Bernat, 2002, pp.  1-2). We, thus, opted for and supported methodologies that were flexible and capable of handling shifting and fluid conditions and/or circumstances that have the potential for becoming untenable or high risk for research participants, their networks, or the researchers. In areas of conflict, a key element for preparing for research is coming to grips with ‘the type of information that is being sought, how it will be acquired, and the risks’ to study participants and the researchers (Kovats-Bernat, 2002, p. 3). There is consensus that in zones of conflict participants and their families and friends or researchers and their contacts could be at risk (Goodhand, 2000). During most of the twentieth century, personal safety of researchers was addressed minimally (Williams et  al., 1992). Sometimes topical areas are a risk and other times just speaking with researchers from outside of a country can be an issue for study participants. In some environments, there are concerns that U.S. researchers are intelligence operatives, given the legacy of the Central Intelligence Agency and other intelligence organizations from around the world whose employees have taken on a host of occupational cover stories. This indeed can be a barrier. Having formerly been journalists, each for more than a dozen years, we understood many norms and possibly had occupational buy-in from study participants for this reason. We surmise that research participants knew we understood many aspects of the hardship of the risk and of the work because of our deep familiarity with the profession.

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Over the course of nearly ten years, we developed three questionnaire instruments that were designed for largely open-ended semi-structured interviews with (1) journalists in Mexico and those based in the United States who reported in Mexico, (2) activists and key representatives of organizations (domestic, regional, and transnational nongovernmental organizations) (NGOs), intergovernmental organizations and governmental organizations, and (3) academics. Given the unprecedented levels of violence in the twenty-first century in Mexico, we considered that the research that we were conducting would provide significant historical data for future research. For this reason, in addition to dozens of semi-­ structured interviews, we gathered oral histories. To identify study participants, we turned to trusted journalists who were based in Mexico, work in Mexico, or have worked in Mexico. Not only did we receive invaluable input from professionals on the ground in various regions, we also were able to build a list of potential study participants through our own journalist contacts that we had developed and cultivated over the years. Lists of interviewees were constructed through associations with individuals in professional organizations, networks, and snowball sampling. Our sample of journalists tended to be senior and predominantly  male. We were conscious that many journalists were uneasy about being interviewed, about speaking with U.S.-based researchers with so much surveillance going on in numerous towns and cities (Sierra, 2013). These are a few of the challenges of gathering a representative sample of study participants in zones of conflict when the working population is at risk. We were extremely cognizant of our positionality, of our ability to leave Mexico and return to a home away from the violence, and that research participants generally could not leave the cities and towns where they were reporting. They, in comparison to us, clearly were much more vulnerable and at risk. Throughout the United States, scholars conducting research involving human subjects must obtain approval from the Institutional Review Board (IRB) at one’s academic institution. Surprisingly, we found that our IRB paperwork and interactions were quite simple, given that we considered our participants to be at risk of attacks and in some cases at extreme risk. The IRB at our university required us to provide all of our protocols, questionnaires, and consent forms in Spanish and English, yet we were not required to provide a risk mitigation plan for the research participants or the researchers. Risk assessment by our university’s office of risk primarily outlined the potential issues to us. That said, we also note that most IRB

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approaches do not include questions about regional violence, crime, corruption, or terror-like activity (Dolnik, 2011). In our study, after obtaining approval, we provided annual IRB updates every year thereafter. We had two additions to our original qualitative study using semi-structured interviews with journalist participants. Our protocol for the second phase included organizational representatives, activists, academics, and a new questionnaire. Our final IRB addition was for oral histories, which were exempted, per IRB protocol. Our institution used numerous information sources for risk analyses, including the U.S. Department of State’s advisories, alerts, and warnings for various areas of Mexico in our study. As a result, and to make sure that we followed our institution’s policies, before departing for our first research trip, we filed the required paperwork with the risk assessment office, and we monitored the U.S.  State Department information, and other assessments of the situation at the onset and throughout the study. Another important consideration that we discussed prior to initiating fieldwork included the extent to which we would involve graduate students in this research project. The literature has indicated graduate student researchers are a ‘high-risk group’ (Loyle & Simoni, 2017, p. 142). Given the unpredictability of violence in the region, we felt it most prudent to not involve graduate students in in situ fieldwork. We felt that because we had prior experience, we could take reasonable risks and would be able to recognize threat levels and be able to leave environments quickly if necessary. Prior to conducting research in the field and in order to protect our data, we acquired a U.S. military-grade USB drive with password protection and other password-protected portable drives. Names were not recorded in our notes and we asked student research assistants to take the IRB training and to save transcribed documents to our password-­protected jump drives. We agree with Wood’s (2006, p. 380) assessment that “the approval of and adherence to protocols” is of course not sufficient to ensure adequate ethical judgment; such protocols cannot anticipate the many dilemmas other than issues of informed consent and data security that arise in the course of research, particularly in conflict zones. We always had a disclosure form about our study and a consent form for those wanting their name and identities to be used in our research and for it to become part of “The Documented Border Open Access Digital Archive” housed in the University of Arizona Libraries Special Collections division. Some study

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participants preferred that we not even leave the study disclosure paperwork with them. We understood that for some individuals, keeping documents related to our study in their possession could cause them to be scrutinized and questioned by those with nefarious agendas. Thus, our meetings with them, in terms of a paper trail, were as if they never transpired. Some scholars have suggested the importance of taking a flexible methodological approach to research (Barakat & Ellis, 1996). We initiated the project with a mindset that we would do interviews and a survey separately. Given that approach, we constructed a survey and a census of what was a fairly comprehensive list of Mexican news organizations. At the same time, violence was continuing in various parts of the country, and in places where we planned to do field research. As a result, we abandoned the idea of a survey, knowing that face-to-face work in Mexico would likely be most effective and because of concerns about some so-called news outlets being infiltrated by organized crime, which is a reality in Mexico (González de Bustamante & Relly, 2021). Our backgrounds in journalism and other journalism studies research helped immensely with interviewing in different contexts. We both had interviewed thousands of individuals in our careers about a myriad of subjects and topics, many of which would be considered trauma and violence-­ related. For example, we had experience interviewing a range of individuals, from family members whose loved ones had been murdered to victims of heinous crimes. One of us wrote an Op-Ed about the “week of death” in which every story that was covered included some form of death, from infanticide to other homicide investigations and judicial proceedings. Another of us wrote an in-depth magazine piece in the late 1990s about a Mexican journalist gunned down in front of his news organization in a border town. In short, though the settings were distinct for our study about Mexican journalists, violence and trauma were very familiar topics to us. In addition, we recognized the importance of first-person knowledge and accounts of the areas that we visited. Contextual and geographical knowledge is more important than ever in conflict situations for there often is a high level of disinformation or propaganda where truth, often, “is the first victim” (Barakat & Ellis, 1996; González de Bustamante & Relly, 2021). To lessen risk for both participants and researchers, we monitored each region of Mexico that we were studying for “pre-field” knowledge of the landscape (Romano, 2006). We contacted journalists and

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other local and regional experts, who worked in communities before arriving “on the scene” and learned about their security and safety strategies. Some veteran reporters told us in some of the most dangerous cities and towns, they called ahead and spoke with de facto authorities and let them know they were coming. In other cases, seasoned audiovisual journalists made sure to clearly identify their equipment, so that it would not be mistaken for an automatic weapon. All this contextual (historical, geographical, political, cultural, and societal) knowledge and our own previous experiences in the region were extremely useful once we began our fieldwork, which we discuss below.

On the Ground Research and Data Analysis Safety in the field. Similar to other researchers working in conflict zones, we constantly monitored the situation in various areas of Mexico before we planned to conduct interviews. We used news reports, trusted accounts, Google Alerts, and country advisories to keep apprised of on-the-ground circumstances and shifting environments. We studied the situation daily before we left for a destination, while we spent time in the field, and thereafter. We cannot stress enough that in addition to physical security issues that we read about in everyday news, it is important to always keep in mind the constant state of information warfare in many conflict environments, so the importance of triangulating information is critical. Here, we extrapolate from our Mexico experience to discuss some of the precautions to take in zones of conflict, in general. Employer regulations related to travel in zones of conflict are a factor related to even being able to carry out research. For example, during some of the period in which we were doing fieldwork, the U.S. states of California and Texas did not permit public university researchers to do research across the border in Mexico. Arizona and New Mexico did not have such a policy. Dolnik (2011) notes that some employers can “make a researcher’s life very difficult, especially during travel to countries listed by most foreign ministries on a ‘do not travel to’ list (i.e. Afghanistan, Sudan, Burundi, Iraq, Central African Republic, Somalia, Chad, Niger, Guinea etc.)” (p. 19). During our fieldwork, we took several research trips along the nearly 2000-mile Mexico-U.S. border, aiming to visit some cities and towns at least twice in the course of the study. We interviewed journalists and others in all of the top media markets in Mexico’s northern border region. We also did fieldwork in Mexico City, Tabasco, and Veracruz, the latter two

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states are on the southern periphery and were, at the time, where key areas transit points for organized crime groups (González de Bustamante & Relly, 2021, p. 8). In the last decades, there is growing debate among researchers that a baseline goal of ‘do no harm’ research is not sufficient and that the research should indeed contribute toward diminishing ‘that suffering’ (Hugman et al., 2011, p. 1272). As researchers working in Mexico’s conflict zones, we wholeheartedly agree. From our research and reflecting on other scholarship, we note a host of factors that researchers must consider in potentially high-risk regions. As women working in a patriarchal country with a history of machismo, we were well aware of social and cultural norms that could influence our study. We attempted to “blend in” and more or less keep as low a profile as possible. We traveled in locally registered vehicles whenever we could with local journalists, whom we employed to help us navigate difficult environments. There are situations for some researchers in which they may travel in armored transportation from the airport pick-up to the end of the project. All of these layers can have an impact on access and trust related to interviews with individuals in the field, of course. In Dolnik’s (2011) reference to fieldwork in Afghanistan, there were recommendations to avoid installations with security forces, areas where police concentrate and to make sure to have contact information for emergency response assistance and communication from a local security provider (p. 20). In one large city in northern Mexico, during our fieldwork and hours before we were scheduled to leave the city, the local research assistant who was driving us accidently collided with another car. Fortunately, no one was hurt. We avoided contact with the police who arrived at the scene and let the research assistant interact with law enforcement. Some journalists told us that they dressed a particular way so as not to be confused with law enforcement or members of organized crime. As women working in conflict zones, this caused us to reflect on our own attire. Given our prior experience as journalists and researchers in the region, we were aware of cultural norms, but because of the heightened risks in certain areas we were sure to wear clothing that was both professional and comfortable enough to pick up and run, if that were necessary. Moreover, given the fluid situation throughout the country, especially in the nation’s peripheral zones, we made sure to adhere to our university’s protocols and follow the university’s risk assessment guidelines. In addition, we had regular check-ins with two individuals, and we let our

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department heads at the time know about our whereabouts. We had thorough conversations between us each time we went out into the field. These threat assessment conversations guided our decisions about what cities we would visit, where we would conduct interviews, how late in the day we might want to stay in various communities, etc. Ethics in the field. From the research design to beyond publication, research ethics play out in unimaginable ways. Some issues included research participants casually asking us whether certain individuals have been interviewed, which, if answered, would identify other study participants. This often plays out in informal and unintentional ways, when colleagues ask about colleagues being interviewed. In some cases, identifying study participants could lead to life and death issues. Understanding the potential dangers, we took intentional measures to keep the names and identities of those included in our study in a secure location. Factors beyond researchers’ control include context-related variables that impact the way study participants respond to questions, including security and safety concerns; how members of organized crime groups or other entities outside of the law will respond to the presence of researchers; and the level of risk researchers are willing to take with the participants and their own safety (Romano, 2006, p. 441). In short, we are in agreement that research ethics require risks to be weighed against the benefits of the findings and of course this may be open to interpretation and highly situational (Dolnik, 2011). We, as researchers, always had to weigh the cost of the emotional toll of an interview on a research participant against the importance of sharing the findings with a broad audience. One never knows whether the right decision was made. Working with local journalists. Researchers from many disciplines often employ journalists to work with them in the field in conflict zones. This in part is because of the vast community knowledge that journalists have and their ability to navigate and work in these challenging environments. There are all sorts of arrangements between researchers and journalists from paying individuals by the day to set up interviews with additional payment for gas and food to arranging to pay individuals by the interviews that they set up (Dolnik, 2011). Others employ these ‘fixers’ (local producers) as drivers and interpreters; however, some scholarship suggests it is important to seek diversity in support staff to ensure that there is broad and purposive or representative sampling among those on a list to be interviewed (p. 22).

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Adequately paying those working with us in the field is as much a moral duty as is treating those on the team with respect. For personal safety reasons, too, it is not an area in which to cut costs. Moreover, recruiting individuals to work on a team is a form of commitment to those individuals that we will do everything in our ability to keep them safe as they are doing the same for researchers they are working with (Ochoa O’Leary et  al., 2013). We fortunately, together as research partners, believe we addressed each difficult situation in the field in the best, most ethical way possible at the time. Interview locations. Recognizing the distinctions and levels of risk associated with conducting fieldwork on the periphery or extreme periphery, we attempted to reduce risk as much as possible by choosing to conduct interviews in the most secure settings. As we entered numerous ports of entry in Mexico from the U.S., we noted the “look-outs” in numerous cities and towns and in restaurants. We also stayed in one hotel that had surveillance cameras every few feet down the halls outside the rooms. Some seminal work has stressed the importance of maintaining an awareness of biases in zones of conflict: spatial biases are important to be aware of, where researchers seek areas of relative comfort, which impacts observations. Researchers might sometimes seek easy-to-access contacts or traverse where other researchers have been before. Additionally, study participants often are those who are outwardly willing to communicate and potentially those who researchers always speak with. In some cases, even pleasant weather may be a bias for some researchers. That is, fieldwork may be carried out at only certain times of the year; specializations of researchers also can lead to foci that leave out other dimensions that are key in a study (Chambers, 2014; Barakat & Ellis, 1996, p. 150). We cannot overstate that the most secure space and location possible varied greatly over time and place, depending on the rapidly evolving threats and levels of violence around the country. At times a public setting might be more desirable and might minimize risk for the participants and researchers, whereas in other settings, being seen in public with U.S.based researchers might cause a participant to be more at risk. In some cases, we went to offices that had fronts hiding the occupants’ identities for safety. On other occasions, and in some restaurants where interviews were conducted, the researchers surmised that they were being watched by local “look-outs.” We recognized that the decision regarding interview locations had a gendered dimension as well. We interviewed individuals in their

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newsrooms, homes, in hotel room suites, and empty hotel conference rooms. Conducting interviews in some very private spaces would not have been possible had either of us been working alone. Working as a research team provided both the participants and the researchers an added level of perceived and perhaps actual security. Access to fieldwork in conflict areas should be considered. Freedom of movement can be compromised with roadblocks in some areas or kidnappings and incursions into cars also being an issue. Timing also is another unpredictable element in dangerous environments or unpredictable communities (Barakat & Ellis, 1996, 150). We changed locations of our interviews a number of times to avoid being in environments where study participants could have been observed, where the military was ever present, or where other members of a news organization tried to be present, the latter of which we interpreted as a form of intimidation of the reporter and the researchers. As other scholars have noted, when danger emerges while researching, adaptive approaches are necessary (Kovats-Bernat, 2002). This is also important with certain occupational groups, such as journalists, who at times keep atypical working hours. This required us to be available at all hours. Being a research team helped us immensely when working late hours, times of the day that we would likely not have felt safe with accommodating as lone researchers. Informed consent. It is important for study participants to be aware of where the “data” from the study (interviews and oral histories in our cases) will go before asking them about consent to participate in a study or not. Prior to beginning any interviews and asking for consent, we always provided a brief overview of the project and discussed where the work may end up. We gave potential participants as much time as they needed to read disclosure forms and later a consent form, which were provided in Spanish or English. When participants elected to have their interviews included in the open-access archive, they were given the consent form option to sign and noted the name to be used. During one of the largest waves of violence when we launched our study, we opted to interview 59 study participants without using any identifying information. We gave them as much time as they needed and space to read the disclosure form. In subsequent rounds of interviews, we opted to use written consent forms as an alternative for participants who wanted their names used. Some scholars have raised the point that research should be designed to have benefits to the community involved (Mackenzie et al., 2007). This truly would be an admirable way to carry out social change

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research. We believe that through research issues in communities can be brought into the light and that is one way to give back. Yet over the many years of journalists being killed, four in one month in 2022 (Committee to Protect Journalists, 2022), we recognize that attention on the issue may not change the risk or circumstances for journalists, which is an unfortunate reality. Trauma and context-sensitive interviews. There is scant academic research on methodological questions and debates in conflict or war zones. The rise of global terror groups and those attacked has led to increased scholarship that focuses on study participants, researchers, and student researchers who engage with and interview individuals who have experienced exceptional levels of violence, sometimes trauma or secondary effects of trauma and violence, and bearing witness. Scholarship has noted recently the impact on researchers who take these accounts in the field and then in their offices, review over and over the stories of individuals interviewed, their testimonies, human rights (or in the case of this chapter, journalism advocacy organization accounts) groups’ reports, that sometimes detail incomprehensible abuse, which has potential to lead to psychological harm known as ‘research-related trauma’ (Loyle & Simoni, 2017, p. 141). How to conduct interviews with individuals in communities that have been traumatized and exposed to high levels of chronic violence is an important concern for researchers. Again, our expertise as former journalists likely gave us a degree of credibility in the field and our entry in many cases came from other journalists. Most importantly, we think our occupational background helped with building trust with research participants that felt authentic. We also had covered violence against journalists as journalists and as researchers in other countries and had undergone training on trauma-informed interviewing. For example, one of us had participated as a fellow in one of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma’s first academic fellowship and training programs. One of the researchers, too, had led projects with collaborators in other countries with conflicts or high numbers of journalists killed. In addition, prior to our embarking on our study of journalists in Mexico, we had developed day-long workshops for conducting research in the  U.S.-Mexico border region. These trainings included sessions on emotional protection, physical protection, and reducing legal risks for local, national, and global organizations as well as our university students. The seriousness of the violence, too, we believe, compelled not only us to

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do the work but others to participate, for importantly, journalists, in many cases, did want the word to get out about the inhumane occupational challenges many of them endured and of course they wanted this incompressible situation to improve. That said, we did not have formal protocol in the study for responding to traumatized journalists. Retrospectively, we think this is good practice for any study. There is always the concern about retraumatizing individuals or causing unease by asking journalists or others for accounts. “Do no harm” orientation in the work is toward minimizing risk or potential harm to research participants. Certainly, having researchers on a project who are deeply familiar with the context, the backgrounds of organizations or individuals’ occupations or any life circumstance would be important for minimizing harm. Always keeping the well-being of study participants at the forefront of decision-making is critical. We approached each interview without an agenda beyond our research questions, yet noticed that our first questions, which asked about the professional background of the journalists sometimes, took between 30 minutes to an hour for some to talk through. We did not interrupt study participants or hurry them and later reflected on perhaps how that unwinding at the beginning of the interview may have partially reduced anxiety for some study participants. Our interviews generally lasted between one and two hours. The interviews and oral histories that we gathered resulted in a range of responses from the participants. A reporter based in Tamaulipas, one of the most violent at the time and most dangerous states for journalists, met us north of the Mexico border in a news office and minutes after he sat down to speak with us and heard our first questions, we sensed that he clearly did not want to be there. His responses to our questions were curt and halting. “Reading” his obvious hesitancy to answer our questions, we asked him whether perhaps he would rather not participate in the research. He agreed and left politely, saying just a few words. On another occasion, we had a similar experience with a blogger once we started asking questions. The interview was brief. Another journalist who worked on both sides of the border and who had just moved to the northern side of the U.S.-Mexico border broke down crying. We instantly stopped the interview and tried to provide comfort as we could. The interview resumed and continued for more than two hours. It became apparent that during the interview that the

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participant was, to a certain degree, reliving some of the traumatic experiences that were being described. It is important to note that it is common practice in scientific studies to offer counseling or other psychological support to those who may be potentially traumatized or retraumatized by giving an account of their situation. This, of course, requires resources that most social scientists and humanities scholars do not have at their disposal. We raise this as an important area for consideration, especially when research is conducted in places where there may not be available counseling services, where individuals cannot risk the exposure of talking about their trauma for safety and security concerns, or where costs far exceed what one makes in an occupation. Some of these factors certainly came into play with participants in our study, most of whom told us they just lived with their experience and did not seek counseling.1 We are not aware of any negative impacts of our study on participants. However, one incident that we did not anticipate occurred when one study participant notified us that the participant wanted us to remove his interview from the open access digital archive. The study participant thought that the security threats this individual received were linked to the participant’s audio file in some way. We immediately notified The University of Arizona Special Collections staff to delete the audio file in question. At the time of the withdrawal, university librarians informed us that this particular participant’s oral history had an unusual amount of activity and clicks compared with others. In Mexico, abduction is one form of the attacks against journalists. We spoke with one journalist who fled the country and who was seeking asylum in the United States after being abducted and beaten. The journalist had just been released from a U.S. detention facility while his case was being reviewed. He talked for nearly two hours straight. Other journalists who had been coping with high levels of exposure to violence spoke of “trying everything to feel better,” and how they lived with the horrors of the smell of the dead whom they reported about and how they were frequently unable to sleep in their homes in Mexico for fear they would be killed while asleep.

1  Studies have shown that Mexican journalists have extensive symptoms of psychological distress compared with war reporters in similar demographical groups (Feinstein, 2012, 2013).

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Applying emotional intelligence. For the most part, we aimed to conduct face-to-face interviews and spend time with research participants in their work environments. The importance of face-to-face contact cannot be understated in a country like Mexico, where interpersonal relationships are strengthened, and trust is more likely to develop in person rather than via electronic communications. Given this reality, and, as any thorough and conscientious researcher knows, emotional intelligence is a critical part of the process of interviewing or conducting ethnographies. Emotional intelligence could loosely be defined as one’s ability to understand and evaluate the emotional responses of others and oneself in a given setting (Warwick & Nettelbeck, 2004). Body language and other signals of distress or oppression in an environment are critical cues when working in conflict zones. Language always matters as does body language. Silence, crying, nervous gestures, and agitation of the participants or them showing up to an interview intoxicated or clearly medicated are signals that should not be ignored. During our study, participants had a range of outward and visibly notable emotional responses, from clamming up in silence and having very short answers to fidgeting and talking extremely quickly, to breaking down and crying or telling us about not being able to sleep, having nightmares, or noting a previous emotional breakdown related to work. We were keenly aware of the wide variety of responses from participants, who in some cases were unable or unwilling to answer questions fully, for others began to talk non-stop at great length, and after we began the interview appeared to be extremely nervous and quite emotionally distraught, to those who wanted to end the interview. On other occasions, we noticed that the interview seemed to be cathartic. Indeed, some remarked that it felt good to talk about these issues. That feedback gave us encouragement that we were proceeding in an ethical way. We surely employed a very different approach than we did as journalists, and, in some ways, our approach was ethnographic, with questions and actively listening to responses. Study participants took as much time as they wanted to respond to each question. We were careful not to make interviewees think that we had to conduct the interview in a limited amount of time, meaning we allowed hours for any one interview if that is what our study participants needed in their responses. Much of our time in interviews was spent listening to responses to the open-ended questions that we asked. We did not use an interpreter for any of our work; however, we point out that Dolnik (2011) has noted interviews conducted through

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an interpreter have the barrier of the middle person as an issue and in some contexts, those willing to work in conflict zones have limited or no formal training in interpretation, which introduces potential error issues in interpreting questions and responses (p. 27). In one of our interviews, an entire team of four other male individuals from the newsroom showed up along with the study participant. They joked that the bust in the room, behind the researchers was wired and recording and were reticent to leave when one of the researchers asked them to in order to avoid influencing the interview subject and what he said. After several requests, the three other male individuals left, but by then, the interview subject had already been somewhat intimidated. Data Analysis and Privacy. Fixers/local producers, interpreters, transcribers, and others involved with the researchers’ process from participant identification, archival research, translation, or other forms of interacting with the data may or may not have coping skills for dealing with traumatic content or may have previous experiences that make them vulnerable (Loyle & Simoni, 2017, p. 143). Moreover, repetitive exposure to traumatic events, through listening and/or transcribing from interviews for research, coding that data and/or writing academic papers can create distress or even secondary trauma in some researchers or their associates (Coles et al., 2014). We, at times, certainly at various moments in time throughout the study period felt emotionally drained by our experiences, but the significance of the work and our sense of obligation to our colleagues in Mexico proved motivating and helped us to continue the work. After conducting semi-structured interviews and gathering oral histories, we had several graduate students and others translate and transcribe the data. They listened to the voices from out in the field via audio over and over and then recaptured it in the transcript. Our transcriptionists were paid to do the human subjects training, yet, we did not provide them with resources around the issue of trauma or secondary traumatic stress, which can evolve from having constant contact with individuals who have lived through traumatic situations, including those involving violence (listening to audio over and over certainly could have that impact under certain conditions). We provided training on emotional trauma and trauma-informed interviewing for our students in a border reporting course, yet research assistants on this project did not always take that course. In retrospect, though we were in close contact with our transcriptionists who nearly all had worked as journalists or student journalists, we recognize that we should

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have assessed on the front end whether interfacing with harsh and in some cases, events related to torture and human rights abuses, would have adversely impacted them. In addition, The University of Arizona Special Collections graduate students also worked very closely with the audio files of interviews for a digital archive. With the permission of research participants audio recordings had been shared with The University of Arizona Libraries in “The Documented Border: An Open Access Digital Archive” project that will be maintained in perpetuity in the Celeste González de Bustamante and Jeannine E. Relly Oral History Collection. The graduate students working on the project listened to the audio files (oral histories) in order to provide summaries of the interviews for the open access archive. These students also were not provided training about trauma and its potential impacts on the researcher or research assistant. They were clearly impacted. At the launch of the Documented Border archive, students remarked at how moved they were when listening to the tragic circumstances that some journalists had to endure. The decision to create an open-access archive while in the midst of the field research is notably unorthodox, as most social science and humanities researchers tend to keep their data private, until all research has been published. We felt that the conditions in Mexico were so dire and that others, including journalists, researchers, and the public-at-large, could benefit from the knowledge in the interviews, and for that reason we decided to release the data as soon as we could.2 It was our hope too, that in the best-­ case scenarios, journalists could learn from other journalists, activists, and academics about how to protect themselves in a country, which was in some years in the second decade of the new millennium, the most dangerous country in the world for journalists. As other scholars have noted, it is not really possible to have ‘low risk’ fieldwork in areas of conflict (Goodhand, 2000). We respect Wood’s (2006) approach: In addressing this challenge, the confidentiality of the material gathered and anonymity of my research subjects were of course key. Names were often not recorded at all, if they were recorded they were always recorded in a separate notebook, usually after my return to the capital. I did not tape interviews in the countryside (and only on two occasions in the 2  The Documented Border—An Open Access Digital Archive was funded by a Faculty Collaboration and Innovation Grant awarded by the University of Arizona’s Confluencenter for Creative Inquiry as well as additional funding by the University of Arizona Libraries.

