The Subnational Media Approach: The Case of Mexican Provinces

• In Event: Local and Regional Journalism

Abstract

The main thesis is that in new federal democracies press-state relations are better understood with subnational unit of analysis rather than thought the traditional media systems narratives. I argue that after the breakdown of the Mexican authoritarian regime in the decade of 1990, hybrid political systems (combining democratic and authoritarian elements) emerged at a subnational level. This type of regimes are not authoritarian, not yet democracies; they held free and fair elections but violated systematically democratic institutions and intended to control media. Contrary to some authors who claim that Mexican press had became more free and independent in the last two decades, journalists and media outlets in Mexican provinces suffer the systematic attempt to fall out under the power of local incumbents that performed media-control strategies in their local jurisdiction. Those strategies include press-state clientelist-relations, censor and libel laws, and direct aggressions and harassment against journalists.

Author

• Jose Antonio Brambila, The University of Leeds