Abstract

FLORES GONZALEZ, Rubén; SALDIERNA SALAS, Alma Rosa  and  GIL MORALES, Cinthia. News Bias in the Coverage of the Local Elections of the States of Nuevo Leon and Colima. Rev. mex. opinión pública [online]. 2018, n.24, pp.169-185. ISSN 2448-4911.  https://doi.org/10.22201/fcpys.24484911e.2018.24.61187.

In the coverage of Mexican elections, some media choose to frame certain candidates’ and parties’ attributes, with the specific purpose of empowering the political aspirations of one of the contenders. Even if the emergence of social and digital media favors some balance regarding the distribution of media bias, regional newspapers still exert an important influence while covering local campaigns. Because of this, the present study aims to characterize the news bias observed in the main newspapers of the Mexican states of Nuevo Leon and Colima, during the coverage of the 2015 local campaigns for governor. After this characterization, a comparative analysis was performed on biases found in each state. Through content analysis of the articles on the front pages of the newspapers observed, it was found a deeper bias in Colima’s publications than those of Nuevo Leon. It is suggested that these differences relate to the economic context of both entities, media diversity, the cost of advertising, and the acquisition of ads on behalf of the contending parties.

Keywords : Bias; framing; electoral campaigns; political communication; content analysis.