Gran Bretaña

Since the eighties, the political face of Mexico has been changing gradually. There has been a shift from the hegemony of the official Institutional Revolutionary Party to a more egalitarian distribution of power, in which the other two main parties (Natio nal Action Party and Democratic Revolution Party) have gained salience at national, state and local levels (Camp 1999, Eisenstadt 2003, Hiskey 2003, Hiskey and Bowler 2005, Elizondo 2006 and Escalante 2006). Nonetheless, it is still not clear the impact of this reconfiguration on news organizations: in their studies on Mexican journalism, Lawson (2002) and Hughes (2003 and 2006) perceived a general trend towards modernization. By taking certain news outlets located in the most important cities (mainly in Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey), they considered that, indeed, Mexican media are undergoing progressive change. However, looking at other places like Morelia -makes evident that the situation in the rest of the country is different. Therefore, this research will argue that, despite the arrival of diverse political parties to the national, state and local administrations, the relationship between reporters and high rank political authorities remains the same. That is, the exchange of favours – economic most of the times – still determines the way news organizations and politicians interact.

USA

This dissertation tries to deal critically with the common utilization of media literacy as skilled - based initiative or participatory culture building. It raises a number of questions about the process of participation and production that have often been ignored by a media literacy research. Based on work I did directly with two communities of youth Latina/os in weekly media workshops that had real community impact, I examine the participatory dynamics surrounding three video productions that responded to stereotypes and the topics of community service and immigration in corporate news media representations of the Latina/o community and the U.S.-Mexico border.