| Through surveying the literature on Mexican mass media published in American academic journals and books from 1945 to 1994, and the published literature in Mexico by Mexican researchers during the same period, this thesis assesses the influence of U.S. mass communication research ideologies and posits that Western scholars, mostly Americans, approach the study of Mexican mass media according to Western social, political, and cultural values. In general, traditional American social science methodologies, in particular, mass communication research, dominate Mexican mass media studies. Specifically, American scholars have tended to direct their analysis to the free expression of newspapers. This study found that most Americans in this field have limited themselves to judging the entirety of Mexican mass media from an American cultural viewpoint. In support of this conclusion, critical researchers have linked the problem of exporting "alien" methods of study to Mexico and of bypassing or ignoring the social, cultural, and political realities of Mexico and other Latin American countries. This thesis shows how traditional American international media research conceives the Mexican media system from an American cultural perspective, thereby introducing a conceptualization of culture that implies the context of a free market of ideas in a free market economy. Still, based on a Cultural studies perspective, as posited by Stuart Hall and others, this study shows that by framing research questions based on Mexico's social, economic, and political realities (for instance, a dependent, capitalist society as opposed to an advanced, capitalist one), ethnocentric biases are avoided. The main question this thesis studies is: What approach have American scholars taken in their analysis of Mexican mass media? Findings of the research confirm the common complaint that the bulk of research carried out by American mass media scholars on Latin America has lacked sensitivity toward its cultural values, political systems, and economic conditions. Similarly, this study found that much of the media research in Mexico carried out by Mexican scholars followed lines of inquiry, theories, and methodologies proposed by Western researchers. Finally, this research shows that lack of indigenous research accounts for the theoretical dependency of Mexican scholarly works. |
