B.J.Pol.S. 35, 1–30 Copyright © 2004 Cambridge University Press
DOI: 10.1017/S00070123405000013 Printed in the United Kingdom
Television News, Mexico’s 2000 Elections and Media
Effects in Emerging Democracies
CHAPPELL LAWSON
AND
JAMES A. M C CANN*
On the basis of an analysis of a four-wave panel survey, we argue that exposure to television news had
significant, substantial effects on both attitudes and vote choices in Mexico’s watershed presidential election
of 2000. These findings support the contention, implicit in some research on political communication, that the
magnitude of media effects varies with certain features of the political context. In particular, television
influence in electoral campaigns may be substantially larger in emerging democratic systems.
In contrast to ‘small effects’ models of media influence in electoral campaigns, we argue
that television coverage had a powerful impact on Mexico’s 2000 presidential election.
Exposure to broadcasts on the Televisión Azteca network dampened enthusiasm for
Francisco Labastida, nominee of the long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).
Meanwhile, the initially deleterious effects of newscasts from the Televisa network on
opinions of Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas disappeared when coverage of that candidate improved
markedly during the second half of the campaign.
Exposure to television news also affected political behaviour (i.e., vote choice). For
instance, viewing Televisión Azteca was associated with substantial increases in the
likelihood of supporting victorious opposition candidate Vicente Fox and substantial
declines in the likelihood of supporting Labastida. Televisa news coverage, by contrast,
had a much more muted effect.
Television coverage was not the only, nor even the most important, influence on
Mexican voters in 2000; widespread disenchantment with corruption and economic
mismanagement, political reforms during the 1990s that levelled the electoral playing field,
Fox’s charismatic appeal and Labastida’s lack thereof were also crucial ingredients in the
final outcome.1 But news coverage was a crucial factor in shaping voter attitudes and
behaviour.
* Department of Political Science at, respectively, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Purdue
University. The authors are indebted to Chistopher Achen, Steve Ansolabehere, Brandice Canes-Wrone, Jorge
Domı́nguez, Pippa Norris, Alejandro Poiré, David Sanders, Jim Snyder, Gadi Wolfsfeld, four anonymous
reviewers from the Journal and their collaborators in the Mexico 2000 Panel Study for advice and comments on
earlier drafts. Organizers of the Mexico 2000 Panel Study include Miguel Basañez, Roderic Camp, Wayne
Cornelius, Jorge Domı́nguez, Federico Estévez, Joseph Klesner, Chappell Lawson (Principal Investigator), Beatriz
Magaloni, James McCann, Alejandro Moreno, Pablo Parás and Alejandro Poiré. Support for the Mexico 2000
Panel Study was provided by the National Science Foundation (SES-9905703) and Reforma newspaper. Technical
details on the Mexico 2000 Panel Study, as well as copies of the survey instruments, are available at:
http://web.mit.edu/polisci/Faculty/C.Lawson.html. The authors are also grateful to Reforma newspaper, the
Federal Electoral Institute and Edmundo Berumen for providing data from their analyses of Mexican television
coverage, as well as to the Mexican Academy of Human Rights for providing recordings of the news programmes
with which to conduct their own content analysis. The bulk of this analysis was performed by Mariana Sanz.
1
Jorge I. Domı́nguez and Chappell Lawson, eds, Mexico’s Pivotal Democratic Election: Candidates, Voters,
and the Presidential Campaign of 2000 (Stanford and La Jolla, Calif.: Stanford University Press and the Center
for U.S-Mexican Studies, University of California at San Diego, 2003).
2
L A W S O N A N D McC A N N
These findings have potentially broad implications for the study of elections and political
communication outside of the developed West. Among other things, they suggest the
limited transportability of ‘small effects’ models of campaign influence to emerging
democracies. They thus lend support to the notion, implicit in some research on political
communication, that the magnitude of media influence varies with certain features of the
political context.
The first section of this article briefly reviews the literature on media effects in elections.
This section suggests that media influence on voter’s attitudes and behaviour depends on
specific aspects of the political and informational context. Where these aspects are less
pronounced, as in Mexican elections, the potential scope for media effects is substantially
greater.
