"Newsrooms in Conflict examines the dramatic changes within Mexican society, politics, and journalism that transformed an authoritarian media institution into a hybrid system of journalism with significant implications for deepening democracy in the country. Using extensive interviews with journalists and content analysis spanning more than two decades, Sallie Hughes identifies the patterns of newsroom transformation that explain how Mexican journalism changed from a passive, and even collusive, monolithic institution into differential clusters of news organizations exhibiting citizen-oriented, market-driven, and adaptive authoritarian tendencies
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"Newsrooms in Conflict examines the dramatic changes within Mexican society, politics, and journalism that transformed an authoritarian media institution into a hybrid system of journalism with significant implications for deepening democracy in the country. Using extensive interviews with journalists and content analysis spanning more than two decades, Sallie Hughes identifies the patterns of newsroom transformation that explain how Mexican journalism changed from a passive, and even collusive, monolithic institution into differential clusters of news organizations exhibiting citizen-oriented, market-driven, and adaptive authoritarian tendencies
This article addresses how to create democratic news media that foster participatory citizenship and government accountability. Using the case of Mexico, where journalism underwent a deep transformation in the 1980s and 1990s, the research finds that societal-level changes such as democratization and economic liberalization are only part of the explanation. What went on inside news organizations determined whether media took on a civic orientation enabling the creation of a public sphere, resisted societal-level change altogether, or reacted to only market-based cues. The result of these disparate transformations was the dissolution of an authoritarian institution into three competing models of news production with profoundly different sociopolitical implications. The study also discusses the application of sociological theory on organizations and institutions to the question of journalistic change in some depth.
This article addresses how to create democratic news media that foster participatory citizenship & government accountability. Using the case of Mexico, where journalism underwent a deep transformation in the 1980s & 1990s, the research finds that societal-level changes such as democratization & economic liberalization are only part of the explanation. What went on inside news organizations determined whether media took on a civic orientation enabling the creation of a public sphere, resisted societal-level change altogether, or reacted to only market-based cues. The result of these disparate transformations was the dissolution of an authoritarian institution into three competing models of news production with profoundly different sociopolitical implications. The study also discusses the application of sociological theory on organizations & institutions to the question of journalistic change in some depth. 5 Tables, 3 Figures, 1 Appendix, 49 References. [Copyright 2003 Sage Publications, Inc.]
Discusses changes in the media since 1980, including the emergence of three competing news models (civic, authoritarian, and market-driven); role of societal-level changes such as democratization and economic liberalization.
We examine political news in Chilean newspapers after elections were reestablished, including a recent period of civic protests of policies linked to the authoritarian past. Data show that similar to journalism in Western democracies, throughout the twenty-one years under study, journalists relied upon official sources, allowed politicians to set the news agenda, and eschewed civil society in favor of representing citizens as voiceless individuals. However, news frames changed during the protest period in unexpected ways given current understandings of the press and civil society. During the protest period, the press framed a greater percentage of coverage as issues and offered contextualization while continuing to privilege official sources, defer agenda setting to politicians, and disregard collective organizations. Based on research elsewhere, issue frames and context may reorient causal attribution for social problems and encourage greater participation. Shortly after the study period, reform topped the political agenda, and disputed policies were overhauled. Connecting content to protests through time sequencing, findings suggest rethinking the relationship between civil society visibility in the press and processes of social accountability. They also provide an example of how legacies of authoritarianism may affect the press under democracy, helping advance theories of press performance beyond experiences in the West.
