| This dissertation focuses on the changing patterns in U.S. news media coverage of Mexico from 1982 to 1995, and its repercussions to U.S.-Mexico relations. More specifically, it examines, through the analysis of articles in The New York Times The Wall Street Journal, and The Christian Science Monitor, the gradual shift in the coverage from the traditional focus on subjects identified as cultural aspects of Mexico (poverty, corruption, authoritarianism) to a new focus, during the Salinas administration, on subjects identified as structural (political and economic reforms). The results of this first level of analysis are then inserted into a wider analytical framework that examines the correlation between changes in U.S. news media coverage of Mexico, and changes in the ways Mexican and American academic, journalistic, and governmental elites see the U.S.-Mexico relationship.; My choice of textual analysis as chief methodological tool was made because its core assumption is central to my work: that meaning is a social production. This method treats print media texts as literary and visual constructs that are shaped by rules, symbols, and conventions intrinsic to the use of language. My methodological approach includes the extensive use of academic studies, and of interviews and transcripts of conferences by scholars, journalists, government officials and media experts. They provide a parallel view that allows a close analysis of such central aspects of the journalists' work as how editorial decisions are made, what is "objective reporting," the relation between both governments and American foreign correspondents, and the fostering of their social networks inside and outside Mexico.; Through the analysis of the articles in the selected newspapers, this dissertation has unearthed several elements that are central to the understanding of the U.S. news media coverage of Mexico: cultural asymmetry, socio-cultural prejudice, ethnocentrism, and historical shifts in the coverage. My conclusions are that the changes in the U.S. news media reporting on Mexico are a clear sign of the growing importance of Mexico to the United States, and that these changes in the reporting did have a direct influence in changes in the perceptions of elites on both sides of the border regarding the nature of the U.S.-Mexico relationship and its future course. |