The second section evaluates television news coverage in Mexico during the 2000
campaign, drawing on data from the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE), Reforma newspaper,
and a detailed content analysis of the two leading nightly news programmes. This latter
dataset includes measures of visual tone, previously neglected in much of the media effects
literature.2 All told, content analysis reveals that different television audiences received
somewhat different cues at different points in the campaign. In general, the country’s
largest network (Televisa) remained more sympathetic towards the ruling party than its
newer rival (Televisión Azteca). But campaign coverage, especially Televisa’s coverage
of Cárdenas, also shifted over the course of the race.
The third section analyses the effects of television coverage on public opinion towards
the three main candidates. Using data from the Mexico 2000 Panel Study, this section
shows that large differences in the tone of coverage of the main candidates shaped relative
appraisals of those candidates. Where reporting was balanced, the effects of exposure to
television news were quite small; however, substantial discrepancies in the tone of
coverage were typically reflected in public opinion.
The fourth section turns to the impact of television coverage on political behaviour –
specifically, self-reported vote choice in the election. Exposure to network news on
Televisión Azteca eroded support for Labastida, mainly to the benefit of Fox. The effects
of Televisa coverage, however, were modest.
The fifth section addresses potential objections to our analysis of media effects. In
essence, this section comprises various tests designed to demonstrate the robustness of the
findings summarized above. We conclude that the same results hold when we employ
different clusters of control variables, apply newer methods for handling missing data,
control for measurement error, take into account audience self-selection to ideologically
congruent media outlets, and allow for switching between television networks over the
course of the campaign.
The final section briefly considers the implications of these findings for the study of
political communication. For the most part, current arguments about the effects of
television news coverage on partisan preferences and voting behaviour are based on the
experience of established democracies in the developed world, such as the United States,
2
See H. M. Kepplinger, ‘Visual Biases in Television Campaign Coverage’, Communication Research, 9
(1982), 432–46; H. M. Kepplinger, ‘Content Analysis and Reception Analysis’, American Behavioral Scientist,
33 (1989), 175–82; Doris A. Graber, ‘Content and Meaning; What’s It All About?’ American Behavioral Scientist,
33 (1989), 144–52; Doris A. Graber, ‘Television News without Pictures’, Critical Studies in Mass Communication,
4 (1987), 74–8; S. F. Geiger and Byron Reeves, ‘The Effects of Visual Structure and Content Emphasis on the
Evaluation and Memory for Political Candidates’, in Frank Biocca, ed., Television and Political Advertising,
Vol. 1 (Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum, 1991), pp. 125–44.
Television News, Mexico’s 2000 Elections and Media Effects
3
Canada, England and Germany.3 Conclusions from such studies may not travel well to
emerging democracies in the developing world. In these countries, we argue, the potential
scope for media effects on public opinion and voting behaviour is much greater.
MEXICO AND THE MINIMAL EFFECTS PARADIGM
For almost fifty years, scholars in the United States have maintained a healthy scepticism
about the effects of television news coverage on partisan preferences and voting behaviour.
Although media exposure might heighten public consideration of particular issues, help
to frame political debate, and shape the opinions of uninformed or undecided voters, their
direct impact remains fairly limited.4 In particular, the persuasive influence of television
coverage during general election campaigns ranges from modest to minimal.5
3
Angus Campbell, Philip E. Converse, Warren E. Miller and Donald E. Stokes, The American Voter (New
York: John Wiley, 1960); Thomas E. Patterson and Robert McClure, The Unseeing Eye: The Myth of Television
Power in National Elections (New York: Putnam, 1976); William J. McGuire, ‘Theoretical Foundations of
Campaigns’, in Ronald E. Rice and Charles K. Atkins, eds, Public Communication Campaigns (London: Sage,
1989), pp. 15–40; Richard Johnston, André Blais, Henry E. Brady and Jean Crête, Letting the People Decide:
Dynamics of a Canadian Election (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992); Holli A. Semetko and Klaus
Schoenbach, Germany’s Unity Election: Voters and the Media (Cresskill, N.J.: Hampton, 1994); Lawrence LeDuc,
Richard G. Niemi and Pippa Norris, eds, Comparing Democracies: Elections and Voting in Global Perspective
(Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage, 1996); and Pippa Norris, John Curtis, David Sanders, Margaret Scammell and Holli
Semetko, On Message: Communicating the Campaign (London: Sage, 1999).
