Mireya Márquez-Ramírez

Journalistic performance in Latin America: A comparative study of professional roles in news content

Comparative research across the world has shown that nation-level variables are strong predictors of professional roles in journalism. There is, however, still insufficient comparative research about three key issues: cross-national comparison of journalistic role performance, exploration of how – or whether – organizational variables account for variation in role performance across countries, and the performance of specific journalistic roles that prevail in regions with post-authoritarian political trajectories. This article tackles these three issues by comparatively measuring journalistic performance in five Latin American countries. Based on a content analysis of 9841 news items from 18 newspapers, this article reports findings from Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Ecuador and Mexico, by analyzing the presence of the ‘interventionist’, ‘watchdog’, ‘loyal’, ‘service’, ‘infotainment’, and ‘civic’ roles. Results show that the region is far from homogeneous and that while ‘country’ is a strong predictor for most of the roles, other variables such as ‘media type’, ‘political orientation’, and ‘news topic’ are also significant predictors to varying levels.

Rethinking professional autonomy: Autonomy to develop and to publish news in Mexico and Colombia

Professional autonomy has usually been defined in terms of journalists’ perceptions of their control over their work vis-à-vis organizational supervisors. Using surveys of journalists in Colombia and Mexico, we identify two dimensions of perceived autonomy: first, control over story development tasks (the traditional understanding of autonomy in empirical studies); second, the ability to actually publish news on a range of subjects associated with different levels of material or cultural power. We then identify predictors of both dimensions of autonomy. Physical threats, overlapping forms of inequality, and clientelism characterize pressures on autonomy in these two democracies. Journalists can carve out more space for autonomy by gaining professional experience or by creating new organizational arrangements and supporting analytical, change-oriented norms. By examining professional autonomy empirically in a broad range of contexts, we demonstrate that autonomy is more complex, situational, and historically contingent than previously believed.

Expanding Influences Research to Insecure Democracies: How violence, public insecurity, economic inequality and uneven democratic performance shape journalists’ perceived work environments

Democracies with sharp violence and public insecurity have proliferated in recent decades, with many also featuring extreme economic inequality. These conditions have not been explicitly considered in comparative research on journalists’ work environments, an omission that may obscure important realities of contemporary journalism. We address this gap through analysis of journalist surveys in 62 countries. We confirm the existence of insecure democracies as an empirical phenomenon and begin to unravel their meaning for journalists. We find democracies with uneven democratic performance tend to have more journalist assassinations, which is the most extreme form of influence on work, and that levels of democratic performance, violence, public insecurity and economic inequality significantly shape how journalists perceive various influences in their work environment. Case studies of insecure democracies in Africa and Latin America address why these conditions sometimes (but not always) lead to journalist assassinations and other anti-press violence. They suggest anti-press violence is higher when sub-national state actors intensify criminal violence and when insecurity is geographically and topically proximate to journalists. How journalists’ perceive influences on work are therefore more complex and multidimensional than previous research has suggested. The study concludes by identifying areas for improvement in data collection.

Local-Level Authoritarianism, Democratic Normative Aspirations, and Antipress Harassment: Predictors of Threats to Journalists in Mexico:

Cross-national research has identified crime, corruption, and human rights abuses as explanations for threats against journalists in democracies and authoritarian hybrids plagued by antipress violence. In-depth studies additionally suggest gender or occupational characteristics such as risky newsbeats increase the likelihood of being threatened. We overcome data limitations in many of these studies by analyzing work-related threats reported by journalists in Mexico, a territorially uneven democracy. Findings confirm that contexts of criminal insecurity are the strongest predictor of threats but only for journalists who are frequently harassed. For the infrequently threatened, democratic normative commitments are a stronger predictor. Subnational government corruption is another important predictor of threat but operates counter to expectations. We believe this is because clientelism sufficiently controls journalists without the need for threat. Neither occupational traits nor gender were individually important predictors. Findings suggest future research should compare threat and harassment across lower and higher risk contexts, and measure public insecurity and clientelism at the local level where journalists actually work. Measurement improvements might better reveal the gender dynamics of threat. More broadly, comparative research and policy-making in democracies and authoritarian hybrids should focus on how local authoritarians limit journalists’ democratic normative aspirations.

The influence of journalistic role performance on objective reporting: A comparative study of Chilean, Mexican, and Spanish news:

Most comparative research on journalistic objectivity, and particularly the relation between objectivity and professional roles, has been carried out in the context of Western media systems and from the perspective of journalists’ role conceptions. However, the relation between role performance and the implementation of the objectivity norm remains unsolved, especially in countries with no clear-cut journalistic tradition of objectivity. Based on a content analysis of news stories published in Chile, Mexico, and Spain (N = 7,868), this study examines (1) the use of four objective reporting methods in newspapers from Spain, Mexico, and Chile, and (2) the influence of the performance of six journalistic roles in those methods. The results show that the materialization of objectivity varies across journalistic cultures, revealing also a significant influence of the performance of professional roles on the implementation of objectivity in news. The study sheds some light on the implication of these results in countries expected to display similar traits due to their historical and cultural affinities but which show very distinctive patterns.

Journalists in Mexico

The typical journalist in Mexico is male, in his late thirties and primarily holds a university degree in the field of media, communications or journalism. Of the 377 interviewed journalists, a little less than a third (n=120) were female, making for a proportion of 31.8 percent of the overall sample. On average, Mexican journalists were 38.41 years old (s=10.38), with 50% being 37 years old or younger. In fact, nearly a fourth (26.0%) of the respondents were between 21 and 30 years old. Journalists in Mexico tend to be university-educated: 75.1 percent of the respondents hold a Bachelor degree, while 4.5 percent undertook some university studies but did not complete them. Another 11.4 percent hold a postgraduate degree, mostly at the Masters level. Of those respondents who held a university degree, the majority (68.4%) specialized either in journalism, another communication field, or both, but 31.7 percent had specialized in a different field.