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capital); rather, I took sketchy notes in nearly illegible longhand, filling in missing details once back in the capital (p. 381). Where researchers leave their belongings and sleep is another potential area for concern. Some researchers suggest only staying at certain accommodations, yet researchers must be cautious at the same time to not become targets by doing this and of course hard drives and computers with identifying information can be at risk in insecure environments. This became a concern while one of us was spending extended periods of time in Mexico. At one point, several research participants had their phones tapped and their offices ransacked. This became a clear moment of reflection and recognition that some of the conversations and communications between the researcher and the participants might have been monitored during this time, and that the researcher as well might have been involved in the surveillance. We were cognizant that our belongings when in the field could be seized and when possible left our laptops in our hotel rooms in  locked spaces. Retrospectively, as we have continued to become more cognizant over time about data security and digital precautions, we believe we could have done more with our email accounts and perhaps set up convincing dummy accounts as one of us had done elsewhere. We also would have traveled with phones without contacts or scrubbed our accounts. The world has become a much more precarious place for digital security in recent years with Pegasus and other spyware and a deep understanding of surveillance would be recommended for those working in conflict zones or other insecure environments where surveillance is common. Research, recovery, and reflexivity. Rather coincidentally, we conducted most of our interviewing twice along the nearly 2000-mile northern border of Mexico with the United States, and in Veracruz and Tabasco in several nearly two-week periods. The periods between research field trips allowed for important time for  recovery and created opportunities for reflexivity for the researchers between research trips, and even though the formal study is complete, we continue to reflect on our research and the research topic. Over time, we developed a sense of camaraderie and security when traveling together. We often reflected on impressions and “decompressed” and debriefed together in the evening after a day full of unpredictability, driving back and forth from city to city, or after having unexpected experiences. Working together allowed us as two female researchers to conduct interviews in  locations and at times that they may not have if traveling

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alone. It also enabled the researchers to weigh in on the safety of numerous locations for interviews or proposed locations. One example of this occurred after a late-night interview with two male journalists. One tried to convince us to travel that night to a Mexican city on the border, which many considered largely run by organized crime and where kidnappings were commonplace. It became a bit of a dare, and we had to be adamant in insisting that we not go. Because we had developed a strong level of trust between each other, we were able to negotiate effectively in these sometimes challenging and awkward circumstances. In Tabasco and Veracruz, working in pairs also provided a sense of security. In short, working in pairs minimized issue concerns about kidnapping and assault. When asked to meet at what we perceived as unsafe locations, we consulted one another when we were together. Both researchers and the project received support from several nonprofits and university programs as well as fellowships; however, the budget was tight for dozens of audio interviews were transcribed and translated and transcribed, requiring cost-saving measures, such as the researchers sharing hotel rooms. This, in the end, ended up creating additional opportunities for our research teams to discuss their observations immediately after the interviews and visits to various sites. Because the interviews were in blocks of time that adhered to the researchers’ teaching schedules, more than 150 interviews were conducted over the course of multiple years. Upon reflection, we believe having an opportunity to “take breaks” between each field trip enabled the researchers to have “down time” away from the trauma that many study participants expressed in the field. We also believe that as researchers, our listening and observation capacity was greater because of the breaks between research trips. We also found our ability improved to analyze the conditions of different cities and how some towns changed as time progressed, while others stagnated with respect to levels of violence and risk. Expectations of communities. We note the importance of community expectations or assumptions about research. It is critical to consider that some communities believe the interactions with researchers may lead to improving their situations. Other times, potential research participants may be “overtapped,” especially in regions with explosive or highly dynamic and globally known issues. We spoke with study participants along the way who conveyed that they had been interviewed many times by journalism rights advocacy organizations, human rights groups, and

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other organizations about the violence. Those who spoke with us about this indicated that they felt somewhat fatigued about participating in research, not valued, and felt somewhat abandoned, and that there was not any reporting back to them by those who interviewed them. In other words, they commented that they had no idea where the research went, or whether what they said was used or mattered. Hearing these comments from our participants reinforced our commitment to maintain contact with study participants and to share results with them when possible. We recognize that, unfortunately, the impact of our research might not have the desired affects in communities that opened themselves up to us and might not lead to ameliorating the situation for journalists in Mexico. That said, we speak out whenever we can about the impunity issue, which has changed little in Mexico over the course of the ten years that we did fieldwork.

Conclusion Reflexivity: Expectations of Ourselves and for the Future As researchers who have conducted fieldwork in conflict zones throughout Mexico for more than a decade, we have come to embrace reflexivity as a valuable and essential part of every stage of the research from prior to fieldwork to beyond publication. Indeed, we contend that reflexivity has helped to reduce risk for study participants and the researchers. In volatile and violent environments, being able to reflect enables researchers to adapt to circumstances that are ever-changing and unpredictable. In our reflections, we noted how many of the journalists/participants mentioned the lack of psychological services that were available in their communities. In future research settings, we would suggest that scholars attempt to, at the very least, obtain funding for those participants who might request such assistance. Through the lens of reflexivity, we have been able to note how we might adjust our steps and strategies for safety and security for all involved in the research. We had not anticipated the emotional impact and labor that graduate students and other transcribers would have to endure. As a result, although some transcribers/translators might have taken some of the emotional and physical training that was offered to journalism students, in future studies that are similar, we would recommend providing emotional trauma training and education on the front-end for all involved.

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We also have observed that, similar to other scholars (Espinoza, 2020), the use of gatekeepers (NGOs and other journalists) influenced those whom we were able to include in our study. Given the high-risk environments in which we are working, there are few, if any, alternatives to minimizing this limitation. At the same time, we conclude that in many instances, the use of gatekeepers could contribute to improving conditions for safety, security, and trust. Our positionality, being female U.S.-based researchers with previous journalism experience in the region, and Spanish language fluency, also influenced our study and participants. As U.S.based scholars, we conducted our research from a place of privilege and because of our place of permanent residence, we were in a position of greater security and safety than most study participants. At the same time, our previous work as journalists set the environment for having a sense of shared experience with research participants. Finally, we acknowledge that some study participants noted that a sense of research fatigue was starting to develop in some areas. In future research, scholars should work to maintain contact with communities and ensure that participants are included to the extent possible at all stages of the research and beyond (see also Clark, 2008; Karooma, 2019).

References Ahva, L. (2013). Public journalism and professional reflexivity. Journalism, 14(6), 790–806. Barakat, S., & Ellis, S. (1996). Researching under fire: Issues for consideration when collecting data and information in war circumstances, with specific reference to relief and reconstruction projects. Disasters, 20(2), 149–156. Beittel, J. S. (2020). Mexico: Organized crime and drug trafficking organizations. Congressional Research Service. https://sgp.fas.org/crs/row/R41576.pdf Chambers, R. (2014). Rural development: Putting the last first. Routledge. Clark, T. (2008). We’re over-researched here!’ exploring accounts of research fatigue within qualitative research engagements. Sociology, 42(5), 953–970. Coles, J., Astbury, J., Dartnall, E., & Limjerwala, S. (2014). A qualitative exploration of researcher trauma and researchers’ responses to investigating sexual violence. Violence Against Women, 20(1), 95–117. Committee to Protect Journalists. (2022). Roberto Toledo is the fourth Mexican journalist killed in less than four weeks. https://cpj.org/2022/02/ roberto-­toledo-­is-­fourth-­mexican-­journalist-­killed-­in-­less-­than-­four-­weeks/. Council on Foreign Relations. (2022). Global conflict tracker. https://www.cfr. org/global-­conflict-­tracker/conflict/criminal-­violence-­mexico.

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de Cultura de Pau, E. (2021). Alert 2021! Report on conflicts, human rights and peacebuilding. Icaria. https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/ resources/alerta21i.pdf Dolnik, A. (2011). Conducting field research on terrorism: A brief primer. Perspectives on Terrorism, 5(2), 3–35. Espinoza, M. V. (2020). Lessons from refugees: Research ethics in the context of resettlement in South America. Migration and Society, 3(1), 247–253. Feinstein, A. (2012). Mexican journalists: An investigation of their emotional health. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 25(4), 480–483. Feinstein, A. (2013). Mexican journalists and journalists covering war: A comparison of psychological wellbeing. Journal of Aggression, Conflict and Peace Research, 5(2), 77–85. González de Bustamante, C., & Relly, J. E. (2016). Professionalism under threat of violence: Journalism, reflexivity, and the potential for collective professional autonomy in northern Mexico. Journalism Studies, 17(6), 684–702. González de Bustamante, C., & Relly, J. E. (2021). Surviving Mexico: Resistance and resilience among journalists in the twenty-first century. The University of Texas. Goodhand, J. (2000). Research in conflict zones: Ethics and accountability. Forced Migration Review, 8(4), 12–16. Guillemin, M., & Gillam, L. (2004). Ethics, reflexivity, and “ethically important moments” in research. Qualitative Inquiry, 10(2), 261–280. Hughes, S. (2006). Newsrooms in conflict: Journalism and the democratization of Mexico. University of Pittsburgh Press. Hugman, R., Pittaway, E., & Bartolomei, L. (2011). When ‘do no harm’ is not enough: The ethics of research with refugees and other vulnerable groups. The British Journal of Social Work, 41(7), 1271–1287. Karooma, C. (2019). Research fatigue among Rwandan refugees in Uganda. Forced Migration Review, 61, 18–19. Kovats-Bernat, J.  C. (2002). Negotiating dangerous fields: Pragmatic strategies for fieldwork amid violence and terror. American Anthropologist, 104(1), 208–222. Loyle, C. E., & Simoni, A. (2017). Researching under fire: Political science and researcher trauma. PS: Political Science & Politics, 50(1), 141–145. Mackenzie, C., McDowell, C., & Pittaway, E. (2007). Beyond ‘do no harm’: The challenge of constructing ethical relationships in refugee research. Journal of Refugee Studies, 20(2), 299–319. Ochoa O’Leary, A., Deeds, C. M., & Whitehead, S. (2013). Uncharted terrains: New directions in border research methodology, ethics, and practice. The University of Arizona Press. Romano, D. (2006). Conducting research in the Middle East’s conflict zones. PS: Political Science & Politics, 39(3), 439–441.

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Sierra, J. L. (2013). Digital and mobile security for Mexican journalists and bloggers. Freedom House. Warwick, J., & Nettelbeck, T. (2004). Emotional intelligence is…? Personality and Individual Differences, 37(5), 1091–1100. Williams, T., Dunlap, E., Johnson, B. D., & Hamid, A. (1992). Personal safety in dangerous places. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 21(3), 343–374. Wood, E.  J. (2006). The ethical challenges of field research in conflict zones. Qualitative Sociology, 29(3), 373–386.

CHAPTER 8

Freedom of the Press Under Andres Manuel López Obrador: The Struggle Between Journalistic Autonomy and National Sovereignty, 2018–Present Melissa Santillana and Stuart Davis

Introduction: AMLO Versus Article 19 In late March 2021, the Mexico/Central America office of the British press freedom non-governmental organization (NGO) Article 19 published a series of damning critiques of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador [AMLO]’s purported refusal to help ameliorate endemic freedom of press issues facing Mexican journalists. Beginning with the March

M. Santillana (*) Department of Radio-Television-Film, University of Texas, Austin, TX, USA e-mail: [email protected] S. Davis Baruch College, City University of New York, New York, NY, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 M. Echeverria, R. A. Gonzalez (eds.), Media and Politics in Post-Authoritarian Mexico, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36441-9_8

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23 publication of its annual report on freedom of press violations, entitled “Distorsión: El discurso contra la realidad” [Distortion: Discourse vs. Reality] (Article 19, 2021a), the NGO presented a series of three distinct claims López Obrador administration’s failure to prevent the denigration of press freedom. The first claim and central focus of the 2020 report was the lack of protection of journalists from the threat of violence. In a manner similar to previous administrations (Estevez, 2010), the NGO found that the current federal government had not taken any noticeable steps in 2020 toward protecting journalists from threats of violence from organized crime or corrupt/rogue security elements. The second claim, also highlighted in the report, centered on state censorship of the media. Article 19 claims that both the federal government and many state/local governments create environments in which individual journalists and news outlets have to consistently take steps to alter/diminish their critical stances, refuse to cover certain stories or figures, or take other measures to preserve their jobs and personal safety. The final claim arose out of López Obrador’s specific response to the Article 19 report. In a second piece (published March 31, 2021) Article 19 admonished the president for publicly accusing the NGO “of waging a conservative campaign against him with other conservative groups, and accus[ing] the organisation [sic.] of being funded by the United States” (Article 19, 2021b). At its core, this final critique of AMLO centered on his attempt to delegitimize civil society actors advocating for press freedom who critiqued his administration by claiming they were acting as proxies for multinational corporations or the U.S. government in an attempt to undermine or destabilize his administrative agenda. Presented in order based on scale of impact, the three claims can be characterized in terms of different levels of critique, moving from the individual to the organizational to the national: At the level of the individual journalist: the federal government is either unable or refusing to take steps to ensure the safety of journalists and news organizations—particularly those engaged in investigative reporting and those with national reach1; At the level of individual media organizations: the federal government is either perpetuating or in some cases exacerbating conditions that make 1  However, is important to consider that the latest reports show that journalists working for local and community media outlets are the main target of anti-press violence mostly as a result of their reporting on drug cartels (Gómez, 2020).

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it nearly impossible for journalists to perform their professional duties by attempting to delegitimize, censor, or otherwise interfere (Gonzalez de Bustamante & Relly, 2021); At the national level: the Mexican government is attempting to criticize and regulate international press freedom NGOs, claiming that they serve as tools of what Jim Petras (1999) has called “NGO imperialism,” a strategy where civil society actors either directly or implicitly serve the agenda of the U.S. and allies by singling out and amplifying problems within a certain state—particularly states whose federal governments work against the so-called Washington Consensus. From this position the Mexican federal government would claim that press monitoring groups serve as soft power tools of the U.S. and its allies to undermine or destabilize perceived opponent governments. Embedded within these critiques is a conflict between two contradictory impulses: the preservation of the autonomy of the journalist as individual agent protected from violent or other forms of coercive pressure and the preservation of the sovereignty of the nation-state protected from foreign actors attempting to undermine its ability to construct and enact a national economic and political development program. The first two categories, “failure to prevent violence against journalists” and “attempts to coerce news organizations,” are directly linked to the concerns media sociologists and others have interrogated under the concept of “journalistic autonomy.” When mobilizing this concept of journalistic autonomy, we employ the definition provided by Rodney Benson (2006) as “a social sector at least partially autonomous from external pressures and exhibiting some degree of internal homogeneity, which taken as a whole is able to exert a significant amount of power vis-a-vis other social sectors” (Benson, 2006, p.  118). Hanitzsch and Mellado (2011) have furthered this definition through multi-site surveys of journalists to analyze how different kinds of macro-level pressures attempt to exert influence on individual journalists and thus undermine autonomy. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the authors find that the threat of attempted political influence was one of the key areas where journalists felt their autonomy threatened. Writing specifically about conceptualizations of professional autonomy within news organizations in Mexico and Colombia, Hughes et  al. (2017) track a number of factors potentially inhibiting autonomy that we will address in depth in this chapter, including the threat of violent coercion and clientelistic relationships with government bureaucracies. From this autonomy-oriented position, the primary concern is built

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around the safety of journalists defined as either (a) protection from the threat of violence enshrined in the rule of law and baked-in protection enforced by public institutions (including law enforcement) or (b) protection from threats, practices of censorship, or other forms of coercive behavior on the part of the Mexican state (in this case, the federal government). The first two sections of our analysis in this chapter will address threats to journalistic autonomy either coming from or enabled by the López Obrador administration. International press freedom watchdogs’ prioritization of journalistic autonomy contrasts significantly with the goals and priorities of the Mexican federal government, whose project is centered on the promotion of national sovereignty within a number of arenas, including the field of international communication. The tension between these two positions originates in deeply conflicting agendas at the core of the developmental state and civil society. By definition, the developmental state is focused on the national government’s ability to engage in industrial planning and economic activity autonomous from the influence of both the private sector and civil society. This enables the federal government to build a robust national economy at a heightened pace. For progressive developmental states (including we argue AMLO’s version of Mexico), the economic gains of national industrialization are funneled into programs improving the living conditions of its citizens, particularly the lower classes (Bacghi, 2000; Knapp & Specter, 2011). Specific problems or concerns of individual citizens, constituencies, or civil society groups that might be at odds with state are minimized within the developmental agenda. On the other hand, international press freedom organizations prioritize the protection of the communicative rights of individual journalists/activists. This focus has led commentators to critique how these organizations’ unwillingness to consider political-economic dynamics in the areas where they intervene has led them to unwittingly provide justifications for military campaigns (Davis, 2021; Davis & Ness, 2022) or delegitimize progressive activists who fall afoul of mainstream media (e.g., Mlotshwa, 2018). In short, there is an inherent conflict between these two kinds of actors, as one prioritizes the macro-level goals of the state at the cost of the individual while the other prioritizes the purported rights of the individual at the cost of the larger context. In this specific situation, the battle between Article 19 and the López Obrador administration represents a struggle of conflicting interests between two kinds of institutional actors: a large multinational press

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freedom NGO based in the global core and a national government based in the semi-periphery (Butler et al., 2018; Vigueras García, 2020). This forms the basis of the antagonism we will address in the third and final section of this chapter. We will build upon the conflict between López Obrador and Article 19 to point out some of the larger foreign policy tensions embedded in this friction—particularly focusing on the perceived threat NGOs like Article 19 pose to national sovereignty. As Relly and Gonzalez de Bustamente (2017) assert, the nation-state’s prioritization of “sovereignty and political-sensitivity concerns” (p. 241) over the protection of any kind of individual rights or civil liberties inevitably produces friction with press freedom advocates due to conflicting sets of interests. Contained within the conflict between freedom of press NGOs and the Mexican federal government (and eventually the president himself) lies a fundamental question regarding the fate of investigative journalism in Mexico: How do journalists whose professional roles are defined by drawing attention to social and political problems or controversies work within a national context dominated by a self-declared developmentalist state (Watts, 2019) with a forceful political agenda?2 How could President López Obrador and the federal government more broadly potentially work more to meet the demands of both local journalists and social movement actors? Building on these questions, this chapter will interrogate the tension that has developed between the Mexican federal government (and specifically around AMLO himself) and freedom of press advocates, a constellation incorporating both domestic and international press freedom non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as well as more organic groupings of civil society actors. The following analysis was conducted via secondary research aimed at exploring different instances of tension between the Mexican president and the national and international press and Mexican social movements by using the following search keywords: “AMLO”; “Ataque prensa”; “Mañaneras”; “periodistas”; “feministas”; “ataque feministas.” The authors compiled 41 news articles from Mexican and international digital 2  Unlike some arguments, this chapter does not simply accept claim that the López Obrador administration is “autocratic” or “anti-democratic” and that its criticism of press organizations is merely a rear-guard effort to protect itself. Instead, we take seriously claims made by Gustavo Esteva (2019) and other progressive political commentators that at least on some level the López Obrador administration is attempting to forge a kind of national sovereignty that is less dependent on the U.S., multinational organizations, and transnational capital.

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news outlets. While this documentation is not exhaustive or representative of all the news articles written about the clashes between Lopez Obrador the press and social movements, it allowed to paint a general picture of the tensions that have emerged during his administration. We will conclude by offering some preliminary recommendations for how the federal government could build a more trusting and dialogue-based relationship with journalists and the advocacy groups that represent them.

López Obrador’s Failure to Protect Journalists The first section of this chapter will document some of the ways the Mexican government during the López Obrador administration has failed to protect journalists from violence. Among the claims of press violations made by Article 19, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Reporters sans Frontières [Reporters without Borders], and other international watchdog groups, the most systematically noted claim is that AMLO’s government has not taken steps to stem violence against journalists. AMLO and Violence Against the Press: “It’s Not Our Fault” Until 2020, Mexican journalists and human rights defenders were protected under a mechanism that helped these individuals and their families by providing a number of security measures, the Mechanism for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and Journalists [Mecanismo de Protección para Personas Defensoras de Derechos Humanos y Periodistas]. The mechanism depended on funding from the federal government. In October 2020, the Senate voted to eliminate the funds, so that the office of the president could use that money for other social programs. The mechanism helped journalists who had been seriously threatened by placing locks in their houses, panic rooms, aiding with relocation, and offering bulletproof cars (Gonzalez, 2020). The mechanism itself did not disappear; it was the federal funding that allowed the program to operate. The money for the program now comes from the Secretary of the Interior, which means that is tied to budgetary restrictions. The elimination of this fund was widely criticized by international organizations. For example, the Human Rights Watch organization commented on the dangers of this measure as Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries for journalists and voiced its feared that the risks for journalists would only exacerbate with diminishing protection. However, one year after the funding scandal,

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the Mexican government said that the mechanism increased the number of journalists it protected by 88% since the start of the López Obrador administration (Mexico protege 88%, 2021). López Obrador was in the middle of another international controversy as the U.S. Department of State accused an appointed official of planning and executing attacks against journalists as well as issuing gag orders. San Juana Martinez, an award-winning Mexican journalist, was appointed in 2019 as the director of the state news agency Notimex. The report from the U.S. Department of State on the situation of Human Rights in Mexico indicated that Martinez ordered journalists to eliminate and/or forbade to publish content related to certain governmental offices and elected officials (Diaz, 2021). The report, published in March 2021, also states that Martinez ordered reporters working for the state agency to create fake Twitter accounts to respond to those critical of her role at Notimex and attack the journalists that asked tough questions to the president during his mañaneras (Diaz, 2021). López Obrador responded to the accusations by questioning the legitimacy of the United States to intervene in matters beyond its jurisdiction and asked why the government of the U.S. was attacking a woman who “deserves respect and is a very good journalist” (quoted in Morales & Villa y Caña, 2021). López Obrador defended Martinez. The Mexican president also said he could prove that everyone involved in Article 19 belong to the conservative movement (Morales & Villa y Caña, 2021). Notimex had already made headlines a year before as workers went on strike after many unionized journalists were illegally terminated3 (Salinas Maldonado, 2020). The clash between López Obrador and his appointee continued as Martinez applied to be added to the mechanism that protects exposed journalists. She said that as a result of the Article 19 investigation and the U.S. Department of State Report she was been harassed and needed protection. The mechanism denied her application stating that her situation was not a result of journalistic work and was related to her work as a public official (Guillen, 2021). After three journalists were murdered in June 2021, reporters questioned López Obrador regarding the issue of violence against journalists, the president replied: “it is not the State’s decision to kill journalists” (Casasola, 2021). A reporter asked López Obrador during his morning brief, if he was giving journalists who feel persecuted or threatened a sort of special protection. López Obrador replied: “No, they live off it. It’s 3

 As of writing the state news agency Notimex continues on strike.