4
Thomas Holbrook, Do Campaigns Matter? (Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage, 1996); Larry Bartels, ‘Uninformed
Voters: Information Effects on Presidential Elections’, American Journal of Political Science, 40 (1996), 194–230;
David Domke, David D. Fan, Michael Fibison, Dhavab V. Shah, Steve S. Smith and Mark D. Watts, ‘News Media,
Candidates and Issues, and Public Opinion in the 1996 Presidential Campaign’, Journalism and Mass
Communication Quarterly, 74 (1997), 718–37; Diana C. Mutz, Paul M. Sniderman and Richard A. Brody, eds,
Political Persuasion and Attitude Change (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996), esp. Steven H.
Chaffee and Rajiv Nath Rimal, ‘Time of Vote Decision and Openness to Persuasion’, pp. 267–92; Stephen
Ansolabehere, Roy Behr and Shanto Iyengar, ‘Mass Media and Elections: An Overview’, American Politics
Quarterly, 19 (1991), 109–13; Stephen Ansolabehere, Roy Behr and Shanto Iyengar, The Media Game: American
Politics in the Television Age (New York: Macmillan, 1993); Jon A. Krosnick and Donald R. Kinder, ‘Altering
the Foundations of Presidential Support through Priming’, American Political Science Review, 84 (1990),
497–512; Dan Drew and David Weaver, ‘Media Attention, Media Exposure, and Media Effects’, Journalism
Quarterly, 67 (1990), 740–8; William J. McGuire, ‘Theoretical Foundations of Campaigns’, in Ronald E. Rice
and Charles K. Atkins, eds, Public Communication Campaigns (London: Sage, 1989), pp. 43–65; Shanto Iyengar
and Donald Kinder, News that Matters: Television and American Opinion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1987); Carl R. Bybee, Jack M. McLeod, William D. Luetscher and Gina Garramone, ‘Mass Communication and
Voter Volatility’, Public Opinion Quarterly, 45 (1981), 69–90; Steven H. Chaffee and Sun Yuel Choe, ‘Time of
Decision and Media Use in the Ford–Carter Campaign’, Public Opinion Quarterly, 44 (1980), 53–69; Lutz Erbring,
Edie Goldenberg and Arthur Miller, ‘Front Page News and Real World Cues: A New Look at Agenda-Setting
by the Media’, American Journal of Political Science, 24 (1980), 16–49; Steven H. Chaffee and John L.
Hochheimer, ‘The Beginnings of Political Communication Research in the United States: Origins of the “Limited
Effects” Model’, in Everett M. Rogers and Francis Balle, eds, The Media Revolution in America and Western
Europe (Norwood, N.J.: Ablex, 1982), pp. 267–96; Elihu Katz, ‘Platforms and Windows: Broadcasting’s Role
in Election Campaigns,’ Journalism Quarterly, 48 (1973), 304–14; Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw, ‘The
Agenda-Setting Function of the Mass Media’, Public Opinion Quarterly, 36 (1972), 176–87.
