Abstract

GONZALEZ MACIAS, Rubén Arnoldo  and  ECHEVERRIA VICTORIA, Martín. Halfway Towards Modernization. Mexican Media System and its Uneven Process of Modernization. Rev. mex. opinión pública [online]. 2018, n.24, pp.35-51. ISSN 2448-4911.  https://doi.org/10.22201/fcpys.24484911e.2018.24.60437.

Contemporary studies on Mexican journalism have two clear -but opposite- stances. At the beginning of this century, a series of studies was published -mainly in the United States- which stressed an ongoing professionalization of the press, parallel to the general modernization of the national media system. However, more recent studies -most of them conducted by Mexican scholars- have underlined the continuity of the practices and patterns that determined the relationship between media and the authoritarian regime of the previous century, particularly at the regional and local level. Therefore, the aim of this article is to explain the reasons behind the coexistence of both these liberal and authoritarian characteristics of Mexican journalism. In so doing, the core argument draws upon the concepts of those exogenous and endogenous forces (related to political and media systems, respectively) that simultaneously foster and/or hinder the transformation of the media, thereby creating an uneven process of modernization.

Keywords : Modernization; Mexico; Media System; Political System; Post-authoritarianism; Emergent Democracies.