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profitable for them to attack me. Many of them receive money from our adversaries, and even from the U.S. government” (quoted in Casasola, 2021). Then in July 2021 Ignacio Rodriguez Reyna, a cofounder of Quinto Elemento Lab, an independent, non-profit news organization aimed at investigative journalism penned an op-ed for The Washington Post denouncing López Obrador’s position against media outlets and journalists that question him or criticize his government. Rodriguez Reyna lamented that the social leader who led one of the biggest democratic battles in Mexico decided to start an attack campaign against those who opposed him. Rodriguez Reyna said that López Obrador’s verbal aggressions against the press trickle down to governors, mayors, and local politicians generating an environment in which journalists are harassed and eventually murdered. There were 21 cases of murdered journalists in 2021 (Rodriguez Reyna, 2021). In this open letter, Rodriguez Reyna acknowledges some media, and journalists have taken the role of an active opposition to the president and have used the press as a political weapon. However, he argues, López Obrador as the president should clarify that Mexican journalism encompasses a lot more than just a small group that uses the newsroom as an ideological battle zone against his government. AMLO’s Attacks on New Social Movements and Related Media Groups (Feminist Groups, etc.) Arguably one of the strongest opposition movements against López Obrador is the feminist movement based in Mexico City. López Obrador’s relationship with the feminist movement is complicated. While campaigning for the presidency he promised to put millions of Mexicans living in poverty at the center of his policies. One of his campaign slogans was “primero los pobres” (poor people first), many women thought that meant women would also be at the top of his political agenda, but that hasn’t necessarily been the case (Rios, 2021). It appears that López Obrador’s biggest problem is that the basic demands from the feminist movement are interpreted as a threat to his government and his legitimacy as president. Frictions began early in 2020, before the onset of the COVID-19 outbreak. In February two cases of femicide, defined as the systematic and purposeful murder, ignited an online conversation using the hashtags #JusticiaParaTodas, #JusticiaParaFatima, and #JusticiaParaIngrid. Twitter users demanded justice and an end to gender violence. After the first feminicide, the Mexican president was discussing during his morning brief the

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details of a lottery-style raffle he was organizing to offer the Presidential Airplane, a $130 million Boeing 787 acquired by his predecessor (Mexico abandons plan to offload presidential jet in raffle, 2020). Reporters asked if he had anything to say about the case of Ingrid Escamilla. López Obrador replied: “You are going to spin the purpose of this conference; I don’t like that. I don’t want the feminicides to obscure this raffle, it’s distortion and false information” (cited in “No quiero que los feminicidios,” 2020). Then a small group of activists symbolically set on fire a fictitious raffle ticket outside the Presidential Palace protesting his response and demanding justice for the recent deaths. A few days later, a second case reached the news. When a reporter questioned López Obrador during his mañanera about the apparent recent wave of violence against women, López Obrador blamed years of neoliberal policies in Mexico: “All the violence in this country against both women and men are the rotten fruit of a materialistic and inhuman economic model that was imposed during all the neoliberal period” (quoted in Villa & Morales, 2020). He went on to say that the federal government had stopped being the principal violator of human rights in Mexico and that his government did not tolerate corruption, impunity, or the violation of individual guarantees. López Obrador said that his government would slowly change Mexico’s landscape. He assured that violence against women was brought about by 36 years of anti-populist, inhuman policies (Villa & Morales, 2020). While it may be true that the lack of cultural and social programs could’ve led to an increase in violence, the public saw his response as a way to avoid responsibility. Feminist groups were outraged at his lack of sensitivity on the subject; in response, they protested by vandalizing and tagging public buildings. The response to this feminist direct action from López Obrador was to ask the activists “to stop painting our doors” (Nájar, 2020). After those two cases, the feminist movement kept growing, organizing, and gaining momentum on social media. A few months later, 200,000 activists gathered in Mexico City for International Women’s Day in a historic protest. The next day feminists orchestrated the biggest strike in the history of Mexico, as they called for a national strike that resulted in over $1850 million in losses (Castellanos, 2021). As activists were organizing the International Women’s Day march of 2021, the government of López Obrador built a metal barricade around the National Palace in anticipation of the protest. For the activists, this physical barrier also served as a metaphor for how López Obrador had been handling gender issues thus far during his administration. Feminists turned the barricade in a “wall of

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memory” by painting the names of hundreds of victims of feminicide (Manetto, 2021). Since the barrier prevented the protesters to get near the building, feminist collectives used a projector to project messages on the walls of the National Palace. Messages like “Mexico feminicide” and “Legal abortion now” were projected in rotation on the walls of the palace for the 24 hours leading up to the protest (Escobedo, 2021). In response, López Obrador said the barrier was not to protect the government from women but as a precaution in case there were any violent incidents. He defended his position in a video stating that conservatives had launched a discrediting campaign against him using Women’s Day as an excuse. He said that the organized Right was cynically depicting its critiques of his administration through the lens of feminism and environmentalism— while the real purpose of these civil society-based critiques was to undermine his administration (Manetto, 2021). The discourse of the Right infiltrating the feminist movement as a way to attack his administration was continually raised by López Obrador after the protests. In September 2021 thousands of women took on the streets again to protest for reproductive rights, in particular to legalize abortion. After the protests, López Obrador once again assured the public that the feminist movement consisted of “conservative feminists” who want to harm his government (Baranda & Guerrero, 2021). He doubted the protests were legitimate or authentic as women protestors use violence to demand rights. López Obrador wondered why it was that violent protests only started as he became president. He went on to say that the feminist movement started in 2018 as he started his presidency (Movimiento feminista busca, 2021). In other words, the Mexican president sees the demands of feminists as a threat to his policies and administration. In response to this, a number of academics and activists shared their indignation with the hashtag #LaInfiltradaSoyYo (I am the infiltrator) and sharing when and why they joined the feminist movement (Bucio, 2021). Despite all the political and social outrage in response to López Obrador’s public statements about the movement, it is important to note that there have been a series of legal wins for women during his administration. In April 2021 the Mexican Legislature approved a series of reforms to the penal code to include a law that punishes revenge porn or any type of unwanted distribution of audio-visual materials of sexual content. The law known as Ley Olimpia bears the name of activist and revenge porn victim Olimpia Coral Melo, who has been recognized as one of the most influential people in the world by Time magazine. Another wide stride

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came in September 2021 as Mexico’s Supreme Court declared unconstitutional to punish abortion as a crime. Mexico is one of the largest Catholic countries in the world, and several conservative states punished women with up to three years in prison for having an abortion. The ruling was celebrated as a major victory for women’s rights across the country and Latin America (Ramos, 2021). Another victory was the creation of Ley Ingrid, in honor of Ingrid Escamilla, one of the feminicides that sparked controversy in 2020. Ley Ingrid protects the data of victims of feminicide to prevent public servants from leaking images, videos, and related data of the crimes to the press. The law punishes with up to six years in prison individuals who leak images or commercialize images from feminicide victims (Morán Breña, 2020). The apparent contradiction between López Obrador attacking watchdog journalists, and feminist activists while simultaneously pushing legislation aimed at protecting them again points to the tensions that arise when discourses of professional autonomy and human rights protection collide with a forceful and protagonistic federal government. One possible explanation for this contradiction rests on an antiquated tradition of partisan devotion from the executive office. For instance, Cerva Cerna (2019) studied the effects that alternation on federal government has on social participation and institutional leadership when associated with gender policies during AMLO’s administration. She found that institutions and departments dedicated to eradicating gender violence and inequality suffer from another paradox. They originate from a demand for participation, but they have to exist in Mexico’s habitual political process, that is a centrality of the executive power, affinity with interest groups, and citizen participation that is conditioned to its proximity to the administration.

AMLO’s Aggressive and Combative Stance Toward Journalists Coupled with the unmitigated threat of violence against journalists and the delegitimization of activists, censorship of journalists by political authorities has proven an endemic issue within Mexican press history. In this regard, we find that López Obrador’s behavior provides a variation on the larger themes tracked by Hughes (2006), Gonzalez de Bustamante and Relly (2021), and others, as attempts to disregard or deflect press critiques and a generally combative stance toward the press. This section

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will start by addressing some of the novel features of the López Obrador administration regarding press relations. It will then reflect on the continued presence of ongoing tensions. Las mañaneras: AMLO’s Daily Morning Press Briefs Among the many things that López Obrador is changing about the style of governance in Mexico is his approach to the press. Since his first day in office, December 1, 2018, López Obrador has religiously offered a daily (Monday to Friday) press brief at 7 a.m. Las mañaneras, as he himself calls the press conferences, are about two hours long and have become both a fascinating governance strategy and a political spectacle. During these conferences, the president presents social programs, directly addresses members of his cabinet, and publicly asks them to solve or address a particular issue. He often shares the podium with public servants as they update the press and the public. After the brief, journalists proceed to ask questions directly to the president. López Obrador answers questions live, las mañaneras are transmitted in real time on TV and streamed on Facebook and Twitter. This type of daily unfiltered casual interaction with the press and the public was completely unheard of for López Obrador’s predecessors. Mexican presidents only started interacting with the press in the 1970s, when they did two interviews per year with journalists screened and selected by their staff. The interviews were more of a regurgitation of their annual governance report than an actual interview, and questions were previously vetted by the Office of Communications (Nájar, 2019). From former Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari (1988–1994) to López Obrador’s predecessor, Enrique Pena Nieto (2012–2018), presidents gave regular press conferences while touring the country but did not normally answer questions directly from journalists. López Obrador has completely changed the relationship between the executive power and the press. He has given over 600 press conferences during the first three years of his administration (Ramos, 2021). During his mañaneras he answers every question posed by journalists, and critical and opposition views are allowed, although not always well-received—as we will see in the next section. The daily press briefs have also helped López Obrador control the issues and debates discussed by the press and the public in general. The topic of his mañaneras have often become trending topics on Twitter and

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other social media platforms. According to political and polling expert Roy Campos, López Obrador also uses this space to reinforce his vision and political ideology: to help poor and remind everyone he became president as a result of the corruption of his predecessors (Nájar, 2019). This point is what has led his critics to believe las mañaneras are not precisely an exercise on governmental accountability, but a propaganda strategy. Several journalists (Salvador Camarena, Ivabell Arroyo, Jorge Ramos, Jorge Castañeda, Carlos Loret de Mola) have attacked López Obrador for using this platform to amplify his message and other media for reproducing his discourse and language without fact-checking the information presented during his briefs (Torres, 2021). Intimidation from the Presidential Office: ¿Quién es quién de las mentiras? Journalists and media outlets critical of the Mexican president have ended up at the receiving end of delegitimizing attacks and mockery. López Obrador has cleverly named the conservative press in Mexico prensa fifií. By fifis he refers to “hypocrites, conservatives, know-it-alls, and double-­ faced” individuals who advocate for private interests (¿Qué es la prensa fifí?, 2019). Historically, the word fifí in Mexico has been in use since the 1930s and describes well-off, show-off individuals (Urzua, 2021). López Obrador said in May 2021 that Mexico “has the most unfair press, the most distant, the most detached from the people and closest to conservative power groups. This is a time of darkness for the news media” (quoted in Martinez & Garduño, 2021). Adding to the tensions between the conservative press and the president, in June 2021 López Obrador debuted a new section of his mañaneras. The section, titled “¿Quién es quién de las mentiras de la semana?” (Who is lying this week?) is an attempt to combat fake news and put a spotlight on the news media that disseminate misinformation and disinformation. López Obrador said “No one should feel offended, above personal interest, as legitimate as it may be, should always be the public interest, the collective interest, and we will initiate this process” (quoted in Arista, 2021). López Obrador has publicly stated that the national press has never been as critical of any other president as it is with him (Arista, 2021). The president himself is not in charge of this section. Elizabeth Garcia Vilchis, social media coordinator for his administration, was appointed to the position. Garcia Vilchis said during the first section that

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“Quién es quién de las mentiras” will be a public square in which she will freely discuss the information that the news media publish daily. “The response of the government is not to persecute or censure journalists and media, but to inform with veracity” (quoted in Arista, 2021). The section would only address the news trending on social media and the most outrageous fake news. A month later, reacting to the critics of the new segment, López Obrador said during his morning brief that the government needs opposition but not “mafia journalism,” a practice where journalists traffic with freedom of expression or who use it to negotiate against or blackmail him to achieve certain political agendas (Becerril & Poy, 2021). The president assured there is complete freedom of expression in Mexico and that everyone has a right to dissent even when some news media undertake lynching campaigns against the executive power. López Obrador insisted that political criticism is necessary as long as it is authentic and not economically motivated. He also said that even made-up journalism helps his government as it is a byproduct of democracy, in his words, only dictatorships censor the press (Becerril & Poy, 2021). Some critics have compared this new weekly segment to the sabatinas of Rafael Correa, former President of Ecuador. Correa, another leftist democratic socialist in Latin America, used to hold similar TV events every Saturday in which he highlighted journalists critical of his administration with segments like La amargura (the bitterness) or La cantinflada4 de la semana (the nonsense of the week). In these segments Correa would take one news article or segment to put it under public scrutiny, while explaining the official “truth” and ridiculing the journalists for their inaccurate reporting. Correa also showed a picture of the journalist under a red circle and a stamp that read “certified lie” or “bad faith” (Marcial Pérez, 2021). Correa issued more than 400 sanctions against news media companies, while López Obrador is nowhere near Correa’s sanctions, his opposition has been clearly documented. Criticism of AMLO’s Positions on Media Freedom (Attacking Press); Incidents with Reforma One of López Obrador’s first combative incidents with the press was when Reforma, a conservative news outlet, published a story indicating that 4  A reference to beloved Mexican TV character Cantinflas who used to babble and speak incoherently.

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vigilance and security had doubled in López Obrador’s house in 2019. The story also published the home address of the president, information that was public since his campaign in 2018. A day after the publication the president criticized the story as well as Reforma more broadly in his mañanera. Soon after the press conference, Juan Pardinas, the editorial director of the newspaper started to receive death threats online. Social media users and followers of López Obrador coined the hashtag #NarcoReforma and revealed Pardinas home address. The hashtag, which became a trending topic on Twitter, implies the newspaper has explicit ties with organized crime. Some of the tweets also called to set the newspaper facilities on fire with Pardinas inside. Pardinas indicated that the incident marked the thirteenth time López Obrador attacked the newspaper when he complained the outlet published his home address. Article 19 stepped in to condemn the doxxing attack and call on the Mexican federal government to protect Pardinas. A couple of days after López Obrador said during his morning brief that he was overseeing the issue and asking authorities to protect Pardinas. He said: “We are not using the State to intimidate let alone repress the media, they are absolutely free… We are not authoritarian” (quoted in Director de Reforma, 2019). In the same conference he also said life would be very boring without the questioning and slander of conservative journalism. Another case of possible retaliation happened in July 2019 as López Obrador presided over his morning brief while on tour in the Western Mexican state of Nayarit. During his press brief, local journalist Patricia Aguilar Romano asked López Obrador to intervene as she claimed local authorities including the Attorney General’s office and the state governor were involved in the disappearance of a young activist. Aguilar Romano also presented data to the president indicating that the Governor and the State General Attorney of Nayarit were involved in a kidnapping ring (Sandoval Ortiz, 2020). She indicated that thanks to her investigative journalism she was being accused of crimes she did not commit. A few months later, state-level police officers busted into her house late at night, breaking down the door as they arrested her. She was falsely accused of fraud, having ties to organized crime and money laundering. She spent ten months in jail before being set free on parole (Cardosa, 2021; Encarcelan a periodista, 2020). While the incident involved state authorities, not the president himself, López Obrador was once again thrown in the middle of an issue involving violence against a journalist. While the president and the federal administration might not be actively producing a dangerous

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environment for the press, national and international groups believe his inaction speaks louder than any accomplishment or rhetorical gesture of support. In 2021, the annual report of Reporters Without Borders indicated that Mexico continues to be one of the most dangerous places to practice journalism and that López Obrador has not made any efforts to halt attacks against the press (Ven inacción de AMLO, 2021).

The Global Right-Wing Campaign Against AMLO and the Question of NGO Imperialism Organizations like Reporters without Borders and Article 19 can be seen to serve a critical function for preserving democratic communication in Mexico by documenting threats to journalistic autonomy—and that these organizations should be lauded for this. Our agenda in this chapter is not to villainize transnational press freedom groups or to argue that they are purposefully misleading international audiences. However, as this section will lay out, the issue with press freedom groups like Article 19 comes through the ways that their reports can be mobilized by right-wing activists to undermine progressive governments. Without minimizing the severity of the issues documented by these groups or questioning their motivations, the remainder of the chapter will briefly address how their critiques of the López Obrador administration have been redeployed by right-wing activists (like Steve Bannon) and media outlets (namely Breitbart News) as a “human rights wedge” (Bob, 2020) to alienate progressive or liberal international bases of support for the leftist Mexican federal government (Norton, 2021). From the perspective of the López Obrador administration, transnational press freedom watchdogs are capitalizing on the misfortune of journalists (for which he minimizes his government’s culpability) within Mexico to throw up barriers to his administration’s attempt to articulate a novel and radical vision of popular sovereignty for the Mexican state. This vision of popular sovereignty at the level of the nation-state broadly fits the definition articulated by Andrew Calabrese of the historical role of national sovereignty within international communication: “Sovereignty is defined as the ability of a national government to articulate a sense of public identity that is free from the influence of both foreign political actors (cultural imperialism) and from elite influences within a polity (sub-­ imperialism)” (Calabrese, 1999, p. 8; see also Reilly, 2016). Representing

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a filial relationship to historical debates around the New World Information and Communications Order and cultural imperialism, López Obrador’s form of sovereignty is constructed around the ability of national governments (usually of some sort of leftist or progressive stripe) to another area where the López Obrador administration has taken drastic steps toward freeing Mexico from a predatory dependency on the US. For AMLO’s Mexico, this practice of national sovereignty has largely taken the form of building large-scale public or public-private partnered infrastructural projects. Notably, he has pursued a form of “energy sovereignty” (Garcia & Abhishek, 2021) built around the re-nationalization of the nation’s largest electricity and petroleum corporations (Rousseau, 2021) and the nationalization of extractive industries like Lithium mining (Hackbarth, 2021). On a broader scale, since August 2021 López Obrador’s administration has sought to create a formalized multinational institutional infrastructure to build trade specifically between these nations—a sort of “European Union”-style structure for Latin America and the Caribbean (Garcia & Torres, 2021). Bolivian journalist Ollie Vargas has applauded the Mexican governments’ attempt to create this network, arguing that it provides a continuation of the Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América (ALBA) network initially launched by Hugo Chavez in Venezuela (Vargas & Blackmon, 2021). What does this highly protagonistic push for developing Mexican sovereignty mean for communication practices? As a recent piece in Foreign Policy argues, López Obrador has both spoken out publicly and taken policy steps to limit perceived American influence in the media industries and within the sphere of social media as they threaten the “rights of the Mexican government to act autonomously in the interest of the Mexican people” (Deslandes, 2021). Looking back to the first two segments of the chapter, one might be able to interpret López Obrador’s behavior toward journalists as due to the potential obstacles they provide toward developing his nationalist development-oriented agenda. Even if this is the case, it is important for watchdog groups like CPJ and Article 19 to “call him out.” However, the larger geopolitical stakes of the administration’s contentious interactions with watchdog NGOs come to the foreground when looking at what press activists outside of Mexico are doing with the reports. In a seemingly paradoxical situation, the English language media outlet who has published the largest number of stories on AMLO’s freedom of press ‘violations’ is the ultra-right wing outlet Breitbart News. On 52 occasions between June 2018 and October 2021, Breitbart published

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stories referencing reports of violence against journalists from Article 19, CPJ, or Reporters Without Borders. While most of these stories merely cited reports of journalist deaths, several of the Breitbart stories make claims that López Obrador is directly linked to threats of violence against journalists, including murder. In this vein, a story from May 14, 2020, spins the Reforma bomb threat to make it seem that the president himself was behind the order. The article depicts the source of the bomb threat as someone “close to AMLO’s inner circle” and republishes the unverified claim from Reforma that the pseudo-bomber started his threatening call with the message “All of the Sinaloa Cartel is with Andrés Manuel López Obrador!” (quoted in Ortiz & Darby, 2020). The article then ends with a series of references to Article 19 and CPJ reports about press freedom violations in Mexico. This twisting and selective amplification of this type of story by right-wing activists provides an example of how the work of watchdogs can be mobilized as an attempt to fabricate larger narratives critiquing the Mexican government through making equivocal claims like “López Obrador is working with the cartels to shut down freedom of the press.” Breitbart’s supposed championing of press freedom in Mexico provides an important insight into the ambiguities generated by the conflict between AMLO and watchdogs. As Davis (2021) documents in his analysis of Breitbart’s coverage of freedom of press violations in Mexico, the abstract manner in which press freedom groups like Article 19 frame their reports on violence against journalists leaves room for these critiques to be deployed by right-wing activists. Drawing on this case, AMLO’s critique of press freedom NGOs has some purchase: they provide ammunition for opponents seeking to undermine his administration’s political and economic project. However, and crucially, his target is slightly misplaced. As we will argue in the conclusion, the real issue is the lack of engagement between the Mexican government and press NGOs.

Conclusion Our chapter has attempted to lay out the thorny interactions between the Mexican federal government, Mexican journalists, and the international organizations developed to protect these journalists. Despite the López Obrador administration’s claims to the contrary, there is significant evidence that the Mexico has failed to take action in protecting journalists, continuing a long history of governmental failure, particularly within

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peripheral regions. To reiterate the findings of Gonzalez de Bustamante and Relly (2021), rampant violence creates barriers to press freedom that overdetermine the ability of any single administration to secure the personal safety and professional autonomy of journalists. In this regard it is concerning that López Obrador seems to be potentially minimizing his administration’s responsibility for protecting journalists. This situation clearly points to the need for organizations like Article 19 and CPJ to advocate on behalf of Mexican journalists. Furthermore, the president seems to be potentially exacerbating tensions by combatively addressing the press in his mañaneras—another potential justification for criticism by free press advocates. However, the final section of the chapter adds a wrinkle to the analysis; a wrinkle that might provide a useful rejoinder to the way that press freedom groups monitor violence. As MacCleod (2018) and Norton (2021) have noted, the claims of press freedom groups like Article 19 and CPJ have also been used by the US as justification for economic sanctions, calls for regime change, or other drastic measures directed against other national governments that often have the unintended consequence of causing mass casualties and other downstream effects (Davis & Ness, 2022). This conflict between State powers, the media, and civic society is not new, and it is not exclusive of Mexico. Historically, commercialization and patrimonialism of media limit the opportunities for democratic debate in Latin America. However, among the news-making power of political officials, elite support for popular protest and disagreements between elites has led the media to produce mixed frames about public demands and social movements (Waisbord, 2012). Similarly, Magdalena Saldaña & Rachel R.  Mourão (2018) argue that the liberalization of the press in Latin America led to what Canclini (2005) called cultural heterogeneity, that is when old powers are intertwined with liberal institutions and authoritarian habits. The major point of conflict emerges from a clash between professionalism norms and practices of patronage. What is interesting about this particular case is that previous administrations in Mexico had relied on the patronage system and their co-dependent relationships to the two dominating networks (Televisa, TV Azteca). However, Lopez Obrador has effectively bypassed that relationship as he reduced by more than half the federal budget for advertising and publicity (El favorito de los gobiernos, 2019). While the move contributes to the press liberalization process, as news media is forced to be independent from the federal

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government, many also question if the move will be detrimental for media pluralism (La austeridad de AMLO, 2019). Our chapter’s attempt to balance the concerns of professional autonomy and personal safety motivating journalists with the ambitious endeavors by López Obrador to promote new forms of economic sovereignty shows that both sides would gain from a more dialogic engagement with each other. The process of enhancing dialogue could potentially be achieved through a few concrete steps. The federal government needs to invest more substantially in strengthening federal support for domestic press freedom organizations; these organizations in turn could also act as negotiators with transnational NGOs like CPJ and Article 19. To offer an even more elemental recommendation: by toning down the inflammatory rhetoric in his critiques of transnational press freedom organizations (e.g., referring to them as “handmaidens of imperialism”), President López Obrador could set the stage for a more productive engagement between parties. This would also deflate claims made by right-wing activists and others that seek to weaponize reports from press freedom groups as ways to delegitimize the president and various levels of the Mexican government. Both of these recommendations reflect a much-needed call for complicating the dynamic that has developed between the president, the federal government, and press freedom watchdogs since the 2018 elections.

