Mediatization in Post-Authoritarian Democracies. Thirty Years of Media Logic in the Mexican Press

Mediatization theory contends that as the media becomes more pervasive, authoritative, and autonomous, politicians adapt their discourses and practices to their media logic, that renders political events and discourses into engaging and pleasurable narratives, deemphasizing their political substance (the opposite political logic of public discourse). Nonetheless, in transitional democracies such as Mexico the conditions that drive this process are different to that of their original, European, formulations: markets are small, journalistic autonomy is unstable, commercialism is aggressive, and professionalism is weak. These conditions would heighten political logic in media coverage in small media markets, but increase the media logic as well in strong markets with low professional autonomy. Nonetheless, the frame analysis of this chapter, about the coverage of the last five presidential elections (1994, 2000, 2006, 2012, and 2018) by the Mexican elite press contradicts these expectations: media logic is mostly about strategic coverage, while other indicators of it are negligible. Political logic is relatively high yet is not about issues, but the electoral procedures. Thus, media and political logic manifest in different ways than in advanced democracies, which calls to adjust the assumptions of the mediatization theory to be useful in transitional democracies.