5
Paul Lazarsfeld, Bernard Berelson and Hazel Gaudet, The People’s Choice, 2nd edn (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1948); Bernard Berelson, Paul F. Lazarsfeld and William N. McPhee, Voting: A Study of Opinion
Formation in a Presidential Campaign (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1954); Campbell et al., The
American Voter; Patterson and McClure, The Unseeing Eye; Thomas E. Patterson and Robert McClure, The Mass
Media Election: How Americans Choose Their President (New York: Praeger, 1980); William J. McGuire, ‘The
Myth of Massive Media Impact: Savagings and Salvagings’, Public Communication and Behavior, 1 (1986),
4
L A W S O N A N D McC A N N
To be sure, a variety of priming, framing and agenda-setting effects have been found
in Western democracies. But precious few studies have demonstrated persuasively that
exposure to conventional news broadcasts during a campaign can lead to significant,
substantial changes in public opinion and voting preferences. As one recent summary of
the literature put it:
Political scientists still routinely attribute electoral outcomes to structural variables – most
notably, the state of the national economy and the level of the incumbent president’s popularity
– giving short shrift to the specifics of day-to-day campaign events. These are generally viewed
as having ‘minimal consequences’ … Perhaps the most fundamental obstacle to understanding
the real-world role of political campaigns is a conceptual limitation on what effects are deemed
relevant. Traditional research has looked mainly at persuasion (i.e., the effect of a campaign
on voter preference). Within this definition, the law of minimal consequences has some validity
… [Moreover] identifiable traces of persuasion are bound to be minimal because most
campaigns feature offsetting messages.6
The original arguments for ‘minimal’, ‘modest’ or indirect media influence were
developed in the United States and (to lesser extent) other affluent, established
democracies. These countries are characterized by several features that would tend to limit
media effects on voters’ attitudes and decisions. First, pronounced and enduring partisan
cleavages render most voters resistant to short-term campaign stimuli.7 In addition,
widespread access to different sources of information means that media audiences are not
heavily dependent on one-sided cues about political alternatives. Instead, voters rely on
sources that are either reasonably balanced or that accord with their existing preferences.8
(F’note continued)
173–257; Johnston et al., Letting the People Decide; Steven E. Finkel, ‘Re-examining the “Minimal Effects”
Model in Recent Presidential Campaigns’, Journal of Politics, 55 (1993), 1–21; Semetko and Schoenbach,
Germany’s Unity Election; David L. Swanson and Paolo Mancini, eds, Politics, Media, and Modern Democracy:
An International Study of Innovations in Electoral Campaigning and their Consequences (New York: Praeger,
1996); Maxwell McCombs, Juan Pablo Llamas, Estéban López-Escobar and Federico Rey, ‘Candidate Images
in Spanish Election: Second-Level Agenda-Setting Effects’, Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, 74
(1997), 703–17; and Timothy Colton, Transitional Citizens: Voters and What Influences Them in the New Russia
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000).
6
Shanto Iyengar and Adam F. Simon, ‘New Perspectives and Evidence on Political Communication and
Campaign Effects’, Annual Review of Psychology, 51 (2000), 149–69, at pp. 150–1.
7
Lazarsfeld et al., The People’s Choice; Campbell et al., The American Voter; Philip E. Converse and Georges
Dupeux, ‘Politicization of the Electorate in France and the United States,’ Public Opinion Quarterly, 26 (1962):
1–23; David Butler and Donald Stokes, Political Change in Britain (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1969); Herbert
B. Asher, ‘Some Consequences of Measurement Error in Surveys’, American Journal of Political Science, 18
(1974), 469–85; Christopher H. Achen, ‘Mass Political Attitudes and the Survey Response’, American Political
Science Review, 69 (1975), 1218–31; Donald P. Green and Bradley Palmquist, ‘Of Artifacts and Partisan
Instability’, American Journal of Political Science, 34 (1990), 872–902; Jon Krosnick, ‘The Stability of Political
Preferences: Comparisons of Symbolic and Nonsymbolic Attitudes’, American Journal of Political Science, 35
(1991), 547–76; Eric Schickler and Donald Green, ‘The Stability of Party Identification in Western Democracies’,
Comparative Political Studies, 30 (1997), 450–83; R. Prislin, ‘Attitude Stability and Attitude Strength: One Is
Enough to Make It Stable’, European Journal of Social Psychology, 26 (1996), 447–77; Donald P. Green and
David H. Yoon, ‘Reconciling Individual and Aggregate Evidence Concerning Partisan Stability: Applying
Time-Series Models to Panel Survey Data’, Political Analysis, 10 (2002), 1–24.