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Hughes, S. (2006). Newsrooms in conflict: Journalism and the democratization of Mexico. University of Pittsburgh Press. Hughes, S., Garcés, J., Márquez-Ramirez, M., & Arroyave, J. (2017). Rethinking professional autonomy: Autonomy to develop and to publish news in Mexico and Colombia. Journalism, 18(8), 956–976. Knapp, P., & Specter, A. (2011). Crisis and change today: Basic questions of Marxist sociology (2nd ed.). Rowman and Littlefield. La austeridad de AMLO pone en jaque a medios de comunicación. (2019, October 23). Forbes México. https://www.forbes.com.mx/la-­austeridad-de-­amlopone-­en-­jaque-­a-­medios-­de-­comunicacion/ MacCleod, A. (2018). Bad news for Venezuela: Twenty years of fake news and misreporting. Routledge. Manetto, F. (2021, March 14). López Obrador se atrinchera ante el ‘caso Salgado Macedonio’ y el movimiento feminista. El País México. https://elpais.com/ mexico/2021-­0 3-­1 4/lopez-­o brador-­s e-­a trinchera-­a nte-­e l-­c aso-­s algado-­ macedonio-­y-­el-­movimiento-­feminista.html Martinez, F., & Garduño, R. (2021, May 5). La Jornada—AMLO: Tenemos una prensa “tendenciosa y golpeadora.” https://www.jornada.com.mx México protege 88% más de periodistas y activistas que en 2018. (2021, October 5). Forbes México. https://www.forbes.com.mx/politica-­2020-­mexico-protege-88mas-­de-­periodistas-­y-­activistas-­que-­en-­2018 Mlotshwa, K. (2018). “Invisibility and hypervisibility” of ‘Ndebele women’in Zimbabwe’s media. Agenda, 32(3), 87–99. Morales, A., & Villa y Caña, P. (2021, March 31). AMLO defiende a Sanjuana Martínez, señalada por EU de atacar a periodistas. El Universal. https://www. eluniversal.com.mx/nacion/amlo-­d efiende-­s anjuana-­m artinez-­s enaladapor-­eu-­de-­atacar-­periodistas Morán Breña, C. (2020, February 15). Ingrid Escamilla: La atroz violencia de los crímenes morales. El País. https://elpais.com/sociedad/2020/02/13/actualidad/1581616992_329601.html Movimiento feminista busca perjudicarme, es conservador, dice AMLO. (2021, September 29). Animal Político. https://www.animalpolitico.com/2021/09/ amlo-­movimiento-­feministas-­es-­conservador-­busca-­perjudicar-­gobierno/ Nájar, A. (2019, January 31). Así son las “mañaneras”, la novedosa estrategia para gobernar de AMLO en México. BBC News Mundo. https://www.bbc.com/ mundo/noticias-america-latina-47066862 Nájar, A. (2020, February 21). Cómo la respuesta de AMLO ante los feminicidios en México se convirtió en una crisis para su gobierno. BBC News Mundo. https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-­america-­latina-­51583486 Norton, B. (2021). Twitter Latin America coordinator exposed as right-wing operative, amid anti-AMLO social media purge. The Gray Zone. Ortiz, I., & Darby, B. (2020, May 14). Mexican newspaper gets bomb threat for criticizing president AMLO. Breitbart News. https://www.breitbart.com/

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bor der/2020/05/14/mexican-­n ewspaper-­g ets-­b omb-­t hr eat-forcriticizing-­president-­amlo/ Pérez, D. M. (2021, June 24). El ‘quién es quién’ de López Obrador o la nueva ofensiva contra la prensa. El País México. https://elpais.com/mexico/2021-06-24/el-quien-es-quien-de-López-obrador-o-la-nueva-ofensivacontra-la-prensa.html Petras, J. (1999). Non-governmental organizations: In the service of imperialism. Journal of Contemporary Asia, 29(4), 429–440. Ramos, J. (2021, July 8). ¿Sigue teniendo sentido la Mañanera de AMLO? The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/es/2021/07/08/espanol/opinion/López-obrador-jorge-ramos.html Reilly, K. (2016). Communicative sovereignty in Latin America: The case of radio mundo real. Journal of Alternative and Community Media, 1(1), 97–113. Relly, J., & Bustamente, C. (2017). Global violence against journalists: The power of impunity and emerging initiatives to evoke social change. In H. Tumber & S.  Waisbord (Eds.), The Routledge companion to media and human rights . Routledge. Rios, V. (2021, March 1). Estamos listas con o sin López Obrador. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/es/2021/03/01/espanol/opinion/amlo-­ feminismo.html Rodriguez Reyna, I. (2021, July 6). Opinión | El antídoto contra el ‘Quién es quién en las mentiras’ de AMLO. Washington Post. Retrieved November 2, 2021, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/es/post-opinion/2021/07/06/quien-esquien-en-las-mentirasamlo-mananeras-prensa/ Rousseau, I. (2021). Mexico’s Energy Policies During the Presidency of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador-Sovereignty and Security (INIS-FR--21-1572). France Saldaña, M., & Mourão, R. R. (2018). Reporting in Latin America: Issues and perspectives on investigative journalism in the region. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 23(3), 299–323. https://doi.org/10.1177/1940161218782397 Salinas Maldonado, C. (2020, June 10). La agencia de noticias mexicana cierra tras ser obligada a acatar una huelga para desescalar el conflicto laboral. El País. https://elpais.com/internacional/2020-­0 6-­1 0/la-­a gencia-­d e-­n oticias-­ mexicana-­c ierra-­t ras-­s er-­o bligada-­a -­a catar-­u na-­h uelga-­p ara-­d esescalar-­e l-­ conflicto-­laboral.html Sandoval Ortiz, G. (2020, August 13). La persecución y arresto de Paty Aguilar. Contralinea. https://contralinea.net/la-­persecucion-­y-­arresto-de-paty-aguilar/ Torres, R. (2021, September 22). Mañaneras de AMLO no son rendición de cuentas, son ejercicio de propaganda: Salvador Camarena. El Universal. https:// w w w. e l u n i v e r s a l . c o m . m x / e s t a d o s / m a n a n e r a s - d e - a m l o - n o - s o n rendicion-de-cuentas-son-ejerciciode-propaganda-salvador-camarena Urzua, C. M. (2021, June 28). ¿Quiénes son los fifís? El Universal. https://www. eluniversal.com.mx/opinion/carlos-­m-­urzua/quienes-­son-­los-­fifis

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PART III

Post-authoritarian Media Performance: Actors and Representations in Dispute

CHAPTER 9

Press and Civil Society: Alliance and Mistrust in Mexican Transition Grisel Salazar

Introduction It is claimed in the academic literature that there is a positive relationship between journalism and civil society, and that both are fundamental pieces in expediting the fall of authoritarian regimes, and in the subsequent processes of political liberalization. Indeed, the roles scholars attribute to each of these two actors are akin. According to Diamond (1994), civil society is a vital instrument for containing power, controlling potential abuses and violations of the law, and subjecting rulers to public scrutiny. This definition is very close to what is expected of a watchdog press; that is, one that “serves the democratic aims of accountability (…) by helping to monitor power and encouraging powerful actors to assume responsibility for their actions” (Waisbord, 2015).

G. Salazar (*) Department of Social and Political Sciences, Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico City, Mexico e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 M. Echeverria, R. A. Gonzalez (eds.), Media and Politics in Post-Authoritarian Mexico, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36441-9_9

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It is also useful to consider the concept of civil society proposed by Habermas (1989). According to him, civil society consists of voluntary associations, that arise spontaneously and construct questions of public interest. This definition alludes to organized citizens, outside of any State structure, who influence (or seek to influence) the formation of public opinion. The significance of civil society within communication structures holds great importance for  the subject of this chapter, inasmuch as the appearance of new actors in the media narrative is one of the features that democratization brings with it. It has been documented that in places as diverse as Spain, Brazil, or the former Soviet Union, media worked as the “engine” that set processes of transition in motion (Gunther & Montero, 1999, 2001; Lawson, 2002; O’Neil, 1998; Stein, 2013). Spreading democratic values, calibrating the tolerance of the regime, and, of course, giving a voice to citizens’ demands are just some of the ways in which communications media interact with civil society, whether organized or not, to promote the liberalization of the political scene. In fact, one of the features of non-authoritarian models of journalism, according to Hughes (2006), is the variety of protagonists covered by the press, leaving behind the predominance of government actors as the center of the news. According to her, the model of journalism that is associated with the establishment of a democracy is labeled as “civic.” The chosen label is not arbitrary, as the model is defined by, among other things, its treatment of citizenry as protagonist of the public realm. Although the synergy of these two actors is obvious, it is not clear whether their convergence works in a stable manner or depends on specific circumstances. The year 2000 was a landmark in Mexican political life, as the dominion of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) came to an end, after having occupied the presidency for over 70 years. The change came as the culmination of a long process that had started more than 20 years before, in the northern states of the country (Merino, 2003). In fact, the first bastion to be lost by the PRI was the local government of Chihuahua, won by the National Action Party, el Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) in 1971, a victory mainly buttressed by business groups from the north of the country. Apart from this, civil society played a part in various political events that shook the relation of established forces. These changes were reflected in the pages of the newspapers and on news programs, displacing the conception of the president as the leading actor, the repository of power, and the gravity

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center of national politics (Lawson, 2002). The  major  earthquake in  Mexico City in 1985 showed both the inefficiencies of government institutions to deal with the tragedy and the strength of citizens for helping in rescue and reconstruction tasks. This, along with the disputed presidential elections of 1988, and the Zapatista uprising of 1994 are just some of the events that began to change the traditional narrative of the media in Mexico, bringing in more voices and more actors that broke up with the official discourse (Guerrero, 2019). For the emblematic election of 2000, the media in Mexico had an undeniable “powerful impact” on the political campaigns and on the triumph of PAN’s candidate Vicente Fox (Lawson & McCann, 2004). Linkages between press and civil society were also fundamental for the enactment of electoral reforms that would cement the process of transition, such as the creation of the Federal Electoral Institute, Instituto Federal Electoral (IFE) in 1990; the electoral reform of 1996, which established equitable rules of access to the media by political parties; and the passing of the Federal Law on Transparency and Access to Information in 2001. These processes demonstrate that  the joint presence of citizen groups and journalists successfully articulated civil demands and strengthened their legitimacy. In spite of these changes, it has been documented that Mexican journalists perceive an important lack of support from audiences (González & Reyna, 2019). The social demand to clarify the murders of journalists has been rather diffuse, and marches or demonstrations to demand justice are usually attended mainly by members of the profession itself. In the incomplete transition to democracy in Mexico, the estrangement or even the open confrontation between journalists and citizenry may explain not only why there is no solidarity between them, but also why societal controls usually fail to make the power accountable. The lack of mutual support between the press and civil society produces an important disaffection among these actors, who are fundamental to keeping up the vigor of democratic life. In the local realm this relationship acquires special importance, where the press has a role for strengthening communities and for creating solid bonds of identification with its readers. The subnational sphere is also where most of the acts of violence against journalists take place. This research aims to analyze tendencies in the media coverage of civil society in the local press. Three specific objectives are proposed. Firstly, I analyze who are the most frequent protagonists of news articles to assess

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the pre-eminence awarded in the news to civil society as opposed to other actors. Although journalism naturally tends to gravitate around political protagonists (Patterson, 2018), understanding the relevance that civil society has in the news helps to evidence whether the political liberalization is reflected in a vaster plurality of voices on the media. Secondly, I analyze if news articles support the demands of the civil society groups, or, to the contrary, some negative aspect of their actions is emphasized. Finally, I distinguish to what extent civil society is cited as a source in news items, examining whether the news articles are reproducing the declarations of social actors, political figures, or whether the newspaper has made its own interpretation of events. Thus, this research seeks to provide a panoramic vision of the press coverage of civil society 20 years after the first alternation in power at the federal level. In the first part of this work, I offer a literature review regarding the relevance of journalism and civil society in political liberalization processes. In the second section, I critically discuss the theoretical postulates that assume a virtuous, natural alliance between journalism and civil society. Also, I review how the Mexican press covered civil society in the years prior to political alternation. The narrative of these years is fundamental to understanding the electoral results of 2000 and subsequent events. In the third part, I present the methodology used to build the empirical base of the study and discuss how the analysis of the news items was conducted. In the fourth part I present the results of the analysis, and, finally, I offer some concluding remarks.

The Press and Civil Society: Beyond the Assumptions of a Theoretical Relationship The third wave of democratization highlighted the concept of “civil society,” understood as “the realm of organized social life that is voluntary, self-generating, (largely) self-supporting, autonomous from the State and bound by a legal order or set of shared rules” (Diamond, 1994, p. 7), and one of the most stimulating elements for the study of the fall of authoritarian regimes. For the Western world, the demand for citizens’ rights and the ensuing expansion of democracy cannot be understood without reference to the actions of civil society (Olvera, 2008). However, the literature on civil society goes back several years. With their classic study The Civic Culture, Almond and Verba (1963) paved the

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way for studies on civic attitudes. Based on interviews conducted in the USA, Great Britain, Germany, Italy, and Mexico, their research sought to show that the stability of democracy in any country did not depend only on democratic institutions, but also on the political attitudes of the population. Years later, Robert Putnam (1993, 2000) studied the political and civic dynamics in Italian regions and in the American states, and showed that, to understand the territorial differences in the strength of democracy, it was necessary to include analysis of social capital. The literature on civic society allows us to see that, for the health of democracies and therefore for the processes of transition, it was not enough to have changes propelled by the elites but also re-­accommodations initiated “bottom-up” that could have a decisive incidence in democratic life (Diamond, 1992). The upsurge and ebullience of civil society organizations are processes that have accompanied all political transitions. Business associations, student organizations, labor unions, and specialized associations are actors that must be included to fully understand the breakage of an authoritarian regime and the subsequent establishment of democratic patterns, in so far as they act as a counterweight to the installed power. However, civil society is not the only actor relevant for explaining these processes. The news media need to be considered when trying to understand the way in which a democratic culture is built within regimes that have recently undergone political transitions (Gunther & Montero, 1999; O’Neil, 1998; Peschard, 2000; Voltmer, 2013). A strict distinction between the press and civil society may seem artificial. In fact, the press is an actor that comes from the wider society and forms part of it. That means that the press can in fact work as a counterweight of the powerful. However, in authoritarian environments, such as that of Mexico under the PRI, the division between the media and political actors was rather vague (Guerrero, 2010). Connivance and complicity between the government and the owners of the media outlets are two elements that have sustained this regime (Johnson, 1998; Lawson, 2002; O’Neil, 1998; Vaca, 2018; Voltmer, 2013). Under these circumstances, the media did not work as counterweight to power but as spokespersons of official messages, limiting themselves to deliver the narratives of political leaders and of the actors in government. Therefore, process of media liberalization in Mexico acquires particular interest, as it gradually moved toward a differentiation between the media and the government. In these liberalization processes, the media posed some challenges to the status quo, for example, covering protests and demonstrations as acts

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of legitimate demand and not only as undesirable events that should be repressed, giving more space to opposition candidates and their proposals, and openly criticizing government policies. All these changes influenced other political re-accommodations. A good example is provided by Stein (2013) for the Brazilian case. She argues that the influence of the media was decisive for the decline of the military dictatorship, by encouraging acts of protest in other sectors. Also, she shows how the government’s response to the increasing inclusion of so-considered taboo topics in the media served as a barometer to calibrate the regime’s tolerance toward acts of civil dissidence. These signals were effectively read by political opponents of the dictatorship and provided clues of the risk implied by demonstrating discontent. The media, according to the author, played the part of a canary in a coal mine, that signaled whether if the mine’s air had become noxious, and if would be better to go back, or, on the contrary, if it is safe enough to keep on articulating certain actions. In her study of Mexican newsrooms, Hughes (2006) developed a typology of journalism styles, based on the plurality of voices present in news articles, and on the autonomy and the assertiveness of the media. To build these indicators, the author considered among other things, the level of coverage received by actors outside the government, the degree of legitimacy awarded to them, the level of criticism toward political leaders, and the variety of sources present in the published stories. Thus, as the media shifted from a coverage centered on the government and from an attitude of complacency with the regime, it transitioned to a civic model of journalism. Using the label “civic” is very revealing of how the liberalization of political and media systems always points toward a convergence of the press and civil society. Previous research has highlighted how journalistic coverage may contribute to make citizen mobilizations more visible and to potentiate their achievements. For example, Smulovitz and Peruzzotti (2000) found that, especially in unconsolidated democracies, the interactions between the media and civil organizations are key in what they call “societal accountability.” In these processes there tends to be a virtuous, almost a natural, link between the social actors and the media, in which the two actors give each other mutual support for making visible shared demands. According to the authors of the aforementioned study, social demands channeled through demonstrations and street protests only succeed when they are accompanied by the media. Being visible in the media is essential for social movements to be able to build a broader consensus and to  push for

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changes in public policy. Similarly, Koopmans (2004) mentions the relevance of media coverage for the success of citizen movements. According to him, how the authorities react to mobilizations and to citizen demands is determined to a large extent by the way in which these movements are portrayed in the media. While this first strand of the literature has explored the contributions made by the press to social movements, it is also necessary to consider the studies that analyze the influences on the press that come from civil society. Waisbord (2007) and Segura and Waisbord (2016) have shown how citizen movements in Latin America have affected the transformation of media systems. Similarly, Relly and González de Bustamante (2017) have demonstrated how transnational and national organizations facilitated support to journalists who have suffered violence, by organizing public demonstrations, by training journalists in matters of security, and by providing legal assistance. Further, regarding violence against the press, Brambila and Lugo Ocando (2019) show that the so-called civil network coalitions, integrated by activists and transnational organizations, can campaign in favor of vulnerable journalists. In the same vein, Salazar (2019) has shown that the support of civil society organizations and other non-governmental actors is a decisive element in preserving a vigilant and critical press, even in violent contexts. Likewise, in his comparative study of the risks for journalists in Mexico and Colombia, Sambrook (2016) argues that the support of society is essential for legitimizing the institutional mechanisms created for the protection and defense of journalists, especially in situations where mistrust of the authorities prevails. The cited studies consider that civil society is capable of and interested in calling for demonstrations in defense of freedom of expression and organizing movements denouncing violence against journalists. Another actor that potentially can lend journalists support, although in a more dispersed fashion, are the news’ audiences. Even though there has always been an intimate relation between media and their audiences, particularly in the local realm, in recent years the financial and moral support of readers has been fundamental to the creation and continuance of new journalistic projects in the face of digital and technological changes. In other words, building bonds with the audiences have been crucial for fostering support toward journalists and their work. For example, in the former Soviet Union, the funerals of Dmitry Kholodov and Vladislav Listyev, both journalists murdered by the regime, brought about 100,000 people together demanding justice for the crime (Roudakova 2009, 413).

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Thus, all the literature shows important parallels in the democratic functions of civil society and journalism: demanding for rights, condemning bad government practices, monitoring and controlling power, and seeking for the limitation of abuses (Diamond, 1994). Potentializing these functions is a possibility when both actors can find positive convergences.

Civil Society, Journalism, and the Transition to Democracy in Mexico Does the assumed virtuous relation between journalism and civil society apply to Mexican political and mediatic system? While a vast literature has studied the role of each actor in Mexican transition, only a few studies explicitly address their convergences and interactions. For quite a long time, the political transition was understood as a process eminently related with parties and elections. In fact, most of academic studies focused on the transition processes, concentrated on politico-­ electoral reforms, the electoral system, and political parties (Becerra et al., 2005; Greene, 2007; Magaloni, 2006; Merino, 2003). Nevertheless, in the years prior to political alternation, both civil society and journalism made important contributions in pursuing laws and reforms that transformed the balances of political forces and supported the process of democratic transition. The conflicts that arose after the disputed presidential election of 1988 led to a series of social demands to make electoral processes more transparent, and to establish equity in the financing of the parties and in the access that they had to the media. The idea of creating an independent organism responsible of monitoring the electoral processes was a response to the uprising of civil society and its inescapable influence in political events. In 1994, a group of journalists, scholars, and members of social organizations launched the document 20 compromisos por la democracia (20 commitments to democracy), demanding guarantees to strengthen democratic institutions and to promote citizens’ rights, including the citizen’s right to information, which would boost journalistic practice in a decisive way. Subsequently, social organizations that arose at this conjuncture, such as the Civic Alliance (Alianza Cívica) and Mexican Transparency (Transparencia Mexicana), and groups of journalists, such as the Interamerican Press Society (Sociedad Interamericana de Prensa, SIP) expressed the need to enact laws that would improve transparency and

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accountability. The regulation on the right to information is particularly illustrative of the positive convergences between journalism and civil society. In May 2001 the “Oaxaca Group” (Grupo Oaxaca), formed of academics and members of various media organizations, elaborated a law initiative for regulating this right, that showed considerable advances on the original proposal formulated by the federal Executive (Cejudo et al., 2012; Concha et al., 2004; Peschard, 2017). With some adjustments, this initiative was finally enacted in 2001, and it was used as a model by many other countries for elaborating their own legislation on the subject. Civil society and journalism not only played a fundamental part in promoting a legislation of a high standard in transparency matters, but also in the appropriation of the right and its active use. The main users of the mechanisms of access to information are consistently members of civil society (scholars, researchers, non-government organizations, and business people) and journalists; and in the processes of reform the two groups have joined forces to preserve this right (Peschard, 2017; Salazar, 2016). Another recent experience of a positive convergence between journalism and civil society was the formation of the Free Media Collective (Medios Libres) in 2017, that demanded transparency and limits on arbitrary government expenditures on publicity in the media. Organizations such as Fundar and Artículo 19, and media outlets such as Animal Político, Noroeste, Sin Embargo, and Lado B among others, formed part of this collective that is still active and succeeded in creating web portals to monitor advertisement expenses in the press (Peschard et al., 2019). The examples above show that, in the case of the democratic transition in Mexico, there have indeed been episodes when civil society and journalism have forged a powerful alliance, as assumed by the literature. This coalition allowed political and legislative processes to be promoted, inserting new topics on the public agenda and demanding guarantees for exercising different rights. However, it does seem that these positive convergences do not appear spontaneously. Rather, they occur when the two groups have shared interests. Demonstrations of solidarity or support between journalism and civil society are not sufficiently documented. In fact, recent studies based on the testimonies of journalists have demonstrated that for matters, such as anti-press violence, there is a feeling of abandonment and lack of social support. In the face of increasing attacks against journalists in Mexico, González and Reyna (2019) have conducted interviews with journalists that show an important relation of growing mistrust. According to this

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study, journalists state that “nobody cares if they are attacked.” This is confirmed by the general reaction to aggression against journalists and their murders. In contrast to what Roudakova (2009) has documented for Russia, in Mexico the demonstrations against violence against the press and for justice tend to be organized by people in the profession and congregate mostly journalists, with a very weak presence of members of civil society. Similarly, a decline in trust in media expressed by public has been documented. For example, the latest poll by the World Values Survey shows that, for Mexico, less than 30% of participants expressed a lot or quite a lot of trust in the media. Although these results show the opinions of society in general, they do give a clue to the relation that exists between the public and the press. Given these trends, it is worth asking how the press has portrayed civil society after the political transition. This will allow us to confirm whether, as Hughes (2006) argues, there has been progress toward a civic model of journalism in which citizens and their demands are being legitimately reflected in the press, or, to the contrary, the persistence of inertias deeply rooted in the authoritarian model of journalism has undermined a potentially positive relation between the press and civil society.

The Portrayal of Mexico’s Civil Society in the Press Three years before the elections of 2000, and three years after the convulsive year of 1994, William Orme published a book aiming to document how the press had moved from a relation of collusion with power to a one of confrontation (Orme, 1997). During the decade of 1990s a reinvention and re-accommodation of journalism began to take place, starting with the local newspapers and moving to the national ones. The consolidation of the Reforma Group, linked to businesspeople from the north of the country, is an emblematic example of the dynamism acquired by local media outlets. From the very beginning, this group overcame the inertias that had characterized the national press distancing itself from the government (Lawson, 2002). The uprising of the Zapatista National Liberation Army, el Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional, was perhaps one of the episodes that had a deeper impact in the profession and its routine in those years. The enthusiasm for the indigenous movement along with the possibility of getting a scoop or an interview with the Zapatista leaders encouraged many

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journalists, especially the younger ones, to cover these events. Not even the tacit restrictions imposed during seven decades of rule by the PRI were able to stop the coverage of the indigenous conflict, that portraited new personalities and topics, and reflected alternative perspectives that were very different to the official ones (Riva-Palacio, 1997). Immersed in a storm of news and an unprecedented drive to compete, the press also showed its limitations to conduct unbiased research and developing objective reports, without depending on the declarations of government figures (Orme, 1997). With the arrival of Ernesto Zedillo to the presidency, there was a growing feeling that there were better possibilities for a freer press, covering subjects and characters that previously had been an automatic cause of reprisals. Two dramatic events, the massacres of Acteal and Aguas Blancas, were covered by several media from a critical perspective of the government that had not been heard until then and shifting the focus to civilian victims. Later, when the PAN came into power, the president lost his untouchable aura and became a frequent target of media criticism, with many outlets adopting a satirical tone rather than informative. The times seemed favorable for dynamism in the sphere and for public debates without the burden of the historical obstructions. But when the PRI came back to the presidency in 2012, the ties between political actors and the biggest media companies were renewed, especially with TV networks. Clientelistic bonds were strengthened as never before with substantial advertising contracts (Salazar, 2018), and the violence against the press, especially at the local level, intensified. However, the president never again became the sole protagonist of news coverage. In fact, in the six-year administrative period of 2012–2018, powerful examples of investigative journalism showing government’s malfeasances were issued, such as La Casa Blanca de Enrique Peña Nieto (Enrique Peña Nieto’s White House) and La Estafa Maestra (The Master Fraud). Among other reasons, these pieces influenced the electorate to massively vote against the PRI in 2018. According to literature, in contexts of political transition the press should operate as a public arena for civil society to be able to monitor public policies and demand accountability. But is this what happened in the case of Mexico? Firstly, the gradual inclusion of subjects and actors related to aspects that had formerly not appeared on newspaper pages reflected a new style of doing journalism, and a change that was taking place inside Mexican newsrooms (Salazar & Bravo, 2019). Therefore, although it is not

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possible to speak of a homogeneous transition of the profession toward a civic model, using the terms of Hughes (2006), what can be traced is the sprout of new routines and frames that would have provoked serious reprisals under different circumstances. Secondly, it is certain that the changes coexisted with the profound inertias of a whole era of journalism in Mexico. The literal reproduction of declarations of political leaders, especially of the president, or taking official narratives as facts, are traits deeply rooted in Mexican journalistic practices that are not so easy to eliminate (Hallin & Papathanassopoulos, 2002). In addition to these inertias, in presidential systems news media tends to prioritize the President’s perspective, to the detriment of the voices of organized civil society (Hughes & Mellado, 2016). Also, these authors state that when news includes the testimonies of citizens, it focuses on isolated perspectives, rarely reflecting joint interests. Their argument supposes an interesting nuance to the normative view of the relation between the press and civil society: while we would expect to find in democratic systems a coverage less focused on unilateral messages from the government, that does not necessarily imply that the sources quoted are from civil society. In their analysis of media coverage of civil protest after the transition in Chile, Hughes and Mellado (2016, p. 63) found that although there are changes in the news framing, these are modest and contingent upon the particularities of the political momentum. As the authors say, “the press was neither a caboose nor the engine of democracy, but rather a passenger of the change.” This finding is very valuable as it invites to moderate the expectations of the dynamics between the press and civil society.

