Organized crime and news treatment in Mexico: a longitudinal analysis of three news shows

Resumen

Watching television serves a wide range of purposes ranging from entertainment to information seeking. Human beings require too fulfil certain psychological needs throughout the day; one of them is the need to locate themselves within a larger psycho-social context. This is one of the main reasons behind news in general and television news shows in particular. They assist people in evaluating their environment through visual and verbal information. Television news production follows journalistic criteria which incorporates media agendas fostered by political, financial and also aesthetic values. The study looks at the way television news making in three national networks portrays organized crime stories. By conducting a longitudinal content analysis in four different years (i.e. 1997, 2000, 2009 and 2013) of news stories covering organized crime in Mexico, this work allows to compare over time and across television networks they way crime news are framed on Mexican television. The study finds helps to understand how different social contexts might correlate to the way crime news are located within the news shows and also how different State institutions are related to this issue.