8
Jack M. McLeod and Lee B. Becker, ‘The Uses and Gratifications Approach’, in Dan D. Nimmo and Keith
R. Sanders, Handbook of Political Communication (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1981), pp. 67–100; John R. Zaller,
‘The Myth of Massive Media Impact Revived: New Support for a Discredited Idea,’ in Mutz, Sniderman and
Brody, eds, Political Persuasion and Attitude Change, pp. 17–78; Holli Semetko, ‘Political Balance on Television:
Campaigns in the United States, Britain and Germany’, Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics, 1 (1996),
51–71; Russell J. Dalton, Paul Allen Beck and Robert Huckfeldt, ‘Partisan Cues and the Media: Information Flows
Television News, Mexico’s 2000 Elections and Media Effects
5
These features, of course, are not typical of most of the world’s democracies. In many
emerging democratic systems, partisan identifications tend to be weaker and political
alternatives less familiar.9 As a result, a greater percentage of the population may be
available for persuasion over the course of the campaign. The informational context in most
democracies, too, is quite different. Outside northern Europe and the Anglophone
immigrant countries, dominant media outlets are typically controlled by private individuals
with clear political preferences (Brazil, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela, etc.), by public
authorities that systematically favour the incumbent party (Hungary, Czech Republic,
Taiwan until 2000, etc.), or by some combination of the two (Russia, Italy, etc.).10 Rarely
do viewers have access to balanced reporting on a state-run network, as in Germany and
England, or substantial choice between different private broadcasting networks, as in the
United States. Self-selection to ideologically congruent or unbiased media outlets is
consequently more difficult.
Even in developed democracies, scholars have found more pronounced effects when one
or more of the features that normally limit media influence did not hold. For instance, where
political alternatives are less well known and partisan cues cannot be used to distinguish
between contenders, as with primary elections and independent candidacies, scholars have
tended to find larger persuasive impacts.11 Likewise, researchers have found evidence of
substantial media influence where audiences depended heavily on biased sources for
information, or where reporting fell clearly on one side of an issue.12 One interpretation
(F’note continued)
in the 1992 Presidential Election’, American Political Science Review, 92 (1998), 111–26; and Diana C. Mutz
and Paul S. Martin, ‘Facilitating Communication across Lines of Political Difference: The Role of the Mass
Media’, American Political Science Review, 95 (2001), 97–114.
9
James A. McCann and Chappell Lawson, ‘An Electorate Adrift: Public Opinion and the Quality of Democracy
in Mexico’, Latin American Research Review, 38 (2003), 60–81.
10
Chappell Lawson, Building the Fourth Estate: Democratization and the Rise of a Free Press in Mexico
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002); Matthew Wyman, Stephen White and Sarah Oates, Elections
and Voters in Post-Communist Russia (London: Edward Elgar, 1998); Ellen Mickiewicz and Andrei Richter,
‘Television, Campaigning and Elections in the Soviet Union and Post-Soviet Russia’, in David L. Swanson and
Paolo Mancini, eds, Politics, Media, and Modern Democracy: An International Study of Innovations in Electoral
Campaigning and their Consequences (New York: Praeger, 1996), pp. 107–28; LeDuc et al., Comparing
Democracies; Silvio Waisbord, ‘Television and Election Campaigns in Contemporary Argentina’, Journal of
Communication, 44 (1994), 125–35; Thomas E. Skidmore, ed., Television, Politics, and the Transition to
Democracy in Latin America (Baltimore/Washington, D.C.: Johns Hopkins University Press/Woodrow Wilson
Center Press, 1993); Slavko Splichal, ‘Media Privatization and Democratization in Central-Eastern Europe’,
Gazette, 46 (1992), 3–22.
11
Larry Bartels, Presidential Primaries and the Dynamics of Public Choice (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press, 1988); Samuel Popkin, The Reasoning Voter: Communication and Persuasion in Presidential
Campaigns (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991); John R. Zaller with Mark Hunt, ‘The Rise and Fall
of Candidate Perot: Unmediated versus Mediated Politics. Part 1 of a Two-Part Article’, Political Communication,
11 (1994), 357–90; Mark Hunt and John Zaller, ‘The Rise and Fall of Candidate Perot: The Outsider vs. The
System. Part 2 of a Two-Part Article’, Political Communication, 12 (1995), 97–123; Zaller, ‘The Myth of Massive
Media Impact Revived’.