Methodology To analyze the way in which the press has covered civil society in Mexico, I systematized the contents of the two daily newspapers with the largest circulation in each of the 31 federal entities (the 62 principal papers of the states in terms of circulation rates, as reported by the National Register of Printed Media, Padrón Nacional de Medios Impresos1). I chose the local press as the empirical reference because, as previously stated, the mislabeled “provincial press” was precisely the one that initiated transcendental changes in journalistic practices, and started to renew the topics, the 1

 The list of newspapers may be consulted in the Appendix of this work.

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characters, and the emphasis of the news message. Also, it is the local press that provides more potential for identification with audiences in the construction of communities. Local papers can be conceived as a familiar voice that tells people about day-to-day affairs that affect them directly, portraying the problems that they might have to deal with on a regular basis (Anderson, 1983). Furthermore, choosing the local level also allows researchers to consider the dynamism of the alternations that have occurred on that sphere. As studies of local hybrid regimes have shown (Gervasoni, 2018; Gibson, 2010; Giraudy, 2010; Snyder, 1999), the transition to democracy can only be understood as a complex process, composed of different local trajectories, some of which end up better than others. This analysis focuses on the years 2011 to 2013. There are several reasons of choosing this period. Firstly, it makes it possible to cover the last two years of the presidential term of Felipe Calderón (2011 and 2012) and the first two years of the administration of Enrique Peña Nieto (2012 and 2013). Also, for these years nine states had not had alternations of the party in power, and three states had undergone alternation twice. This makes it possible to include a variety of features of local exercise of power into the analysis. To capture the essence of the contents of the local newspapers in a significant way, the stratified sampling technique proposed by Riffe et  al. (2005) was followed to assess each year of content of daily newspapers. For each year, newspaper and state included the data set, I randomly reconstructed two weeks, yielding 1217 front-page headlines to analyze. This strategy allows statistical inference of the yearly content of each newspaper, accounting for potential day-to-day variation without introducing dependence upon news from one day to the next. The analysis is focused on front-page headlines to examine how news media reports on civil society actors. For the analysis of the presence of civil society in the press, its relevance in contrast with other actors, and the orientation of the media toward civil society, three categories of analysis were considered: Actor. To determine whether there is a shift in the local press coverage of citizens, I first distinguish among the protagonists of each item included in the database. This approach follows the proposal made by Hughes (2006) for measuring diversity based on the voices covered.

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The included actors were: Governor Local government actors other than the governor Actors from other levels of government Police or army Organized crime General population not organized Organized civil society, without specifying the actors Businesspeople Teaching profession Clergy Tone of the report. This category reflects whether the local headlines express criticism or denunciation of some aspect of the civil protagonists and/or of their actions. This distinction is important because not only it is an indirect measure of the legitimacy granted to civic demands and actions. This category follows the proposal of Hughes (2006) included for measuring the autonomy of the daily newspapers. Two aspects were considered: A positive attitude towards civil society actors and/or their actions. A critical attitude towards civil society actors and/or their actions. Use of declarations. The third category of analysis is the use of declarations as the principal resource for framing the report, whether they be textual quotations or paraphrases of what the leading protagonist declares. I also consider if the paper is not reproducing the declarations of any actor. This category takes up the proposal by Hallin and Mancini (2004) concerned with political parallelism, understood as the links that exist between the media and other actors, especially from the government, that are reflected in the news media contents. The aim of this analysis is to show if the newspapers allow civil society to have a voice of its own or, to the contrary, if its actions and demands are interpreted and expressed by government actors. This concept is also related to the degree of pluralism within the newspapers. Three categories are considered: Declarations or paraphrases that come from the government. Declarations or paraphrases from civil society actors. No repetition of declarations or paraphrases of any actor.

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For reliability, a double-blind coding was performed (Krippendorff’s α = 0.868). According to this indicator, there was a coincidence  in  more than 86% of the reports analyzed.

Results Following the described methodology, in this section I present the results of the conducted analysis. Of the 1217 articles studied, 162 were omitted for referring to other matters different than political subjects (e.g., sports reports) or for not having any actor as a clear protagonist (e.g., weather reports), which led to 1055 items to analyze. Regarding the distribution of protagonists, the first table shows that the actors who most frequently appear in the analyzed items were public officers and political figures. These actors appeared in 347 headlines (32% of the total). Their predominance may be explained partly by the local governments’ expenditure on publicity in the media, but also to the historical trajectories and tendencies of Mexican journalism. Two things stand out. First, as opposed to common belief, governors are not the news’ gravity center, as they only appear in 11% of the total analyzed items (124 headlines). Thus, although the President was the protagonist of news reports for much of the twentieth century, this tendency does not hold for governors at the local level. Second, notwithstanding the relevance of political figures, the items placing them as protagonists barely account for a third of the total sample. Political actors from municipal or federal levels of government appear in 14% of the analyzed headlines. Adding up all the items having political figures as protagonists, regardless of their belonging to municipal, state, or federal level, we get just over half (58%) of the total sample. Although this figure is quite high, it is to be noted that 42% of the reports portrayed non-government actors as protagonists. Within the category of non-government actors, I considered the references to general population, civil society groups explicitly defined (such as businesspeople or unions), NGOs, and clergy. Separately, I distinguish those headlines making references to criminals and those reporting on the police or the army.

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Regarding the non-governmental actors, items referring to the general population, without identifying any concrete protagonist, were the most frequent, with 132 headlines (42% of the items referring to non-­ governmental actors). Headlines like “Hypertension, the scourge of the population” or “120,000 displaced by violence” were included under this label. When political matters are presented in such a way, demands and responsibilities become diffuse, and it is difficult to say that citizenry would feel represented by this kind of wording. Concrete groups of civil society, like entrepreneurs or teachers, were found in 64 and 54 headlines, respectively, accounting for 20% and 17% of items referring to non-governmental actors. NGOs appear as protagonists in 26 items (8% of this groups of news). Actors belonging to the clergy got 12% of the items with regard to nongovernmental actors, which puts it almost at the same level than businesspeople or teachers (Table 9.1). It is important to also note the variations from state to state. As mentioned above, the expansion of journalistic plurality has not been homogeneous, due to the very diversity of local journalistic cultures, among other reasons. For example, Quintana Roo is the state with the highest number of headlines having businesspeople as protagonists, which is not expected Table 9.1  Distribution of news items according to the protagonist Protagonist of the report

Number

Percentage of total database

Actors from the state government Actors from other levels of government Population in general Governor Police or army Businesspeople Teaching profession Clergy and others Organized crime Civil society organizations

347

33%

–

156

15%

–

132 124 81 64 54 37 34 26

13% 12% 8% 6% 5% 4% 3% 2%

42% – – 20% 17% 12% – 8%

Source: Original elaboration by the author

Percentage with respect to headlines referring to civil society actors

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due to the significant influence  of this sector within the tourism industry in the state. Puebla is the state with more items referring to teachers’ unions, and Baja California Sur and Sinaloa are the states where NGOs appear most frequently. At the other extreme, Nayarit is the state with fewest articles mentioning civil society actors, as the great majority of headlines refer to political figures from any level of government. The distribution according to actor and state is shown in Fig. 9.1. Regarding the tone of coverage and focusing only on the items covering non-governmental actors, we see that almost all the actors are covered in a positive way. For the general citizenry, 93.9% of the items show a positive tone. Similarly, 93.7% of the news reporting on businesspeople covers them in a positive way, portraying them as “actors of progress,” and emphasizing aspects such as large-scale investment projects, generally hand in hand with the state government.

0.3

Actor Governor Local government Municipal or federal government Entrepreneurs Teacher’s unions NGOs Security forces General citizenry Criminals

Percentage

0.2

0.1

Aguascalientes Baja California Baja California Sur Campeche Chiapas Chihuahua Coahuila Colima Durango Guanajuato Guerrero Hidalgo Jalisco México Michoacán Morelos Nayarit Nuevo León Oaxaca Puebla Querétaro Quintana Roo San Luis Potosí Sinaloa Sonora Tabasco Tamaulipas Tlaxcala Veracruz Yucatán Zacatecas

0.0

Fig. 9.1  Distribution of protagonists by state of the federation. (Source: Original elaboration by the author)

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The actors who got the largest number of negative reports were teachers’ unions, with 35.2% of the headlines criticizing their actions or requirements. This is not a coincidence. A considerable amount of the analyzed items refers to public protests organized by these actors, focusing on negative consequences, such as the “traffic chaos” caused by these demonstrations, or the risk of students’ missing their classes because of them. Among social actors, teachers become the commonest target of attacks since they are the actors that most frequently actively protested during the period of the analysis, when the negotiations for the education reform took place. News tends to present dissident teachers as rebellious actors with little sense of solidarity, without detailing their demands. To ascertain the differences in the tone of news items between actors, a Pearson chi-square was conducted. I estimated the association between the tone of news items and their reference to each group of actors calculating Crámer’s V. The differences between actors in this trend are statistically significant. Thirty-six percent of the variation in reports’ tone is explained by which actor is portrayed (Table 9.2). Finally, regarding the quotations, the press does not usually reproduce declaration of non-governmental actors, as it tends to do with political figures. In general terms, the press is more willing to serve as a forum for actors such as NGOs or businesspeople, but not for teachers’ union or general population, whose grievances are usually presented from the government’s perspective or interpreted by the newspaper. That may shed light to explain the growing distance between the press and the citizenry. In the analyzed items, NGOs are the actors that most frequently are given space to express their own demands and perspectives, with headlines such as “Civil groups require energetic actions from the governor” or “Parents associations want clear accounts of what is done with their contributions.”

Table 9.2 Distribution of reports according to tone of coverage

Protagonist of the newsarticle

Positive tone

Negative tone

General population Businesspeople Civil society organizations Teaching profession Average

93.9% 93.7% 88.4% 64.8% 85.2%

6.1% 6.3% 11.6% 35.2% 14.8%

Source: Original elaboration by the Author

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While the quoting of NGOs is very positive and may be interpreted as a sign of more pluralism and diversity in news coverage, it is also necessary to consider the links that exist between the press and other actors, such as businesspeople, particularly in the local realm. Although in some cases the business class has been a counterweight to public power, it is true that it also has been an important force to bolster up authoritarian or corrupt local administrations (Snyder, 1999) when they collide with local politicians. Is not rare that political interests are articulated through the businesspeople. In order to estimate the strength of the association between quotation tendencies and actors, I calculated the Cramer’s V.  The differences between actors in this trend are statistically significant. 30.63% of the variation in quoting is explained by which actor is portrayed (Table 9.3).

Conclusions Has the transition in Mexico toward democracy changed the way in which the press and civil society interact? This analysis suggests that the way in which the local press covers civil society has indeed shown important changes. However, theoretical expectations for a positive link between the media and civil society should be taken carefully, especially in journalistic cultures where the prevalence of political figures is deeply rooted, and also in places where authoritarian patterns of behavior give limited space to voices outside the group in power (Hughes & Mellado, 2016).

Table 9.3  Distribution of reports according to the reproduction of declarations Protagonist of the news Declarations by article government actors

Declarations by civil society actors

No declaration quoted

General population Businesspeople Civil society organizations Teaching profession Average

15.7% 29.2% 0%

29.8% 51.2% 81.2%

54.3% 19.5% 18.7%

22.2% 16.7%

25% 46.8%

52.7% 36.3%

Source: Original elaboration by the author

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This research shows that the relation between the press and civil society is contextual to particular elements, influenced by the characteristics of concrete social demands. Neither a transition at federal level nor the alternations in local governments are enough to secure a smooth and virtuous relation between these two actors. Thus, it is important to moderate the expectations established by the literature that assume a smooth, fluid relationship between press and civil society. The analysis demonstrates that the presence of civil society in the local Mexican press continues to be marginal. In the sample analyzed, the reports with citizens as protagonists add up to less than a half of the total. It is clear that the mediatic agenda continues to be dictated, to a large extent, by political actors, and in recent times, even by actors involved in violent confrontations, such as the police, militias, or members of organized crime. However, if we look at the subset of reports that have civil society as the protagonist, there are signs that practices tending toward a greater pluralism are being adopted. Most of the reports refer to civil actors in a positive way, but few of them are given enough space to express their demands in their own voice. Also, coverage is not uniform for all social actors, which necessarily leads to disaggregating the broad concept of “civil society” and to carefully consider if any appearance of these actors implies breaking with the official narratives of events. As not all actors have the same forum for legitimizing their demands in the mediatic sphere it is easier to understand the breaking of bonds between the press and civil society. The absense of their demands being portrayed in the press could potentially account for civil groups refraining from participating in journalists’ demonstrations. Positive coverage is not enough to produce a reciprocity perception when news items are still dominated by the narratives and interpretations of political actors. The case of the businesspeople is interesting. It is the civil actor who receives the most positive coverage, but at the same time is portrayed through government voices. This may be explained by the links between this sector and the government. It cannot be ignored that the entrepreneurship is an actor that belongs to the local elites itself, and that in many cases represents the interests of the government.

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Conversely, NGOs are usually portrayed based on their own narrative. This is the sector with which the press appears to have the greatest alignment, providing a platform for their demands in a particularly impactful manner. Thus, it is not surprising that NGOs are the actors who have shown the greatest solidarity with threatened journalists, which proves the hypothesis of reciprocity: social organizations back up the work of the press (Salazar, 2019) and at the same time, the press gives them room to express their causes, in a way that is independent from the official narrative. The case of the teachers’ unions also reinforces the idea that the representation of civil society in the media is positive as long as there are no serious challenges to the status quo, or disruptive or prolonged demonstrations. In such cases the press performs more as an actor representing the establishment (Schudson, 2008) than as an ally of civil society. Much the same proved to be true in the ways in which the 2019 feminist marches in Mexico City were covered, in which the press focused on the damage to monuments and private property, and not on women’s grievances and demands (González de Bustamante & Salazar, 2023). Although the general population is the most frequently portrayed social actor in the media, the narratives are diffuse and passive. By not mentioning concrete communities with specific problems, the press loses opportunities to create connections with its readers who may perform as potential allies of its work. In the young Mexican democracy, the construction of positive links between the press and society is still a pending task. This analysis shows that the only solid link between these actors is the one that involves NGOs, but not the reader as an actor in his own right. The coincidences of the press and civil society then appear to be circumstantially determined by specific moments in political life, but there is no relation of alliance that might be considered permanent. Rather convergences that imply being together temporarily seems to be the regularity, that do not lead to eradicating distrust or creating deep relations of solidarity. However, it is necessary to keep exploring the implications of their interactions. Having solid bonds between the press and civil society is what makes it possible to build vigorous counterweights, fundamental for functional structures of accountability, which are vital in the search for a consolidated democracy.

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Appendix: Newspapers Considered for the Analysis State 1 Aguascalientes 2 Aguascalientes 3 Baja California 4 Baja California 5 Baja California Sur 6 Baja California Sur 7 Campeche 8 9 10 11

Campeche Chiapas Chiapas Chihuahua

12 Chihuahua 13 Coahuila 14 Coahuila 15 Colima 16 Colima 17 Durango 18 Durango 19 Guanajuato 20 Guanajuato 21 Guerrero 22 Guerrero 23 Hidalgo 24 Hidalgo 25 Jalisco 26 Jalisco

Title and Owner Aguascalientes El Heraldo—El Heraldo de Aguascalientes, Compañía Editorial S. de R. L. de C. V. El Sol del Centro—Compañías Periodísticas del Sol de Aguascalientes, S.A. de C.V. La Voz de la Frontera—Compañías Periodísticas del Sol del Pacífico, S. A. de C. V. El Mexicano Gran Diario Regional (Tijuana)—Editorial Kino, S.A. de C.V. El Primer Diario de la Provincia de B.C.S. Tribuna de los Cabos—Corporación Impresora y Periodística, S.A. de C.V. El Sudcaliforniano—Compañía Editora Sudcaliforniana, S.A. de C.V. Tribuna Campeche—Organización Editorial del Sureste, S.A. de C.V. Campeche Hoy—Editorial Campeche Hoy, S. A. de C. V. El Orbe—Editora Zamora Cruz, S.A. de C.V. Diario del Sur—Cía. Periodística el Sol de Chiapas, S.A. de C.V. El Heraldo de Chihuahua—Cía. Periodística el Sol de Chihuahua, S. A. de C.V. El Sol de Parral—Compañía Periodística del Sol de Chihuahua, S.A. de C.V. El Siglo de Torreón—Cía. Editora de la Laguna, S. A. de C. V. Zócalo Saltillo—Zócalo de Saltillo, S. A. de C. V. Ecos de la Costa—Editora Diario Ecos de la Costa, S. A. de C. V. Editorial El Noticiero de Manzanillo Diario de Colima—Editora Diario de Colima, S. A. de C. V. El Sol de Durango—Cía., Periodística El Sol de Durango, S. A. de C. V. El Siglo de Durango El Sol del Bajío—Compañía Periodística del de Celaya, S.A. de C.V. A.M. Al Día—Publicidad Efectiva de León, S. A. de C. V. Novedades de Acapulco—Novedades de Acapulco, S. A. de C. V. El Sol de Acapulco—Cía. Periodística del Sol de Acapulco, S. A. de C. V. El Sol de Hidalgo—Compañía Periodística del Sol de Pachuca, S.A. de C.V. Milenio Hidalgo—Milenio Diario, S. A. de C. V. El Informador Diario Independiente—Unión Editorialista, S. A. de C. V. Milenio Diario Jalisco—Página Tres, S. A.

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State 27 México 28 México 29 Michoacán 30 Michoacán 31 32 33 34 35 36 37

Morelos Morelos Nayarit Nayarit Nuevo León Nuevo León Oaxaca

38 Oaxaca 39 40 41 42

Puebla Puebla Querétaro Querétaro

43 Quintana Roo 44 Quintana Roo 45 San Luis Potosí 46 San Luis Potosí 47 Sinaloa 48 Sinaloa 49 Sonora 50 Sonora 51 52 53 54 55

Tabasco Tabasco Tamaulipas Tamaulipas Tlaxcala

56 Tlaxcala 57 Veracruz

229

Title and Owner El Sol de Toluca—Cía. Periodística del Sol del Estado de México, S.A. de C.V. Milenio Estado de México—Milenio Diario, S.A. de C.V. La Voz de Michoacán—La Voz de Michoacán, S. A. de C.V. La Opinión de Michoacán—La Opinión de Uruapan, S. A. de C. V. La Unión de Morelos—Ecos de Morelos Diario de Morelos—Grupo Diario de Morelos Meridiano de Nayarit—Compañía Editorial Alpesor, S. de R. L. Express de Nayarit, S.A. de C.V. El Norte—Grupo Reforma Milenio Diario de Monterrey—Milenio Diario, S. A. de C. V. El Imparcial, El Mejor Diario de Oaxaca—Publicaciones Fernández Pichardo Noticias, Voz e Imagen de Oaxaca—Editorial Golfo Pacífico, S. A. de C. V. El Sol de Puebla—Organización Editorial Mexicana La Jornada de Oriente, Grupo DEMOS, S. A. de C. V. Diario de Querétaro Noticias La verdad cada mañana—Editora Offset Color, S. A. de C. V. Diario La Verdad de Quintana Roo—La Verdad de Quintana Roo, S.A. de C.V. Novedades de Quintana Roo—Novedades de Quintana Roo, S. A. de C. V. El Sol de San Luis—Compañías Periodísticas del Sol del Centro, S. A. de C. V. Pulso Diario de San Luis Potosí—Editora Mival, S. A. de C. V. Noroeste—Editorial Noroeste, S. A. de C. V. El Sol de Sinaloa—Cía. Periodística del Sol del Culiacán, S. A. de C. V. El Imparcial Expreso Más Personal—Medios y Editorial de Sonora, S.A. de C.V. Tabasco Hoy— Novedades de Tabasco—Grupo Olmeca El Sol de Tampico— El Mañana Gran Diario Regional Independiente— El Sol de Tlaxcala—Cía. Periodística del Sol de Tlaxcala, S. A. de C. V. Síntesis Sin Libre Expresión No Hay Libertad Tlaxcala— Asociación Periodística Síntesis, S. A. de C. V. Diario del Istmo—Editora La Voz del Istmo, S. A. de C. V.

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State 58 Veracruz 59 Yucatán 60 Yucatán 61 Zacatecas 62 Zacatecas

Title and Owner Imagen de Veracruz—Editora la Voz del Istmo, S. A. de C. V. Diario de Yucatán El Periódico de la Vida Peninsular—Cía. Tipográfica Yucateca, S. A. de C. V. Diario La Verdad de Yucatán—La Verdad de Quintana Roo, S.A. de C.V. El Sol de Zacatecas— La Jornada Zacatecas—Demos, Desarrollo de Medios, S. A. de C. V.

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CHAPTER 10

Mediatization in Post-Authoritarian Democracies. Thirty Years of Media Logic in the Mexican Press Martin Echeverria

Introduction Sometimes media coverage of politics turns into a self-referential d ­ iscourse. While normative theories expect journalists to convey the messages of politicians, on behalf of the public interest, journalists rework those messages so thoroughly that occasionally it is hard to distinguish whether one is witnessing political discourse through the lens of news making procedures, or a journalistic narrative that happens to talk about politics— though superficially. This is the basis of the distinction between media logic and political logic on news coverage that was first introduced by Mazzoleni (1987), and copiously developed in the coming decades. In a nutshell, media logic is a set of norms and rules for narrating politics that strives to cater to the attention of the audience, in the midst of fierce

M. Echeverria (*) Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, Puebla, Mexico e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 M. Echeverria, R. A. Gonzalez (eds.), Media and Politics in Post-Authoritarian Mexico, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36441-9_10

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competition for this scarce resource. Political logic is what politicians should communicate—and journalists should convey—to their constituencies in a competitive democracy. It has to do with issues, policies, ideologies, and the accountability of public office. Of course, these binary terms are rigid ideal types that are in fact more complex, nuanced, and intertwined than they may at first seem (more on that later). But they parsimoniously capture the tension of the control of the public discourse either by politicians or journalists, whose interactions and outcomes have dominated the study of political communication since the inception of the discipline. Mediatization, a historical process of social change stimulated by the ubiquitous presence of the media, clarifies the predominance of media logic. The concept explains how modern institutions and cultures have come to be colonized by the routines, values, symbols, and discourses of the media, and what the outcomes are. At least in the domain of politics, it has been observed that political institutions—parties, governments, campaign offices—have adopted their communication practices, adapting to media routines and news values, in a struggle to get publicity and, hence, the attention of mostly depoliticized constituencies. This entails not only a reshaping of the discourse to resemble media aesthetics and preferences, but organizational, and procedural changes as well. Media logic is not only a grammar of communication but a force that pushes institutional readjustments (Asp, 2014; Couldry & Hepp, 2013; Hjarvard, 2008). Nonetheless, mediatization scholars have long indicated that this process is not universal nor time fixed and it needs to be contextualized. That is, scholars may posit a general process with conditions of a high level of abstraction, but these should be situated in “concrete social, cultural and historical contexts” (Ekström et al., 2016, p. 1092). Specificity requires the development of an account of mediatization for certain media, in certain political and media systems and nations, and through a particular historical trajectory, rather than a unilinear process (Hallin, 2021). By the same token, speaking about a single media logic would be reductionist, for several media logics may coalesce and intertwine in various ways and at certain periods (Brants & van Praag, 2015). The aim of this chapter is to describe and try to explain the singularities of media logic in a specific context and in a specific medium (quality newspapers). What precludes this approach from being narrow or idiosyncratic is that we are dealing with the Mexican case, a post-authoritarian,

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underdeveloped nation, from which we can draw several conclusions that may be applied to the mediatization theory in similar countries—in fact, the majority of them. While scholars and the public have long recognized that since the 2000 transition, Mexico is not the authoritarian country it used to be three decades ago—now with more or less free and fair elections, institutional procedures, and liberties, as common currency—it cannot be said that it is a consolidated democracy yet (Serra, 2016). Moreover, the country does not have a clear trajectory of democratic maturation, as, for example, Chile has (Olavarria-Gambi & Levick, 2021). Institutional and cultural inertias and continuities from the authoritarian era still mar democratic progress. Freedom of the press is a principle muddled by these setbacks. The press is no longer a state apparatus of propaganda, but strong clientelistic ties remain between media moguls and their patrons in officialdom. Journalists are no longer prosecuted, censored, or jailed for their publications by the central government, though organized crime, landlords, and local governments still control, regulate, and sometimes violently suppress journalistic scrutiny (Del Palacio, 2018; González, 2020). It is evident that in these conditions, mediatization and media logic behave in very different ways than they do in developed democracies. While intervening conditions of commercialization and professionalization, two of the key factors of a mediatization process have certainly arisen from 2000 onwards, the conditions of independence and autonomy of the media from the political system are not fully complied with (Reyna, 2016). In order to describe how the general patterns of mediatization and media logic behave in non-consolidated democracies like Mexico, we attempt a twofold strategy. The analytical one involves, first, examining the structural conditions that media and political systems should meet to trigger and accelerate a mediatization process, those that make the media logic salient. Then, we observe which of these do not fit into our case study, which conditions are in place instead, and how can this change some assumptions and predictions of the theory. A second strategy entails an exploratory, longitudinal content analysis of the coverage of the last five presidential elections in the quality press, one of the media logics we attempt to understand. We content analyzed 1348 news pieces from 5 quality newspapers about the presidential campaigns of 1994 (still under authoritarian rule, used as a benchmark), 2000, 2006, 2012, and 2018, measuring 5 indicators of media logic: episodic frame, personalization, interpretation, negativity, and strategic game

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frame. Through this endeavor, we question whether and to what extent media logic has influenced the coverage of campaigns post-transition, and the longitudinal and possibly structural patterns that have arisen in the 20 years following the transition. Overall, the chapter aims to contribute with theoretical insight and empirical evidence to the mediatization theory by testing the generalizability of its main assumptions and gauging its usefulness in post-­ authoritarian and underdeveloped nations.