12
Sandra J. Ball-Rokeach and Melvin DeFleur, ‘A Dependency Model of Mass Media Effects’, Communication
Research, 3 (1976), 3–21; Sandra J. Ball-Rokeach, M. Rokeach and J. W. Grube, The Great American Values
Test: Influencing Behavior and Belief through Television (New York: Free Press, 1984); L. Becker and D. C.
Witney, ‘Effects of Media Dependencies: Audience Assessments of Government’, Communication Research, 7
(1980), 95–120; Richard A Brody, Assessing the President: The Media, Elite Opinion and Public Support
(Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1991); Benjamin I. Page and Robert Shapiro, The Rational Public:
Fifty Years of Trends in Americans’ Policy Preferences (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), pp. 339–47;
John R. Zaller, The Nature and Origins of Public Opinion (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992); Michael
6
L A W S O N A N D McC A N N
of the scholarly literature, then, is that media effects on partisan preferences and voting
behaviour may be minimal, modest or moderate depending on the political and
informational context.
Mexico shares with developed democracies certain features that tend to limit media
effects. Gradual democratization over the last fifteen years has left Mexicans much more
familiar with their political alternatives.13 Its three main parties are now quite well known,
and partisan attachments – while not as entrenched as in most developed democracies –
certainly exist.14 The median voter is literate and at least theoretically has access to different
channels of political communication.15 Moreover, the media environment itself has
changed markedly since the early 1990s, with the relaxation of official controls and the
emergence of a second national television network.16
At the same time, several features of the Mexican political context suggest more
pronounced media influences. Although all three major parties were well known in 2000,
only one of them had ever held power at the national level. Partisan cleavages were
relatively weak at the start of the 2000 campaign, with only 24 per cent of Mexicans
identifying strongly with any party and 30 per cent declining to express a partisan
preference.17 At the same time, Mexicans rely on a relatively limited number of media
outlets for information about politics. Broadcast television dwarfs other traditional
information sources – such as radio, newspapers and interpersonal communication – in its
reach, and it surpasses those sources in perceived credibility.18 Moreover, television is
itself quite concentrated. In February 2000, for instance, approximately 93 per cent of
Mexicans who reported watching television news during the campaign watched one of the
two main networks, and two-thirds watched one of the two main nightly news programmes
on these networks.19 There is thus ample reason to anticipate more pronounced media
(F’note continued)
B. MacKuen, Robert S. Erikson and James A. Stimson, ‘Peasants or Bankers: The American Electorate and the
U.S. Economy’, American Political Science Review, 86 (1992), 597–610; Steven H. Chaffee, ed., Political
Communication (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1975).
13
Roderic Ai Camp, Politics in Mexico (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999); Wayne Cornelius,
Mexican Politics in Transition: The Breakdown of a One-Party-Dominant Regime (La Jolla: Center for
U.S.-Mexican Studies/University of California at San Diego, 1996); Jorge I. Domı́nguez and James A. McCann,
‘Shaping Mexico’s Electoral Arena: The Construction of Partisan Cleavages in the 1988 and 1991 National
Elections’, American Political Science Review, 89 (1995), 34–48; Jorge I. Domı́nguez and James McCann,
Democratizing Mexico: Public Opinion and Electoral Choice (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press,
1996); Jorge I. Domı́nguez and Alejandro Poiré, Toward Mexico’s Democratization: Parties, Campaigns,
Elections, and Public Opinion (New York: Routledge, 1999); Domı́nguez and Lawson, Mexico’s Pivotal
Democratic Election; Kathleen Bruhn and Daniel C. Levy with Emilio Zepadúa, Mexico: The Struggle for
Democratic Development (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001); Chappell Lawson, ‘Mexico’s
Unfinished Transition: Democratization and Authoritarian Enclaves in Mexico’, Estudios Mexicanos/Mexican
Studies, 16 (2000), 267–87.
14
Domı́nguez and Lawson, Mexico’s Pivotal Democratic Election; Joseph L. Klesner, ‘The Structure of the
Mexican Electorate: Social, Attitudinal, and Partisan Bases of Vicente Fox’s Victory’, in Domı́nguez and Lawson,
Mexico’s Pivotal Democratic Election, pp. 91–122; McCann and Lawson, ‘An Electorate Adrift?’; Domı́nguez
and Poiré, Toward Mexico’s Democratization; Domı́nguez and McCann, Democratizing Mexico.
15
James A. McCann, ‘The Changing Mexican Electorate: Political Interest, Expertise, and Party Support in
the 1980s and 1990s’, in Mónica Serrano, ed., Governing Mexico: Political Parties and Elections (London:
Institute of Latin American Studies, 1998), pp. 15–37.
16
Lawson, Building the Fourth Estate.
17
Mexico 2000 Panel Study; McCann and Lawson, ‘An Electorate Adrift?’; Klesner, ‘The Structure of the
Mexican Electorate’.
18
Chappell Lawson, ‘Television Coverage, Vote Choice, and the 2000 Campaign’, in Domı́nguez and Lawson,
eds, Mexico’s Pivotal Democratic Election, pp. 187–209.
19
Mexico 2000 Panel Study.
Television News, Mexico’s 2000 Elections and Media Effects
7
effects in Mexico than have so far been found in the United States, Canada, Australia and
Western Europe.
TELEVISION COVERAGE IN 2000
Where audiences are exposed to roughly the same signals, media effects may be difficult
to detect. Where different segments of the electorate receive divergent cues, however, large
effects may be more readily apparent.20 One important step in analysing media effects,
therefore, is to find adequate variation in media exposure.
In Mexico, the long-dominant Televisa network has frequently been criticized for bias
in favour of the ruling party.21 News on the smaller, newer Television Azteca network, by
contrast, is generally seen as more balanced, at least with regard to the conservative
National Action Party (PAN). Both networks are regarded as more hostile towards the
leftist Party of Democratic Revolution (PRD), although the extent of this hostility has
varied over time. Finally, coverage over the course of the 2000 campaign appears to have
shifted following Labastida’s poor performance in the first televised debate in late April.
In the wake of that event, the PRI put on intense pressure to accord greater coverage to
Fox’s rivals, and some broadcasters capitulated to these pressures.22 Assuming that these
impressions of television coverage are correct, it should be possible to identify segments
of the electorate who received quite different media cues, either chronically or at specific
periods, during the 2000 campaign.
Perhaps the simplest way to evaluate coverage on Mexico’s main networks is by
measuring the volume of airtime devoted to each candidate. Table 1 presents two different
inventories of television news coverage for the three major candidates – Labastida (PRI),
Fox (of the Alliance for Change, dominated by the PAN), and Cárdenas (of the Alliance
for Mexico, dominated by the PRD) – on the two national networks from the official
beginning of the campaign in February 2000 to the end of June that same year.23 The first
set of columns shows IFE figures for the major nightly news programme on each network.
The second shows data from Reforma newspaper’s monitoring of all daily coverage on the
20
Zaller, ‘The Myth of Massive Media Impact Revived’.
Lawson, Building the Fourth Estate; Mony de Swaan, Carolina Gómez and Juan Molinar-Horcasitas,
‘Medios y objetividad’, Milenio Diario, 25 June 2000; Luis Guillermo Hernández, ‘Piden equidad en medios’,
Reforma, 4 May 2002; Guadalupe Irı́zar, ‘Es equidad tema central en Televisa’, Reforma, 9 May 2000; Daniel
C. Hallin, ‘Media, Political Power and Democratization in Mexico’, in James Currant and Myung-Jin Park, eds,
De-Westernizing Media Studies (London: Routledge, 2000), pp. 97–110; William A. Orme Jr, ed., A Culture of
Collusion: An Inside Look at the Mexican Press (Miami, Fla.: North-South Center, University of Miami and The
Committee to Protect Journalists, 1997); Ilya Adler, ‘The Mexican Case: The Media in the 1988 Presidential
Election’, in Skidmore, ed., Television, Politics, and the Transition to Democracy in Latin America, pp. 145–74;
Pablo Arredondo-Ramı́rez, Gilberto Fregoso-Peralta and Raúl Trejo-Delarbre, Ası́ se calló el sistema:
Comunicación y elecciones en 1988 (Guadalajara: Universidad de Guadalajara, 1988); Raúl Trejo-Delarbre, ed.,
Las redes de Televisa (Mexico City: Claves Latinoamericánas, 1988); Fernando Mejı́a-Barquera and Raúl
Trejo-Delarbre, Televisa: el quinto poder (Mexico City: Claves Latinoamericanos, 1985).