Mediatization and Media Logic. The Western Canon The power of generalization of the mediatization theory comes from the fact that it is an all-encompassing proposal of social change, that is akin to other macro processes such as globalization, individualization, and urbanization (Couldry & Hepp, 2013; Krotz, 2007). In broad a sense, mediatization is a process of social transformation pushed by the media, as a technology and institution that is external to other institutions and social domains and that shapes their communications processes. Therefore, it integrates thoroughly within them; it fosters structural changes in the way that these institutions and social domains relate to each other; and influences or modifies their actions and practices, up to the point of rendering them dependent on the media and its logic (Altheide, 2013; Fernández, 2014; García, 2011; Hepp, 2013; Hepp et  al., 2010; Hjarvard, 2008, 2016; Meyen et al., 2014; Strömbäck, 2011; Strömbäck & Esser, 2014a). The institutional consequences of this process are more significant in politics, since the media “are the communication infrastructure through which politics presents itself or is represented by news media” (Esser, 2013, p. 163). News media “constrain the choice sets of these other political actors, that is, they structure […] the actions of those working in the three formal branches of government, in public administration, and at various stages or parts of the political process” and develop various practices to manage them (Strömbäck & Dimitrova, 2011). Mediatization can therefore be understood as the institutionalization of media logic in other social subsystems, that is, the adaptation or adjustment of other social fields previously separated from the media to its rules and routines. In this way, such subsystems adopt a way to perceive, interpret, and act upon the world. Their own criteria and rationales for action coexist, albeit in tension, with those of the media (Esser, 2013; Hepp & Krotz, 2014).

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The dependency of political institutions on the media is a consequence of their quasi-monopoly of the resource of public attention. If a social actor wants to have access to this resource, that is, to gain publicity, visibility, and even legitimacy, it has to adapt, negotiate, or submit to the rules by which the media operate, in terms of their timing, formats, language, and content (Hepp & Krotz, 2014; Hjarvard, 2008; Mazzoleni & Schulz, 1999). These operations are more intense the more saturated the media sphere becomes. The proliferation of channels and communicators in the public space makes public actors deploy ample resources in the struggle for the attention of the audience. Media abundance and information overload, heightened by the rise of social media, bring about an attention deficit by the audiences and force institutional adaptation to make the public actors visible (Kunelius & Reunanen, 2016; Witschge, 2014). Therefore, the communication of politics by the media is not only, as in a classical sense, a coproduction between the journalists and their sources (political institutions and politicians in this case) (Shoemaker & Reese, 2013), but also a merger between the rules and preferences of communication of the media, their logic, and the interpretation and deployment of that logic by the politicians themselves. Therefore, the object that triggers this institutional change is the media logic. This can be defined as “the news values and the storytelling techniques the media make use of to take advantage of their own medium and its format, and to be competitive in the ongoing struggle to capture people’s attention” (Strömbäck, 2008a, p. 233). Therefore, media logic is a sort of grammar that structures the form and substance of journalistic messages and the processes and assumptions of journalistic production. Media logic tends to be evocative, fragmentary, visual, familiar to audiences, and easy to use. Narrative conventions, beyond the mere facts, structure the information. Simplification, polarization, stereotyping, dramatization, and personalization—to tell the story from the view of ordinary people instead of that of the grand social institutions—are resources frequently used. Established narrative schemes and genres are implemented, such as the horse race narrative, frequently used in sports, or the Machiavellian strategies that contenders use to debunk their competitors, which proliferate in drama (Altheide, 2011; Asp, 2014; Strömbäck, 2008a; Stromback & Esser, 2009). Several trends in news media coverage manifest different combinations of these central traits. For example, confrontainment emphasizes an antagonistic structure between public actors; dramatization puts in motion

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“touchy” narrative schemes, filled with emotion, Manichaeism, and stereotypes; personalization puts forth a protagonist in the stories, so audiences can better understand and relate to them (Esser, 2013, pp.  171, 172). From a historical perspective, these schemes stem from television journalism, where by the mid-seventies in the U.S. (Altheide & Snow, 1991) commercial pressure for profit had transformed political reportage and this then spilled over to the tabloid papers that popularized politics-­ as-­entertainment. Although the quality papers seem to be aloof from these tendencies, some empirical research demonstrates the partial reproduction of some of those characteristics (Magin, 2015; Martinez et  al., 2014; Mellado et al., 2016; Takens et al., 2013). Needless to say, the presence of media logic has been found in other countries as well as the U.S.A., yet the public service broadcasting structures of most European countries seem to have been able to counter its strength (Brants & Van Praag, 2006; Strömbäck & Dimitrova, 2011). Opposite to media logic is political logic. In its purest form, it is the presence of political discourse in the absence of media logic. It is the kind of communication that serves the democratic purpose of collective decision-­making and the enforcement of policy decisions. In times of elections, the main protagonists are parties and candidates who speak to the voters about salient issues and policy proposals. In times of governance, deliberation, bargaining, and decision-making—by legislative or executive branches—as well as implementing political decisions and requiring accountability for them come to the fore (Esser & Strömbäck, 2009; Sampert et al., 2014; Strömbäck & Esser, 2014b). Political logic is what politicians normatively should communicate to their constituencies in a democratic setting; it is the symbolic dimension of democratic dynamics and is what citizens should listen to in order to better participate in democracy. Some accounts of mediatization suggest that we are witnessing a gradual replacement of political logic by media logic, and probably its demise. This is a mechanical understanding of the phenomenon, a zero-sum conceptualization. First, both logics could coexist either in a state of permanent conflict or integration, since political institutions have appropriated media logics and incorporated them into their discourse and their bureaucratic apparatus. They are no longer clearly separated entities, and in some cases, they have even merged (Hallin, 2021). Second, we could speak about a plurality of media logics (Brants & van Praag, 2015), since there are many legacy media modalities—public service and commercial media,

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tabloid, and partisan press—along with new media—digital and niche— with specific professional and commercial constraints that could produce variations in their central traits, with “diverse shades and compositions” (Esser, 2013, p. 175). Furthermore, recent populist movements suggest a process of re-politicization of the media and de-mediatization of politics, as the public communication in certain countries has become a more “centralized, manipulated and elite-driven process” (Voltmer & Sorensen, 2019, p. 41). Empirical evidence, at least in Europe, seems to support this non-deterministic view. Longitudinal studies show that the media coverage of elections registers minor fluctuations in the substance of the information (Brants & van Praag, 2015). Media logic, then, is not a fixed and consistent pattern, but its nature and the pace of its diffusion—or retreat—depend on the cultural, social, and political contexts, and the technologies that the media rest upon (Asp, 2014; Krotz, 2007). The presence and influence of this logic is a matter of degree that varies across time, political and media institutions, and within countries and media (Strömbäck, 2008a; Strömbäck & Esser, 2014a, 2014b).

Conditions and Sources of Variation in Media Logic If the nature and reach of media logic are variegated and contextual, what forces and conditions can explain its performance? It has been theorized that professionalism, commercialism, and technology are the domains that shape the mediatization process and the interplay between media and political logic, but these operate within the baseline conditions that made the mediatization arise in the first place, namely the dependence of the public on political information through the media, and the autonomy of the media from politics (Strömbäck, 2008a). In the next two sections, we expound on the function of professionalism and of factors of commercialism, and revise how they have performed in the Mexican context (technology is excluded for the sake of parsimony, though it should be elaborated in future research). For more precise observation, we focus on the dynamics of one news medium and the media logic of its ecosystem, that of the newspapers. From then on, we can verify the role these factors play in the problems we have discussed. First, public dependence on the media for political information means that newspapers, radio, or television are the main sources of information for the public about what political institutions are doing or saying, and the

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chief influences on their perceptions and attitudes. Where the markets and publics of the media are weak, direct experience and interpersonal communication—and their multistep flows—are the main resources of opinion formation. The first and most important phase of mediatization is achieved when media output matters, when it overcomes non-mediated forms of communication and consequently makes political institutions strive for the management or even the instrumentalization of that fundamental resource (Strömbäck, 2008a). Second is the issue of autonomy. As expounded in the Western literature, the theory of mediatization works in contexts of democratic politics and free media, that is, it assumes that both are “autonomous areas of action in an open society” (Marcinkowski, 2014). In the Western historical account, the press was, first and foremost, the politician’s medium of propaganda. But as the structural and functional differentiation process advanced, ties to the politicians loosened and orientation to the market heightened. “First the circulation of news outlets with close social or political ties decreases; then news outlets with close social or political ties either go out of business or cut their former ties to social or political institutions and transform themselves into purely economic organizations” (Esser & Matthes, 2013, p.  180). If the media is “contextualized by state structures, […] it will reflect the interests of the state officials” (Couch, 1990, p. 112, in Altheide, 2011, p. 229) and it will only mediate the messages of politicians (Strömbäck, 2008a). But if the media become an institution in their own right, mainly by depending on the market, the media’s “own judgments regarding what is thought to be the appropriate messages from the perspective of their own medium, its format, norms and values, and its audiences” will come to the fore (Strömbäck, 2008a, p. 237). An autonomous media logic grows over a deferential and sacerdotal approach to politics, lessening the relevance of political logic. Under this conceptualization, Stromback unequivocally asserts that “without highly autonomous media institutions there would be no mediatization of politics” (Strömbäck & Esser, 2014b, p. 13). As the previous assumptions demonstrate, media autonomy increases professionalization by referring journalists to their own practices instead of the officials’ directives. And this tendency is a central force in the mediatization process. A professional journalist is a suitably trained individual who produces news stories, guided by the aspirations of a specific societal function and, hence, has the freedom to perform his or her duties autonomously,

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according to a set of standards shared by his or her peers (Shoemaker & Reese, 2013). What makes professionalism relevant to media logic are two traits: first, its already discussed autonomy particularly from politics, an external influence that journalists keep zealously at bay, and that makes journalists resort to their own professional criteria, like objectivity, neutrality, and scrutiny, when dealing with politics (Esser, 2013). And second, the news values and selection criteria that make some events newsworthy. Coverage preferences, for example, for personalization instead of structures, human interest examples of everyday life, narrative schemes, dramatization, interpretation, and conflict (Gulati et al., 2004; Johnson-Cartee, 2005; Lawrence, 2000) essentially operationalize media logic, although these coverage patterns are regulated by the purpose of journalists to serve the public interest (Hallin & Mancini, 2004). In some cases, professionalism develops into adversarial and cynical journalism, where politicians are contemptuously derided and deemed untrustworthy (Capella & Jamieson, 1997; Trussler & Soroka, 2014). In this case, political logic might be rejected at the outset and media logic patterns are intensified and geared up against politicians. On the other hand, commercialism is the “hidden guiding principle” (Landerer, 2013, p.  243) that constrains news to be cost-efficient and competitive when up against fickle consumers. This is a consequence of the fact that the media are commercial enterprises led by the market. Commercial forces strive to make political content more accessible and palatable for audiences with little interest in politics, by secularizing and popularizing it (Strömbäck & Esser, 2014b). Hence, under the influence of commercialism, many traits of media logic are heightened, particularly those that render politics as a spectacle (strategic frame, horse race, human interest, etc.). Of course, journalists do not inevitably submit to their corporate employers, and the tension ends up as one between the autonomy and professional prestige of journalists and the profit-seeking of media owners (Esser & Strömbäck, 2009). Sometimes commercialism runs counter to professionalism, yet sometimes they complement each other. In the end, media logic is hybridized with the commercial and professional criteria of news making, and a pendular dynamic between these criteria manifests through journalistic coverage.

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Variations in Transitional Democracies. The Mexican Case How do these conditions and factors play out in the Mexican press and what are their outcomes in shaping a certain media logic? In terms of the dependence of the Mexican public on the press, circulation figures and consumption surveys show that the Mexican press is the privilege of a small minority of educated and affluent citizens—politicians, investors, scholars, students, etc.—who can afford the money to buy printed media and the time to consume them. In a country with 120 million inhabitants, the national readership is of less than 200,000 copies per day (Marquez & Larrosa, 2019). News consumption, in general, is a custom of minorities: while television (54%) and social media (22%) are the main sources of news for Mexican audiences, just 14% of the viewers of broadcast networks tune into the news (IFETEL, 2019). Moreover, the press is not a reliable institution for the public: a recent survey shows that 79% of the respondents do not trust newspapers (Marquez & Larrosa, 2019). While quality papers may have an inter-media agenda-setting effect (Coleman et  al., 2008) since their issues and investigations are frequently cited on radio and television newscasts, spread through social media, and discussed in political and academic circles, they do not have a major direct influence on the wider public. Even considering that some local markets are financially sustainable or even robust—such as Mexico City’s—a small national market as a whole suggests that non-mediated forms of communication seem to be more significant than the media for people to learn about and to discuss public issues. As for Mexican press autonomy, it is an unfinished process at best, and a blatant simulation at worst. The toll of the authoritarian past is high on this issue. While in certain markets contemporary journalism does not resemble at all that of the authoritarian era, in others some of its traditions did not go away, but, through inertia, remained and even became more rooted (Hughes, 2006). Pervasive clientelistic practices and coercion from factual powers are the main obstacles. With regard to the former, the patron-client relationship between political elites and the media often occurs with government advertising, which has been the main—and, in some cases, even the only—source of revenue for news organizations. Reports on federal and state expenditures in the media show a rather arbitrary spending and frequent surpassing of the expenditure cap approved by Congress (Castaño, 2017). Local field

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research shows how municipal and state officials buy off the coverage by complicit media with no regulation or accountability for their operations (Galarza, 2014; Gonzalez, 2013). Also, individual news workers (i.e. reporters, editors) receive bribes directly from some sources such as government officials, political elites, business persons, and drug lords (De León, 2011; Salazar, 2018). Two consequences arise from these arrangements. First, a systematic bias of the media, which is favorable to their patrons and unfavorable to political opposition, is widespread. Both in times of governance and during elections, visibility, treatment, and issue salience favor the actors who pay for the coverage (Espino, 2016; Gonzalez, 2013). And second, journalists are dependent on official information and sources, since they rely on press releases or speeches from government authorities or party leaders, to the detriment of factual reporting, context, and follow-up stories (Marquez, 2012; Reyna, 2014). Thus, coverage tends to be dominated by political actors, neglecting citizens and other sources (Díaz Cerveró et al., 2017). Both of these baseline conditions exert a remarkably strong influence on professionalism and commercialism. With respect to the former, Mexican journalists have to constantly negotiate their autonomy, which is oftentimes “captured” by extra journalistic forces (i.e. owners and government) (Guerrero & Márquez, 2014). In some cases, the ties of the media to political elites have not loosened, the media do not depend fully on the market—which is relatively small—and the interests of state officials are heavily reflected in the journalistic output. Thus, professionalism is exerted in a mild way, mostly in big outlets—in big cities—where they have the financial strength and effective business practices to say afloat and thrive. Autonomous news values and coverage criteria are something that might be put on hold if an owner or a dissatisfied patron commands it. From these conditions, we can pose two corollaries. On the one hand, since competition for readership is not an issue in unprofitable markets fully captured by the government, commercialism understood as profit-­ seeking is not exerted through content but through subservience, or coercion to investigate or slander officials, that sometimes escalates to blackmail. The patrons keep the business afloat. On the other hand, in more profitable and highly competitive markets, because of diminished autonomy, commercialism forces journalists to heighten the spectacle or infotainment side of media logic instead of that which corresponds to a professional commitment to public service.

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This line of reasoning shows that the dynamics of media logic and its interplay with political logic in the press are different in post-authoritarian countries and deserve a specific theoretical framework. Some established assumptions of the theory simply do not fit in and cannot predict how mediatization and media logic behave; at least in Mexico, basic conditions of unstable autonomy and small markets alter the functioning of professionalism and commercialism and these, in turn, how and when media logic manifests. The precise contours of media logic in these countries can only be known through empirical inquiry, and its shape depends on what region of the mediascape is observed, particularly in terms of market size and independence. But at least four assumptions can be posed. First, that political logic may be strong but its meaning different to what it is in Western countries: because of their haphazard autonomy, journalists might de-emphasize their news values and coverage criteria to mediate the messages of politicians. Second, that political logic is less an elaboration by journalists than it is the mediated reproduction of political discourse— sometimes even verbatim—that favors politicians in their attempt to control public discourse. Third, that media logic is more linked to the commercial exploitation of politics than to media vigilance or even to distrust of politicians by journalists, for the sake of public interest. A fourth assumption resembles the first as it takes an established hypothesis of Western literature, but the antecedent conditions are quite different. Esser and colleagues (2013) contend that the more visible the political process, the more open it is to being treated by a media logic. Thus, politics, particularly elections, are more prone to being mediatized than policy processes or the polity as a whole. This assumption might be true in the Mexican case, but for other reasons: at least in smaller media markets, media logic could be higher during campaigns because the media are consumed more in those critical periods and there is uncertainty as to who the next patron will be (so mediating the message of certain candidates and not others would be risky). At the end of the campaigns and during times of governance, stable clientelistic arrangements between media and governments push political logic to the fore. The aforementioned assumptions can turn into hypotheses that could be properly investigated in a research program dedicated to mediatization in post-authoritarian democracies. This program would have the mediatization process as a working hypothesis, but would not take for granted some of the basic assumptions. Instead, it would investigate how the issues

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of its necessary conditions affect their antecedent conditions, which other unexpected conditions play out (such as clientelism or patronage), and how those factors shape mediatization as a dynamic of institutional adaptation and source of communication patterns. In this chapter, in the empirical section that follows, we put to the test just some of these assumptions, as the first step in this endeavor.

Media Logic Across Time. Trends or Haphazard Behavior? The empirical data we present explores how the mediatization process unfolds in a post-authoritarian country across time and what differences from the Western theoretical account could be observed in our case. The general assumption of most of the literature is that as the media became more pervasive, autonomous, and influential, media logic would increase and political logic would decrease (Altheide & Snow, 1991; Mazzoleni, 1987). Although this is more of an expected trend than a deterministic view, empirical literature in the West lacks any consensus on it, suggesting that the dynamics of this process depend on how the theoretical factors and baseline conditions of mediatization play out in each country (Voltmer & Sorensen, 2019). But it also points to the differences and singularities we might find in post-authoritarian nations. In other words, if the process of mediatization is not homogeneous in similar consolidated democracies, how would it play out in non-consolidated ones? Studies such as Magin’s (2015) show that in 60 years (from 1945 to 2010) there was an increase in media logic indicators in Germany and Austria, but it has been slow, with erratic increases and decreases over time. This is the case of the comparison between newspapers of the UK and the Netherlands in terms of personalization, negativity, and conflict (Vliegenthart et al., 2011), and the study of coverage of the Dutch campaigns in 1956, 1986, and 2003 (Brants & Van Praag, 2006). Patterns of media logic increase in certain periods to later decrease, and sometimes political and partisan logics increase over time. Then, and at least for these European countries, the dynamics of media logic over time seem to be explained by historical factors, events, or specific conjunctures, rather than its inevitable ascendance in Western journalism. On the contrary, and albeit with different measures, findings in Germany, Spain, Sweden, and Canada (Bastian, 2019; Karidi, 2017;

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Martinez et al., 2014; Sampert et al., 2014; Strömbäck, 2008b) show an increase in media logic indicators in time, mainly from the mid-eighties to twenty years later, in the two thousands, particularly the strategic frame, game frame, and interpretative style. This is irrespective of media systems as diverse as liberal, polarized pluralist, and democratic corporatist (Hallin & Mancini, 2004), with the press bearing either strong public service ethics or party alignment. Finally, and as the sole longitudinal study of this subject found in Latin America, political logic has remained stable in the elite press throughout the years in Chile, where civic coverage—which resembles political logic— shows strong indicators from 1990 to 2010, while the infotainment coverage increased slowly throughout those years. This could be a consequence, the study contends, of journalists coming out of the authoritarian era— with a tepid stance on political issues—with the aim of re-democratizing the country (Mellado et al., 2016). Though some Mexican studies have dealt with concepts similar to media logic, such as infotainment (Echeverría, 2017a, 2017b; Echeverría & Meyer, 2015) or strategic coverage (Muñiz, 2015; Muñiz & Echeverría, 2020; Muñiz et al., 2018), we could not find a longitudinal measurement of media logic. In this discussion, it is important to underline the lack of a unified set of indicators to operationalize media logic and a unified definition of each component. This lack of agreement compromises the cumulativeness of the studies and the generalizability of the theory since the increase or decrease of a media logic might mean different things to different researchers. But beyond this methodological issue, we can observe that the findings do not show a linear and homogeneous mediatization process. Local factors and situations intervene so decisively, that some traits arise and others decline almost haphazardly. Also, the study from Chile suggests that the post-authoritarian condition—mainly in respect of journalistic culture—slows down the mediatization process, and delays the upsurge of media logic coverage. Mediatization, then, is a working hypothesis and an ideal process that should be situated in specific political-economic conditions to theoretically refine its breadth and make it empirically useful in many cases.

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Method By longitudinally analyzing the contents of campaign coverage, we attempt to establish the features of media logic that are significant in the Mexican press, and give clues as to which would be relevant in post-authoritarian and underdeveloped nations (something scarcely mentioned in the international literature). Consequently, we analyzed the content of news stories related to the 1994, 2000, 2006, 2012, and 2018 Mexican presidential elections. As a starting point, 1994 represented a media system controlled by the State, while the following periods were supposed to show increasing independence of newspapers from political power. This inquiry includes the following publications: Reforma, La Jornada, El Universal, and Excélsior, which have high circulation, national distribution, are all considered quality press and have operated without interruptions throughout the period of analysis. The sample (N  =  1217) was constructed as a composite week within the official periods of each election, which oscillated between 120 days in 1994, 2000, and 2006 to 30 in 2012 and 2018. The analyzed messages were news stories that explicitly referred to any aspect of the elections, but opinionated texts—such as editorials or columns—were excluded. The codebook included frames and characteristics of media coverage. For the former, we included the “human interest” and “strategic game” frames suggested by the literature (Aalberg et  al., 2011; Capella & Jamieson, 1997; Lawrence, 2000; Semetko & Valkenburg, 2000). The first is defined as the emotional, dramatic, and personalized angle about actors, events, and issues of campaign. The second is defined as tactics, strategies, and performances that actors employ to gain positions in the race, or the depiction of it using the language of sports, competition, or war. For the latter, and following de Vreese et al. (2017) we included traits that are characteristic of the coverage of politics, such as personalization, negativity, interpretative journalism, and episodic/thematic frame. Personalization is measured through two indicators, the depiction of the personal traits and style of public personas, and the coverage of private or intimate details of politicians. Negativity is measured through four indicators, tone (failure, crisis, frustration, or disappointment), competence (attacks and critiques about the incompetence and immoral behavior of politicians), bias (unfavorable), and conflict (disputes, disagreements, or controversies between two opposite sides). Interpretation is coded upon three indicators, interpretation (explanations or interpretation of the

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motives behind the events and actions, without the support of facts), speculation (about the future consequences of that which is reported), and comment (opinion about what is reported, in a judgmental way). The thematic frame presents an event as part of a wider subject, contextualizes its meaning and implications to society, and gives historical and statistical antecedents. On the contrary, the episodic frame informs about an event or particular case, without contextualizing it. We also selected three frames based upon political logic: political issues (proposals and ideologies), political processes (organizational, legal, and logistic processes of the election), and leadership (political and personal abilities of the candidates) (D’Angelo et al., 2005). Each of the variables was coded in a presence/absence basis. The unit of analysis was the headline of the news stories. This was for practical and theoretical reasons since the headline represents the most evident factor of the frame, and it could also influence the reading of the text as a whole (Van Dijk, 1990; Klein, 2000). We conducted a deductive analysis, because of its replicability, and the possibility of coding just one frame per story. We did this to avoid the potential complications involved in categorizing texts with multiple frames. Coders located each unit of analysis within a specific frame. An inter-coder reliability test between two coders resulted in a Kappa coefficient of 0.77 for the whole instrument, which is an acceptable agreement for an exploratory study such as this (Neuendorf, 2017). We present the findings in the form of simple percentages and in some cases, such as personalization, negativity, and interpretation, as aggregated indexes of the variables that measured those traits. We also present Chi-­ square and Cramer V statistics to signal the association of the different years with the variables, as a way to investigate the relevance of the races to media logic traits.

Media Logic Patterns in the Mexican Case A first observation comes from which trends are most frequent in the coverage, and which are low or even marginal (Fig. 10.1). Personalization, interpretation, and some dimensions of negativity seem to fit with the latter. From 1994 to 2018, personalization, understood as the emphasis of the style and personal characteristics of a political persona (opposite of their leadership qualities), only reached minimal relevance in 2012 (10%) whereas in the rest of the years it oscillates between 1% (2018) and 4%

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Frame Issue Process Leadership Human interest Strategy-game

50.0% 46%

40.0%

Percentage

36%

36%

35%

33%

32%

30.0%

23%

20.0%

21%

15%

14%

10.0%

9%

13% 8% 6%

17% 13%

11%

11%

5%

5%

2006

2012

0.0% 1994

2000

Campaigns

2018

Fig. 10.1  Framing trends in the last five presidential campaigns (1994, 2000, 2006, 2012, 2018)

(2000)—though it does show association with the different contests, X2(4, N = 1217) = 27.23, p = 0.000, Cramer V = 0.150. When personalization is understood as the depiction of private, even intimate matters of politicians, it only reaches 3% in 2012, disappearing in the rest of the years. At least as operationalized, personalization is not an issue in the Mexican press. The same occurs with the various dimensions of interpretation. Across all of the years, the interpretation index is only 1% of the pieces, while none of the measurements of interpretation surpass 4% of them (reached only in 2012). Virtually all of the stories (99.5%) are straight accounts of the facts or utterances of the sources. A slight increase comes when interpretation is understood as explanations or analyses of the motives or rationale of the events and actions of politicians, but it increases from 1% in 1994 and 2000 to 2% in 2006, then increases to 4% in 2012 and finally decreases to 2% in 2018. When understood as speculation on the future consequences or as an open comment or opinion about what is reported, the frequencies and variations are negligible. Negativity is a more complex trait. The general index of all of five campaigns is 12%, with minor fluctuations between 9% (1994) and 13% (2012). At the aggregate level, negativity is not a strong feature of the coverage. But the specific indicators are more nuanced. Favorability and

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conflict have low frequencies throughout the campaigns, with tepid spikes in 2018 for the former (12%) and in 2012 for the latter (15%). The rest of the percentage fluctuates between 2% and 6%. Tone negativity is more consistent in campaigns (8% in 1994, 10% in 2000, 12% in 2006, 9% in 2012, and 12% in 2018) and does not have spikes nor upward nor downward trends. The same can be said about negativity as competition, though there is a downward trend from 2000 onward, from 29% to 27%, 24%, and 21%, respectively (in 1994 only 18% of the pieces were negative). Negativity is highly dependent on each contest, since the four variables show significant Chi Squares, though low Cramer V values: Tone, X2(8, N = 1217) = 26.02, p = 0.001, Cramer V = 0.103, Competition, X2(8, N = 1217) = 24.191, p = 0.002, Cramer V = 0.100, Favorability, X2(8, N  =  1217)  =  26.15, p  =  0.001, Cramer V  =  0.104 and Conflict, X2(8, N = 1217) = 49.53, p = 0.000, Cramer V = 0.143. While elections get less negative coverage in time, positive coverage is very low too. Except in the 2012 campaigns, where 12% of the pieces are positive in tone, the rest do not surpass a threshold of 8%. Even in the authoritarian era (1994), where common sense and some academic work take for granted an overwhelming coverage and positive treatment of the State party, PRI (Hallin, 1997), our data indicates a low frequency of this trait, between 3% in regard to the cooperation between parties (opposite to conflict) and 8% in a positive tone of the pieces. Frame analysis reveals some solid patterns. Strategy game frame has a steep increase from 1994 (23%) to 2000 (32%), but since then stabilizes with minimum fluctuations of +/−3 points (2006, 36%, 2012, 36%, 2018, 35%). Hence, around a third of the coverage has been framed in this way since 2000 onward, with no upper tendency. Another media logic frame, “human interest,” manifests in the coverage in around 10% on the pieces, on average. It was higher in 2006 and 2018 (13%), followed by 2012 (11%), 1994 (9%), and 2000 (6%). Political logic frames are frequent. Issue frame is present in 15% of the coverage on average, a relatively low proportion albeit with small fluctuations around that figure—and not in a decreasing tendency, as the theory would expect. What is more striking, the last campaign covered in the authoritarian era (1994), shows less issue framing than that of 2018 (14% vs. 16%). While there is one spike in 2000 (21%), the proportion lowers (11% in 2006) and stabilizes afterward. On the other hand, the electoral process frame might be the dominant one across the years. It peaked by 1994 (46%), decreases and stabilizes in the first decade of the twenty-first

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century around 35%, and declines in 2018 (19%). Under this frame, the press seems more concerned with informing about the process as a means to confer transparency to it and educating the public about the new electoral procedures stemming from the democratic reforms, than with conveying the issues at stake in the campaigns. We also measured a “leadership” frame that centers on the ideology, political qualities, and biographies of the candidates. This frame was a bit higher in 1994 (9%) and declined afterward to 8% (2000) and 5% (2006, 2012), but in 2018, it peaked at 17%. Frames show an association with the contests, though mild Cramer V values, X2(16, N = 1217) = 78.65, p = 0.000, Cramer V = 0.127. Lastly, almost all of the units (99.5%) are framed in an episodic way. This perhaps is a consequence of the fact that almost all of them were news pieces, not investigations, interviews, or other in-depth genres. Nonetheless, this fact is telling about which genres are used to cover elections in Mexico—and which are not—and how deep that coverage is. In other words, how much agency the journalist has to cover the electoral process or their issues.

Conclusion The findings show several characteristics of media logic and political logic that deviate sometimes from those in consolidated democracies. First, it is important to stress that media logic is significant in the coverage, but its manifestations show mixed qualities. Strategic game frame is a firmly established feature of the Mexican coverage that broke out forcefully at the beginning of the democratic era, but it has not increased significantly since then and, certainly, it does not seem to surpass the threshold of 30% of the pieces. Competition frame was a relevant trend in the 2000 campaign—about a third of the pieces—but it has declined steadily since then; in the last contest, it was only a fifth of the news pieces. On the other hand, several dimensions of media logic such as personalization human interest, interpretative journalism, and negativity—or at least two of the three—are so infrequent or haphazard throughout the years that we can contend that they are not a relevant part of the Mexican press’s media logic. Also, the spikes in strategic game frame, competitiveness, and bias show that the media logic is attached to the dynamics of each contest and certain conjunctures, electoral competitiveness in this case, rather than a tendency of coverage.

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As for political logic, findings do not reveal a subservient role of the press to the politicians, as previously mentioned, but an institutional commitment toward the transparency of the electoral process, as the new rules and procedures gained ground in the two decades observed. It is surprisingly unbiased too. Issue frame shows a low frequency throughout, without decreasing in time, and it seems to be structural in nature. Again, the spike of 2000 seems to be related to the fact that was the first competitive election in history, so journalists, allegedly, could unleash the frames from their Western peers without the hindrance of censorship. Yet it does not mean a turning point in coverage, with trends continuing or rising in time. The proposed electoral frame does show a declining tendency, as it seems functional to the need of the press, and perhaps of the political system at large, to convey the practicalities and fairness policies of the new electoral system (the communication apparatus of the National Electoral Institute, with daily press conferences and releases, may play a part in this trend). It dominated coverage in 1994 in the aftermath of the assassination of the official candidate at that time, Luis Donaldo Colosio, and the political crisis that ensued, and it slowly declined through the years, without ever disappearing. The fact that this frame is more frequent than the issue frame shows that in Mexican political journalism the electoral process is almost as important as the campaign content. And while the leadership frame has been there consistently, much more than personalization, the spike in 2018 might mean a sort of re-politization of campaign coverage. Media logic of the Mexican press, then, is a mild tendency of mostly strategic game framing and competitive contest depiction, with the latter in decline. Political logic matters almost as much, though a zero-sum game does not seem to be at play: issue framing has been consistently low, even when the press was less autonomous, and did not decline as the commercialism of the news outlets increased due to the independence of the government. Media logic did not increase for this reason either. The absence of crucial indicators of commercial exploitation of politics such as personalization, negativity, or interpretative journalism is almost absent. Conversely, the reportage of formal electoral processes is high and might mean a collaboration by the press with democratic change as well, as a way to fill pages with content produced by the electoral authorities. These findings corroborate in a certain way those of Mellado et  al. (2016) in Chile, and share the fact that both works observe the prestige press: this is the most professionalized type of media in the country, located in the bigger markets and hence, with ample financial

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independence from the government. While no Mexican newspaper is fully autonomous from government intervention and no one is free from certain dysfunctional practices, it is the kind of press that resembles more closely the baseline conditions—media dependency and autonomy—and the professional and commercial dynamics of the West. For this reason, the lack of increasing trends, the presence of few media logic traits, and a strong albeit specific political logic demonstrate the difference between the Mexican mediatization process and those of European peers, and the need for scholars, particularly of the global south, to envision an alternative process of mediatization, with its own theoretical scaffolds and additional methodological developments.

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CHAPTER 11

Televised Political Satire and the Democratic Transition in Mexico Frida V. Rodelo

Introduction The period following the political alternation in Mexico in the year 2000 has witnessed an increased presence of political satire programs on television networks; likewise, there has been a growth in the audiences that consume it and are informed through it. This is not by chance, since the fields of the media and journalism have undergone major transformations worldwide since the mid-twentieth century and, specifically, as different global trends have influenced the development, importation, and reinterpretation of television satire formats in different parts of the world (Baym & Jones, 2012). An expanded version of this chapter was published in the book Political Entertainment in a Post-Authoritarian Democracy: Humor and the Mexican Media, by Martin Echeverría and Frida V. Rodelo.

F. V. Rodelo (*) University of Guadalajara, Guadalajara, Mexico e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 M. Echeverria, R. A. Gonzalez (eds.), Media and Politics in Post-Authoritarian Mexico, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36441-9_11

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Like any other form of public communication, satire is subject to various conditions that determine its key characteristics. Ridiculing, attacking, and judging powerful actors through mediated comedy are acts that require the exercise of freedom of expression. By observing the characteristics of political satire—the political actors who are its object, the behaviors and qualities that trigger its denunciations, the degree of hostility or aggressiveness shown—one can catch a glimpse of the freedoms permitted and, therefore, also of the constraints to which the expression of political opinion is subjected (Echeverría & Rodelo, 2021). Following this reasoning, political satire can act as a lens for examining Mexico’s democratic transition—a process in which competitive universal-vote elections were seen for the first time in the country. In addition to allowing us to infer the spaces of freedom that it occupies, examining televised satire makes it possible to observe the ways in which it reproduces the conditions of the political and media systems. Academic literature on the subject has collected examples and reflected on how different expressions, in a rich tradition of transgressive humor— ranging from the political joke to the political cartoon, and from popular theater to black comedy films—have served as spaces for positioning critical discourses that negate the discourses promoted by the established powers and, therefore, have some potential to contribute, from their pluralism to democratic government (Alzate, 2010; Barajas & Valdés Peña, 2016; Schmidt, 1996). Following the path laid out by Alonso (2015) and Echeverría and Rodelo (2021), this chapter aims to reflect on the contribution to public life of televised political satire in the Mexican context, as well as on the conditions that shape it. Specifically, on the basis of the construction of a narrative on the development of televised political satire in the aftermath of the democratic transition, the chapter conceives of satirical television shows as spaces that owe their complexity and constant transformation to conjunctions of the conditions of institutional and organizational order, among which five are underscored: the clientelistic relations between television stations and political actors, self-censorship, commercial considerations, the political orientations of the media, and protective rituals. For simplicity, I have used the noun satire, in the singular, throughout this work. This is to refer to products seen primarily on television programs of political satire on different television networks during a 20-year period. In effect, satire is a complex and dynamic object that responds to historical-structural conditions and manifests itself mainly in three formats—parody programs, fake news, and talk shows—and in a variety of

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tones that range from the harmless and futile skit—the most common on Mexican screens—to the politically influential lampoon—exemplified in the style cultivated by Brozo the clown.

Televised Satire and Global Change This section points out the essential characteristics of satire, specifies the global changes that have led to the international dissemination of televised satire, and outlines the economic-political conditions that influence media content in the post-authoritarian Mexican context. Satire is a form of comedy that tends to have laughter, judgment, play, and attack as its main features (Becker, 2012). Through humor, the object of satire is minimized, and contempt or ridicule is evoked toward it (LaMarre et al., 2014). But it is not enough to provoke laughter: satire usually has the ultimate purpose of educating, entertaining, persuading, and offering a critical perspective on reality (Holbert et al., 2011). The criticism it makes does not derive from official—scientific or journalistic— discourse but from a discourse in which ordinary people can participate (Alonso, 2015; Kuhlmann, 2012). Laughter and criticism are achieved through play, which usually consists of exaggerating what is known, in order to expose its failings. There is also play in the temporary suspension of order and subversion of power, which occurs when whoever holds power is ridiculed and made symbolically vulnerable (Dinç, 2012; Ibrahim & Eltantawy, 2017; Kuhlmann, 2012; Schmidt, 1996). The fact that anyone at all is welcome to the show makes the game of satire a free and inclusive discursive space (Dinç, 2012). Satire makes evident the limits of government tolerance and its respect for freedom of expression, since it makes it possible to denounce abuses of power and to exhibit the incompetence, vices, and deficiencies of those who hold power (Alonso, 2015; Kuhlmann, 2012; Semati, 2012). It can even become a tool for dissent and resistance in authoritarian contexts (Ibrahim & Eltantawy, 2017; Kuhlmann, 2012). However, scholars have also pointed to the potential of satire for reinforcing the status quo (Colletta, 2009; Echeverría & Rodelo, 2021; Kuhlmann, 2012). On the one hand, satire can focus on attacking political actors for personal traits or trivial errors rather than being used to foster debate on substantive issues in public life (Baumgartner & Lockerbie, 2018; Echeverría & Rodelo, 2021); while on the other, its mixture of politics and entertainment trivializes politics either by turning it into a spectacle in which politicians have differing but equally respectable

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opinions (Colletta, 2009), or by turning politicians into humorous celebrities (Valhondo Crego, 2011). In its televised form, political satire has become a popular, politically influential genre—not only in Western democracies such as the United States, with hits like The Daily Show, but in countries with authoritarian and post-authoritarian regimes, where less freedom of speech is taken for granted in discourses attacking or criticizing authority. Certain global changes have led to the simultaneous emergence of televised political satire in different parts of the world through a “global flow” of locally reinterpreted formats (Baym & Jones, 2012, p. 8). Among the global changes certain technological advances and cultural transformations stand out. Technological advances provide a material foundation for the distribution of alternative content and the formation of audiences in situations of state censorship (Semati, 2012) and of conformity by—public and commercial—broadcast media organizations (Baym & Jones, 2012). Technologies such as cable television and the internet have been the basis of innovative content distribution schemes that are more difficult for hegemonic powers to control. When these schemes are legal, the companies that install them seek to compete—following a free market logic— through fresh content (Martin et al., 2018). The entry of new players into the media markets can function, in an ensuing moment, as a form of pressure on the dominant players, who might opt to innovate or liberalize their content (Baym & Jones, 2012; Bruun, 2012). Certain transformations in media systems have made satire more palatable to audiences and media organizations. The commercialization of media organizations (Hallin & Mancini, 2004) is a global trend that tends, by following a profit-seeking logic, to cause the softening and hybridization of news content (Otto et al., 2017). In addition, corruption scandals in the news media and declining audiences have led to a loss of legitimacy for journalism (Feldman, 2007). These tendencies have provided a fertile ground for the emergence of forms of public communication that are alternative to journalism—among these, are televised political satire (Rodelo, 2020). Technological advances and media transformation are dimensions of globalization that have manifested in the development of the media in the Latin American region and have combined with internal conditions to constrain and shape media contents (Waisbord, 2014). One of the key characteristics of the relationship between the media and public power in Mexico and Latin America is the instrumentalization of the media, that is, “the control of the media by outside actors—parties, politicians, social

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groups or movements, or economic actors seeking political influence— who use them to intervene in the world of politics” (Hallin & Mancini, 2004, p. 37). This can be done through media-government alliances, the political use of public media, discretionary public spending on advertising, and even extortion by media organizations to obtain government contracts (Gómez, 2020). With only a germinal presence during the authoritarian rule of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), televised political satire gained greater visibility as a genre starting in the 1990s, coinciding with important transformations of the Mexican political regime. From being considered a single-party authoritarian regime (Levitsky & Way, 2010), the country turned toward an insecure post-authoritarian democratic system (Hughes et al., 2017) featuring a clientelistic media system highly concentrated in a few players, limited in its pluralism, and with liberal aspirations (Gómez, 2020); a media system alternatively conceptualized as captured liberal (Guerrero & Marquez, 2014). The history of the captured liberal model can be told in a two-act story, common to Latin American media systems: firstly, under authoritarianism, the State imposes a double standard that prevents the existence of a critical press while, at the same time, engaging in a clientelistic relationship with the media organizations by means of which it manages to control them with subsidies, contracts, and other forms of benefits. Secondly, in the context of electoral competitiveness and a marketing boom, new actors gain political power and interact with already consolidated media players in such a way that both groups build renewed arrangements that respond to their needs: newcomers attain power and spread their message; consolidated players preserve their privileges (Guerrero & Marquez, 2014). The case of Mexico fits very well into this story, as it features an oligopolistic dominance of the media and a symbiotic or mutually beneficial relationship between the dominant media companies and both federal and state governments—a dominance that continued after the political alternation and after the economic and political liberalization that brought greater competition into the media sector. In this context, a media-government relationship has been configured in which old practices associated with the aforementioned clientelism persist (Gómez, 2020). The following pages will detail the development of televised satire in Mexico before and during its transition to democracy in order to identify indicators for the influence of conditions associated with features of the Mexican political and media systems. This narrative was constructed

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through a systematic and iterative process of data analysis that included the search for, organization, and reading, of documents, thematic coding to identify the relevant conditions for the development of television satire, and, finally, the elaboration of timelines that allowed specific events to be associated with the prevailing conditions of the time. Television recordings are available on video-on-demand platforms—such as YouTube and Blim—and secondary data sources—that is, magazines and newspapers— and literature on this object of study were used as data sources.

The Development of Television Political Satire in Mexico Antecedents of television political satire in Mexico can be found in a rich tradition of political satire, on the one hand in newspapers (through political cartoons and satirical articles) and, on the other, in popular stage shows, such as the teatro de revista and the teatro de carpas [literally marquees, i.e. traveling theater shows] (Barajas & Valdés Peña, 2016). Despite the fact that during the twentieth century cinema was “one of the main showcases of the culture of humor in Mexico” (Barajas & Valdés Peña, 2016, p.  12), the production of political satire films was minimal. The explanation of the above lies in the authoritarianism of the Mexican political regime: The post-revolutionary regime was averse to criticism and was heavily into filmmaking, so although political humor had a sizeable audience, very few political satire films were produced. For decades, few filmmakers dared to touch the presidential figure, and when they criticized the regime, they did so indirectly, with metaphors, circumlocutions or generalizations; the focus of their criticism would be on minor figures—bureaucrats, municipal presidents or corrupt officials. Even comedians who attacked ministers and ­presidents openly in carpas delivered restrained performances on the big screen. (Barajas & Valdés Peña, 2016, p. 188)1 1  Political cartoons were not exempt from Mexico’s hyper-presidentialism, either. Scherer (1986, p. 81) comments: “Freedom of the press was an inevitable topic. I said that only in brief periods of our history had it been exercised without restriction. I was personally impressed by the case of cartoonists. Masters of their trade, heirs of Posada and Orozco, they became uncomfortable when facing the president. These artists, who satirised and touched anything, would bypass the great character and let him go. Very few, remarkable, cartoonists, escaped this obvious limitation.”

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Just as in Mexican cinema political satire was negligible, the development of political satire on television was also almost nil due to the control that the Mexican one-party regime exercised over this sector of the media on the basis of a strong alliance between the regime and Televisa—the dominant television company—which operated with an almost total absence of competition (Hernández & Orozco, 2007; Schmidt, 1996). Pioneers of political satire on television include the comedians Héctor Lechuga and Chucho Salinas, both trained in carpa shows. Broadcast by Telesistema Mexicano—Televisa’s forerunner—during the 1960s, Chucherías was a television program in which Salinas and Lechuga managed to include routines of political satire that made a mockery of the Mexican culture of corruption. In these, an ordinary man played by Lechuga is interviewed by Salinas about his daily life. As Lechuga’s character answers the questions, he spontaneously begins to recount his experiences of mochadas (i.e., bribes and illegal quotas) and the involvement of bosses in them, while Salinas exclaims: “No, no, no! Don’t give me the names!” Another routine with a political message was that of the character Juan Derecho, a superhero who punished the corrupt with his whip, thereby restoring justice (Mejía Barquera, 1999). As well as showing the surreptitious nature of corruption, the expressions do-not-tell-me-names and that-does-not-interest-me hinted at the state censorship to which television programs were subject at the time. Commonplace in sources is an anecdote about the recklessness of comedian Manuel el Loco Valdés, who in El show del Loco (1972–1974) dared to utter a quip about the historically revered president Bomberito Juárez [Little Firefighter Juarez] and his wife Manguerita [Little Hose]. The consequences of insulting this national hero vary according to the chronicle, although all of them agree that the television station took actions to discipline Valdés (Schmidt, 1996). Something similar is told about the comedian Héctor Suárez, who was fired after making a joke on television about President Carlos Salinas (1988–1994) (Schmidt, 1996; Del Collado, 2013, June 9). Interventions like the ones mentioned imply a sensitivity at the core of the regime that distinguished between different levels of threat in media discourse: “reasoned, erudite critiques couched in respectful tones met with greater tolerance than bawdy or humorous denunciations that might have mass appeal” (Lawson, 2002, p. 56). Comedy shows ¿Qué nos pasa? (Televisa, 1985–1987) and La caravana (Imevisión, 1988–1992), with performances by Héctor Suárez, and Víctor

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Trujillo and Ausencio Cruz, respectively, would also include comic routines with social commentary. Specifically, criticism of certain social ills— incivility, ineptitude, or corruption—permeated the routines of Suárez’s ¿Qué nos pasa? In these, pauperized characters were frequently in confrontation with the middle class. However, as Toussaint (1986, April 19) remarks, this critique of ordinary people’s personal failings did not touch the institutions, the big names, or the great social structures that allowed and promoted such vices.

Satire and Media Openness As explained, the antecedents of Mexican television satire date back to the 1960s—just like the pioneering work of television political satire shows in Western countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom. However, satirical shows did not thrive in Mexico until the 1990s, a period marked by greater clarity about the direction of the process of democratic transition in the country. The surge in satire shows then was part of a trend toward greater openness and pluralism in the contents of Mexican network television. The aforementioned changes in television were in part explained by the access of a new player to the monopolistic broadcast television market dominated by Televisa. As part of the neoliberal policy implemented by President Carlos Salinas de Gortari (1988–1994), in 1993 the federal government sold the national public television network— the Mexican Institute of Television (Imevisión)—, and it became Televisión Azteca. The 1990s saw unprecedented competition between television companies for audiences, as well as between political parties for voters in—at last—competitive elections that led to a growing interest in the use of television for political communication and political marketing (Mejía Barquera, 1999). The political turbulence of the time also played its part. The year 1994 was considered a year of rupture due to the conjunction of shocking political events that were interpreted as the loss of the PRI’s hegemonic control; among these were the assassinations of the PRI’s presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio and the PRI’s secretary general José Francisco Ruiz Massieu, as well as the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas. Comedian Víctor Trujillo asserts that, in a sort of epiphany, he and his producer, Carolina Padilla, decided on the day of Colosio’s murder that it was “time” for

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Brozo the clown to replace his traditional routine—featuring acid parodies of children’s stories that were a hit on the late night comedy show La caravana—with satire of current news (TVUDLAP, 2016). At the same time, newcomer Azteca experimented with new television formats, styles, and themes, thus exerting some pressure on Televisa, which was experiencing financial difficulties (Hernández & Orozco, 2007; Lawson, 2002). Azteca dared to introduce a prime-time newscast eager for scandal, telenovelas that touched taboo issues, tabloid television similar to Hard Copy, and political comedy (Gómez Rodríguez & Renero Quintanar, 2003; Hernández & Orozco, 2007). The push for creating the parody skit Hechos de peluche (1996) within Azteca’s main newscast came from the network’s owner, Ricardo Salinas Pliego, after returning from a trip in which he had seen puppet parodies (Tiempo de Michoacán, 2018, November 6): at the time, Spain had Las noticias del guiñol, and Colombia, Los reencauchados, both of them adaptations of the British program Spitting Image (1984–1996). Although it followed an established formula, the Peluches were a milestone for Mexican television satire, since for the first time identifiable political actors were caricatured on the screen—with the exception of then President Ernesto Zedillo, who did not have a puppet “out of respect for the presidency” (Ortiz, 1997, May 31). The opinions and mockery of Hechos de peluche were “always directed against the [leftwing party] PRD and its leader […], and leftist positions, and initially in favor of the PRI and today the [rightwing party] PAN and [President] Vicente Fox” (Toussaint, 2000, October 28). The skit was a commercial and audience success, prompting politicians to approach creators to influence the contents (Mérida, 2016, November 25). At the time of the launching of Hechos de peluche, Televisa did not have any political satire program (Martínez Arias, 2006). It was not until the restructuring of its prime-time newscast in 2000—with the replacement of the perennial anchor Jacobo Zabludovsky by a younger Joaquín LópezDóriga—that, in an even more domesticated and harmless style, Televisa integrated political humor into its star newscast through a weekly tenminute segment called Las mangas del chaleco (Televisa, 2018), a recollection of the absurd phrases uttered by politicians that provided entertainment via pastiche.

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Television Companies and the Federal Government: A Renewed Relationship Some adjustments were made after the political alternation of the year 2000 and the election of a federal government led by Vicente Fox of the PAN. Under the leadership of Emilio Azcárraga Jean (CEO since 1997), Televisa ceased to be a loyal supporter and ally of the PRI (Lawson, 2002). For instance, in 2002 the media company broadcast the unprecedented revelation of a presidential telephone recording that ridiculed President Fox for uttering the famous phrase eat and leave directed at Fidel Castro (Hernández & Orozco, 2007). Trejo (2014) explains Televisa’s sudden change of attitude toward the presidential institution as follows: “the Mexican political system was diversifying and now Televisa’s interests could not always be managed through personal and discretionary agreements with the presidents of the Republic and their closest officials” (p. 157). There was no doubt about this being a new era in government-media relations in which Televisa became—alongside Azteca—a “protagonist” of Mexican politics (Hernández & Orozco, 2007, p. 60). Furthermore, the framing by Televisa and Azteca of domestic politics was seen as a pressure tactic to push for perks in a renewed mutual benefit partnership with the federal governments (Hernández & Orozco, 2007). The television stations benefitted, first, from the elimination of competition, as, in December 2002, Azteca assaulted and destroyed the facilities of channel CNI40—a small Mexico City television station suffocated by a lack of money—for breach of contract, with the compliance of the Federal Ministry of Communications and Transportation. Second, from two reforms that favored broadcasters by reducing the fiscal times2 (October 2002) and by unlocking—through a bill dubbed the Televisa law—the obstacles that prevented the usual big players from entering new media markets through digital convergence (December 2006). The same winds of change took Victor Trujillo’s Brozo the clown, in his new facet as a caustic commentator of current events, from radio to television in El diario de la noche (Azteca, 1995) and El mañanero (CNI40, 2000). Groundbreaking for being the first Mexican television newscast hosted by a comedian, El mañanero soon ceased airing on CNI40 due to the conflict with Azteca mentioned above. Trujillo quickly transferred the 2  Tax in kind consisting of a proportion of the total airtime that was applied in Mexico to broadcast radio and television.

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project, in 2002, to Televisa’s Channel 4, becoming integral to the effort by Televisa’s new CEO to renew the discredited network by incorporating “other voices that have never had anything to do with Televisa or have even been opponents” (Caballero, 2002, January 3). Trujillo developed in Brozo a character who was cheeky, cynical, misogynistic, and eager to vociferate social demands and utter acid criticism against politicians. In a live broadcast in March 2004, he uncovered one of the famous videos that contributed to the subsequent electoral defeat of the former left-wing presidential candidate, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. This episode was the climax of a series of recordings of transgressions by public officials related to López Obrador, at that time the mayor of Mexico City (Alonso, 2015; Hernández Navarro, 2006). The amalgam of the clown’s features also gave Trujillo license to display a misogyny that was manifest not only in the machismo of traditional albur—the double entendre typical of Mexican comedy—but in the everyday objectification of women in El mañanero, where they appeared as silent half-naked hostesses or as minimized interviewees. Cultivated through a long filmography, Brozo’s style stretches from a subversive criticism of power to a pragmatic cynicism permeated by corporate interests: “it is evident that his critical discourse operates within the commercial framework of the media giant’s capitalist structure” (Alonso, 2015, p. 85). An additional element of the renewed relationship between the television companies and the federal government after the political alternation was the increasing use of political marketing and, consequently, the continuous increase in public spending on advertising—not only by the federal government but also by the local state governments (Mejía Barquera, 1999). The growing public financing of prerogatives for political parties meant that “political life and elections became very expensive in the country,” something that implied a transfer of public resources to media organizations “as … they occupied a greater centrality in the struggle for political power” (Buendía & Azpiroz, 2011, p.  41). The great political importance of media, as well as the small number of players in the television industry, gave television giants leverage in their relationship with political parties, since they could assign news coverage according to the parties’ contribution to their advertising revenues (Buendía & Azpiroz, 2011). Television was incorporated into political campaign strategies not only in the form of electoral advertisements, but also through emerging political marketing tactics, such as social merchandising in television

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fiction—that is, the product placement of social products, even electoral candidates and political parties—and the participation of politicians as guests in variety shows (Franco Migues, 2012). One example was the endorsement of the PAN’s presidential candidate Felipe Calderón given by the main character in the telenovela (soap opera) La fea más bella, which happened to be the television show with the highest audience levels at the time of the 2006 presidential elections (Baños & Carriedo, 2010; GarcíaRubio, 2009; Pareja Sánchez, 2012). In this context, a few months before the 2006 presidential election, Televisa produced the political parody show El privilegio de mandar (2005), a serial telenovela that satirized the events of Mexican politics from week to week (Molina, 2005). Featuring talent from Televisa’s other soap operas and traditional comedy shows, El privilegio was an audience success: its ratings3 were higher than those of Televisa’s prime-time newscast (Espino, 2008; Molina, 2005). Likewise, according to a national survey, 73% of the population declared that they had watched the show and 75% declared that the program provided a lot or some information about the political situation in the country (Parametría, 2005, August 31). The show’s notoriety raised questions about its contribution to the flow of information in the electoral context. Commentators focused on lamenting the superficiality of the humor—primarily aimed at the physique and character of politicians—the absence of jokes targeting the economic elite, and the political bias of the content (Espino, 2008; Molina, 2005). Accusations of political biases were based on the closeness between Televisa and the PAN that had developed in the years prior to the 2006 election (Gameros, 2009; Hernández & Orozco, 2007), as well as on the significant attention that the satirical show devoted to the political scandals that made the headlines in 2004 and to the issues associated with the negative campaign against López Obrador—who was at that moment running for the presidency (Espino, 2008). The most controversial episode, however, would be the finale of the series, broadcast after the election day, when López Obrador was defeated by a narrow 0.62% of the votes. At the end of the episode, the main character closed the season by breaking the fourth wall and lecturing the audience, expressing his disapproval of the plan to challenge the results of the presidential election and pondering the importance of accepting the electoral result “because that’s the way democracy is.” The 2006 electoral process and its results 3  Percentage of audiences watching the program as part of the total population in the country.

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provoked discussions about the instrumental use of television and the media to influence voting and would become the origin of a subsequent electoral reform to prevent undue intervention from third parties in subsequent elections (Buendía & Azpiroz, 2011). The Shortage of Television Satire After the 2006 Presidential Elections With the exception of Víctor Trujillo, television producers gave up producing political satire shows after 2006—partly due to their relatively low profitability (high costs, low exportability), and partly due to the tense climate that had resulted from the contested presidential elections. Pundits at the time observed a “poisoned and polarized” environment (Krauze, 2017, July 17) in which “a critical moment was coming, and in such cases, it is better to step aside” (Milenio, 2012, June 23). In addition, the electoral reform of 2007–2008 forbade both political actors and third parties from paying for political propaganda during the electoral season. Negative campaigning—that is, denigrating expressions against institutions and political parties, and slander against individuals— and undue intervention from third parties—as in disguised propaganda— were also banned (Buendía & Azpiroz, 2011). This tightening of electoral regulations caused some uncertainty in the broadcasting companies, who had got used to the sale of exorbitant advertising packages to political parties. This provided a third reason for the deficit in televised political humor after 2006: “With many of the most recent reforms that were being authorized, you have to be three times more careful when handling political contents in traditional media … [If] it were so easy, why isn’t anyone else doing it?” (Cueva, 2015, February 11). Furthermore, there were some signs pointing toward persistent self-­ censorship by creators and producers. For instance, there was a loud accusation of censorship by veteran comedian Héctor Suárez against the producers of a competition show (Zona Franca, 2011, November 7). Likewise, an initiative to produce a Mexican adaptation of Saturday Night Live for Televisa was aborted, presumably due to the high costs involved in operating the American franchise and—crucially—to the lack of freedom to produce political humor on Mexican broadcast television (Dispara Margot Dispara, 2017, May 11; Quijano, 2015, July 18). Thus, political humor programs have tended to be broadcast during the electoral season: Televisa’s El privilegio de mandar premiered a second

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season in 2018—just in time for the presidential elections—while Azteca added satire to its programming with the seasonal production of Campañeando (2011, 2015, 2018), a brief talk show in which journalists humorously comment on the statements and gaffes of political candidates. The adaptation of the formula of Azteca’s entertainment flagship show Ventaneando made clear the politics-as-spectacle approach. Lastly, political satire also arose outside the Televisa and Azteca networks. The Cadenatres channel—created in 2007 and which would eventually become Imagen, the third television network in the country—opted for shows that were heavily influenced by the tried-and-true formulas followed by American late-night variety shows. Mikorte informativo, El incorrecto, Ya ni llorar es bueno, and Qué importa formed a “disinformation block” of shows talking “about everything as long as it is fun; but not if it’s boring,” which flaunted a conservative rather than subversive style, as can be seen in the candid statement of a show host: “Why do we have to be always complaining? If we are already here, we should have fun” (Díaz, 2014, April 27). 2018 And Beyond: Public Channels Reclaim Satire The PRI’s return to the presidency in 2012 brought the pact for Mexico, a reform package promoted by President Enrique Peña Nieto that included a constitutional amendment redefining telecommunications, as well as the promulgation of a new Federal Law on Telecommunications and Broadcasting. Although this reform meant a significant advance in the media broadcasting industry by establishing mechanisms to curb media property concentration, Peña’s presidency was nevertheless characterized by outlandish corruption scandals and millionaire spending on political advertising that confirmed the persistence of clientelistic practices (Gómez, 2020). With 23.4 share points,4 the second enactment of El privilegio de mandar in 2018 surpassed the ratings for Campañeando and Qué importa, the other two political humor programs airing at the time (Televisa, 2018, January 30). Although the show regularly featured parodies of President Peña Nieto, the gags were targeted at his lack of culture and his public speaking blunders, while the truly hurtful jokes—that is, the ones making 4  Percentage of audiences watching the program in relation to the total audiences watching television.

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direct references to specific acts of corruption—were reserved for figures already fallen from grace, such as the PRI’s Veracruz governor Javier Duarte, imprisoned for corruption. The common citizen was another regular element, represented by the character Márgara Francisca, who insulted politicians by telling them their truths. Thus, including jokes about all kinds of actors and political issues was insufficient: the lack of jokes challenging the powerful, the low production values, in the context of Televisa’s diminishing viewership and credibility, and a soar in media content options, contributed to keeping this show a long way from critical success. Another place for satire was public television. From being a genre unexplored in public media systems since the dismantling of Imevisión in 1993, public television resolved to recover a brand of more ideologically committed political humor through talk shows such as El chamuco tv (TV UNAM and Channel 22, 2018), John y Sabina (Canal Once, 2019), La maroma estelar (Canal Once, 2019), and Operación Mamut (Canal Once, 2021). In the context of the overwhelming electoral victory of Andrés Manuel López Obrador in 2018, some of the aforementioned shows were criticized by commentators on three grounds. Firstly, the shows reproduced the social categories used by President López Obrador in his political discourse to make reference to the persistent classism and inequality in Mexican society, which also exasperated those who considered them part of a populist rhetoric that fueled unnecessary polarization in public debate. Secondly, the shows had a tone favorable to the López Obrador administration, seen in the selection of hosts, interviewees, and topics, all with a left-wing background. The show La maroma estelar was widely reproached when it mocked the academic and activist Denise Dresser, as the humor, that emphasized her opinions and connections, was primarily based on her personal traits. Surely there was an imbalance of power involved in the act of making fun of a woman who participated in the public sphere as a representative of civil society, something the creators justified by alluding to Dresser’s ties with Claudio X.  González, a powerful businessman opposed to López Obrador and financier of influential think tanks. The third and last point is the use of public resources to produce the problematic content described above. After storms of criticism and internal disputes, both La maroma estelar and John y Sabina were canceled. Meanwhile, the increase in broadband households in the country provided a material foundation for the growth of both the consumption and

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production of internet television through platforms such as YouTube. Influenced by the American political satire from cable channels like Comedy Central and by the success of his political jokes on Twitter, Manuel Torres Chumel began producing the fake news YouTube show El pulso de la república in December 2012, just at the beginning of Enrique Peña Nieto’s presidential term. Public recognition of Torres’ satirical criticism—aimed mainly against the federal government—motivated numerous creators to seek success in producing political contents on the same platform (Rodelo, 2020). Likewise, Torres’ hit evidenced the creative limitations constraining the political satire produced for broadcast television.

The Main Influences on the Political Humor Produced During the Transition Strictly speaking, Mexican television satire did not start from scratch in the post-authoritarian period, as early precedents of television satire had introduced a certain amount of social criticism, while avoiding direct allusions to political actors—whether individual or institutional, and, most importantly, never mentioning the President. However, the production of satire from the second half of 1990 onward—in an early post-authoritarian period—could well be described as a boom, given the number of programs made and the relative openness in content, as media creators and media owners dared to produce television humor that made fun of specific political actors. Such a boom took on the nuances of the particular conditions of the Mexican case, to be found in the main influences shaping the humor produced during the political transition: the clientelistic relations between the television companies and political actors, self-censorship, commercial considerations, the political orientations of the media, and protective rituals. In the first place, the clientelistic relations between the television companies and the main political actors during the period were widely documented (Gómez, 2020). They included ad hoc regulation and, after the political alternation, a growth in public spending on media propaganda caused by the imbalance of power between political actors and television stations, since the high concentration of the broadcast television market raised the prices of television advertising in the context of high electoral competitiveness (Buendía & Azpiroz, 2011). In this way, there was a continuation of the already prevailing trend of aligning television content to

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the economic-political interests of the television companies. In the period analyzed, the closeness between Televisa and the federal government led by the National Action Party (PAN) was reflected by the satire shows: the wave of political scandals related to the corruption of Mexico City officials reached its highest point in the confrontation between Brozo the clown and PRD politician René Bejarano in El mañanero. This episode, together with the speech in El privilegio de mandar disapproving of Lopez Obrador’s move to challenge the electoral results, fits in as a product of the clientelistic relations between the television companies and the political actors. Secondly, the institutional relations of the media companies nourish self-censorship, a practice in which creators themselves anticipate and avoid contents with a potential to be problematic for the media organization. This practice generates a situation in which it is unnecessary for any authority to exert pressure or censorship, leading to effective control over the contents (Fernández & Paxman, 2013). Although parodies of specific political actors emerged in comedic skits since 1996, an Azteca news executive explained that there was still no puppet of the President, out of respect for the institution (Ortiz, 1997, May 31). Several episodes have evidenced the persistence of self-censorship in media organizations in recent years. Perhaps the most eloquent demonstration of this was the lack of interest in producing political comedy on broadcast television despite the popularity of satirical shows like El privilegio de mandar during 2005–2006, and YouTube’s El pulso de la república, launched in 2012. Thirdly, the commercial considerations of the media organization include a preference for content that is profitable—that is, attractive and understandable to large audiences, as well as exportable to foreign television markets. Azteca’s importation of television formats—including the political puppet show—was part of the multiple commercial considerations deriving from the need to make Mexico’s second television network profitable and sustainable—contributing to the traveling of global flows of reinterpreted television formats (Baym & Jones, 2012). Fourthly, in close association with the above are the prevailing political orientations in media organizations. In the satire aired on commercial television, attitudes such as conservatism, frivolity, and political cynicism are manifested in the contents and are evidenced in the testimonies of creators supporting the production of light political comedy that serves as a distraction for people. Public channels, in contrast, came under fire in 2019 for producing left-wing comedy.

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Fifth and lastly, political satire—in a manner similar to professional journalism—is also shaped by certain rituals that seek to protect media organizations from accusations of bias and lack of quality. As explained by Baym and Jones (2012), in certain contexts, political programming can function as a marker of relevancy or prestige, thus procuring credibility and social legitimacy for media organizations. As a factor prompting television companies to cover delicate issues in a balanced way from time to time, protective rituals lead satirists to attack everyone so that a show is read as neutral or at least as unbiased (Rodelo, 2020). However, making fun of everyone in equal numbers does not guarantee balance, since the most aggressive jokes can still be directed at political actors in a selective way, something that contemporary commentators warned about in parodies like Hechos de peluche and El privilegio de mandar (Espino, 2008; Molina, 2005; Toussaint, 2000, October 28).

Conclusions History is not linear, nor is it accumulated progress. Evolution is full of stumbles, ups and downs, regressions and paradoxes. The development of television satire is no exception. In this chapter, we sought to construct a narrative of the historical development of television satire in Mexico, as a tool to identify the ways in which this form of discourse reproduces the conditions of the political and media systems in the context of a democratic transition. Because of its ludic rhetoric, satire is the ideal genre to find ambiguities of meaning, something that makes evaluating its social contributions extremely complex: political comedy can be devised to function as a marker of prestige for the media organizations (Baym & Jones, 2012), or it can perform impartiality by incorporating ritualized practices (Rodelo, 2020). The multiple meanings in jokes (Colletta, 2009) open the doors for a satirist to be interpreted in different ways than what was planned—a satire intended to revile can be taken as a vindication or even advocacy of the object of satire (LaMarre et al., 2014). Despite the difficulties involved in the previous points, this chapter offers insight into understanding the limited freedom with which satire shows operated during the Mexican democratic transition on broadcast television, as a space that owes its complexity and constant transformation to intertwined institutional and organizational conditions.

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Index1

A Accountability, 34–36, 38, 38n6, 39, 47, 51, 95, 118, 122, 128, 131–1312 Actors, 118, 121, 123, 127–134, 136, 207–214, 217, 219–227, 262–265, 269, 273, 275–278 Administration, 38n6, 39, 40, 40n9, 43, 44, 46–48, 47n16, 65n2, 66, 89, 104, 136, 180, 182, 183n2, 184, 185, 187–197, 219, 225, 275 Advertising, 197 Advertising contracts, 217 Authoritarian, 1–20 Authoritarianism, 14 Authorities, 38, 64, 65n2, 71, 93, 95, 96, 108, 122, 123, 127, 129, 130, 134–137, 189, 193, 213, 264, 277

B Border, 155, 156, 161, 162, 167, 168, 171, 173, 174 Broadcast, 264, 267, 268, 270–273, 270n2, 276–278 Broadcasters, 270 C Civil society, 207–228 Clientelism, 46 Commercialism, 241, 243, 245, 246, 254 Communication, 57–69, 65n2, 71, 75–78 Companies, 264, 265, 267, 268, 270, 271, 273, 276–278 Competitiveness, 253, 265, 276 Conducting research, 155–176 Conflict zones, 155–176

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024 M. Echeverria, R. A. Gonzalez (eds.), Media and Politics in Post-Authoritarian Mexico, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36441-9

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INDEX

Constitutional, 38, 44 Constitutional reform, 64, 66, 68, 77 Content analysis, 237 Contracts, 217 Control, 118, 126, 129, 131, 144, 150, 190, 264, 265, 267, 268, 277 Courts, 68 Coverage, 86, 87, 90, 91, 91n7, 95, 96, 101, 108, 109, 123, 124n3, 127, 134, 148, 196, 235, 237–239, 241, 243, 245–254 Criticism, 263, 266, 268, 271, 275, 276 D Dangers, 164, 166 Demands, 208–210, 212–214, 216, 217, 220, 222, 224, 226, 227 Democracy, 31–52, 117–137 Democratic, 1–20 Democratization, democracy, 2, 143–152 Demonstrations, 209, 211–213, 215, 216, 224, 226, 227 E Employers, 149, 151, 162 Establishment, 121 F Federal government, 59, 61, 66, 74 Fieldwork, 155–157, 160, 162, 163, 165, 166, 172, 175 Forces, 208, 214, 215, 225 Frame, framing, 237, 238, 243, 248–254 Freedom, 179–198 Freedom of expression, 57–78

G Government, 3–8, 10, 15–17, 19, 33, 34, 36, 38, 40–52, 42n13, 42n14, 47n16, 58, 61, 62, 65n2, 68, 69, 75, 76, 86, 88, 90–92, 91n7, 96, 98, 102, 104–110, 117–121, 123, 126–128, 131–136, 143, 144, 147, 149, 180–189, 192–198, 236–238, 244–246, 254, 255, 262, 263, 265, 268, 270, 271, 276, 277 Government advertising, 127 Government control, 86, 98 I Identity, identities, 143–152 Independence, 31–33, 36–38, 41, 42, 44, 50, 51, 89, 90, 95 Individuals, 159, 161, 163–165, 167–169, 171 Informal mechanisms, 35 Information, 32, 34n3, 36, 38, 41, 43, 44, 49n17, 51, 57–71, 74, 75, 76n3, 77, 122, 123, 128, 131, 132, 135 Institutions, 58, 67, 71, 75 Interviews, 159–168, 170–174 J Jobs, 148, 150 Journalism, 5, 8, 10–16, 119, 120, 122, 127, 130–137, 133n5, 143–152, 240, 243, 244, 247, 249, 253, 254 Journalists, 4, 5, 7–9, 11, 13–19, 57, 61–63, 66, 68–74, 77, 86–90, 92n10, 93–96, 99–101, 100n16, 104–107, 106n21, 109, 110, 117–137, 143–152, 155–159, 161–164, 166–172, 169n1, 174–176, 209, 213–217, 226, 227

 INDEX 

L Law, 57, 59–78, 182, 188, 189 Local, 118, 121–124, 126–128, 130–135 Local press, 209, 218, 219, 225 López Obrador, Andres Manuel, 179–198 M Markets, 242–246, 254 Media, 1–20, 31–52, 58–69, 75–77, 85–110, 180–182, 180n1, 186–189, 191–195, 197, 198, 208–221, 225, 227, 235–255, 261–265, 267–271, 273–278 Media logic, 235–255 Media regulation, 15–17 Mediatization, 235–255 Mediatized, 246 Modernization, 11–13, 17 N National, nationalization, 179–198 News, 122–124, 126–137, 133n5, 208–213, 217–226, 235–239, 241–246, 249, 250, 253, 254 Newsworthy, 243 Norms, 143–146, 148–151 O Occupational, 143–146, 148, 149, 151 Officers, 221 Organizations, 45, 47, 51, 211–215, 227 Organized crime, 123, 127, 128, 131, 136 Outlets, 161

285

P Participants, 156–161, 164–176 Party alternation, 34 Political change, 37–40 Political control, 38 Political logic, 235, 236, 240–243, 246–248, 250, 252–255 Political satire, 261–278 Political transition, 276 Politics, 1–20, 209, 235, 236, 238–243, 246, 249, 254 Power, 4, 9, 10, 16, 18, 32–42, 33n2, 38n6, 45, 49, 50, 117n1, 118, 120, 121, 121n2, 126, 128, 129, 135, 136, 144, 146, 147, 149–151, 181, 189–192, 197, 207–211, 214, 216, 217, 219, 223, 225 President, 38–40, 39n8, 40n9, 44, 45, 47–50, 47n16, 179, 180, 183–186, 188, 190–193, 196–198, 266–270, 266n1, 274–277 Press, 6, 7, 11, 14, 16, 17, 19, 20, 86–99, 89n5, 92n10, 93n12, 101, 102, 104, 106–109, 107n23, 110n26, 179–198, 207–228, 235–255 Pressures, 86, 87, 99, 104n19, 107, 120, 136, 181 Print media, 85–110 Professional, 143–152 Professionalism, 143–146, 241, 243, 245, 246 Program, 261, 262, 267, 269, 272–274, 272n3, 274n4, 276 Programming, 274, 278 Promotion, 182 Protection, 57–78, 180, 182–185, 189 Provincial, 218 Public, 4, 6–11, 14–17, 19 Publicity, 197

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INDEX

R Regimes, 2, 10, 11, 14, 20, 31–37, 32n1, 33n2, 37n5, 41–43, 45, 47, 49, 86, 87, 92–95, 99, 105, 106, 117n1, 118, 126, 131, 197, 207, 208, 210–213, 219, 264–267 Regional media, 124, 127, 128, 130, 135 Regions, 62, 64, 73, 78 Regulate, 181 Regulating, 60, 63 Regulations, 59, 61–64, 67, 68, 75–77, 215, 273, 276 Reporter, 6, 8, 86, 92, 94–96, 100–102, 101n17, 107, 110, 123–136, 162, 166, 168, 169n1 Research, 155–176 Resistance, 146, 148–152 Rights, 57, 59, 60, 62, 63, 66, 68, 69, 73–77, 117n1, 118–122, 129, 131, 134–136, 182–184, 187–189, 192, 194–196 Risk, 156–161, 163–165, 167–169, 172–176 Rule, 62, 64, 110

Satirical shows, satire shows, comedy Shows, 267–269, 272, 273, 277, 278 Scholars, 158, 159, 161, 166, 169, 172, 175, 176 Security, 68, 160, 162–164, 166, 169, 173–176 Source, 131, 133, 135 State, 3, 5, 6, 12, 16, 58, 59, 61, 62, 64–66, 68, 69, 71, 73–77, 86–93, 96, 101, 106, 108, 118–125, 121n2, 127, 128, 135–137, 180–183, 185, 185n3, 189, 193, 194, 197, 208, 210, 211, 216, 218, 219, 221–223

S Salinas, 85–110 Satire, 268–269

V Violence, 118, 119, 122–127, 124n3, 129–134, 136

T Televisa, 267–275, 277 Television, 261, 262, 264, 266–278, 270n2, 274n4 Threats, 147–150 U Unconstitutional, 66