22
First author’s interviews with journalists, academics, electoral authorities and political advisers in Mexico
City, May–June 2000; Ramón Sevilla-Turcios, ‘Alertan sobre favoritismo en televisoras’, Reforma, 27 April 2000;
Mark Stevenson, ‘Pressure Increases on Mexican Media’, Associated Press, 20 June 2000; Sallie Hughes and
Chappell Lawson, ‘Propaganda and Crony Capitalism: Partisan Bias in Mexican Television News’, Latin
American Research Review (forthcoming).
23
The table excludes data for the three minor presidential candidates – Manuel Camacho, Porfirio Muñoz Ledo
and Gilberto Rincón Gallardo – who collectively garnered less than 3 per cent of the vote.
21
8
L A W S O N A N D McC A N N
TABLE
1
Volume of Television Coverage, by Network over Time
IFE
Reforma
Candidate (coalition/party)
Televisa
Azteca
Televisa
Azteca
Labastida (PRI), Feb–April
Labastida (PRI), May–June
Labastida (PRI), total
33%
32%
33%
38%
33%
36%
36%
30%
34%
38%
34%
35%
Fox (AC/PAN), Feb–April
Fox (AC/PAN), May–June
Fox (AC/PAN), total
38%
37%
37%
42%
41%
40%
39%
33%
37%
38%
37%
39%
Cárdenas (AM/PRD), Feb–April
Cárdenas (AM/PRD), May–June
Cárdenas (AM/PRD), total
29%
31%
30%
20%
26%
24%
25%
37%
30%
24%
30%
26%
17,568
22,020
39,588
22,455
22,474
44,929
55,433
54,914
110,347
56,181
62,181
118,362
Total seconds, Feb–April
Total seconds, May–June
Total seconds
two major networks.24 Because of differences in the programming analysed, the figures
are not identical. Both, however, reveal the same basic tendency: major-party candidates
received roughly comparable shares of airtime throughout the campaign. Fox received the
most coverage, followed by Labastida and then Cárdenas, on both networks throughout
the campaign. Discrepancies between the two measures tend to cancel each other out; the
only clear trend in both is increased attention to Cárdenas during the second half of the
race. Thus, considering only the volume of coverage, one would not perceive significant
biases in television coverage nor expect major differences in patterns of attitude change
across viewers of the two networks. Nor would one anticipate major changes in attitudes
over time, with the possible exception of slightly increased support for Cárdenas towards
the end of the campaign.
Of course, focusing exclusively on time may obscure important differences in the tone
of news reports. To assess tone in a systematic way, we conducted a more detailed analysis
of campaign coverage in a randomly selected sample of forty broadcasts from the two main
nightly news programmes (twenty from each) during the period 18 February to 1 July
2000.25 In addition to measures such as time devoted to different candidates and verbal
characterizations of the main contenders, our content analysis devoted substantial attention
to visual tone of campaign coverage. To this end, we recorded and evaluated a separate
‘image’ each time the camera angle changed.26 Each image was classified into one of
thirteen categories: (1) pan or aerial shots of a large supportive crowd; (2) the candidate
24
Reforma’s monitoring was conducted for twelve hours every day for three different periods: early morning
(6 through 10 a.m.), early afternoon (1 through 4 p.m.), and evening prime time (7 through 11 p.m.). Every type
of programme broadcast in the corresponding time and channels was monitored: news programmes, sports, soap
operas, entertainment shows, etc.
25
This period was selected to coincide with the timing of surveys for the Mexico 2000 Panel Study. Days
selected included: 25 February, 3, 13, 17, 20, 22 and 27 March, 13, 17 and 25 April, 2, 4, 8 and 12 May, 1, 7,
13, 14, 28 and 30 June. Full results from the content analysis are available from the first author upon request.
26
All ‘images’ were treated the same, regardless of length. The number of different images per story ranged
from one to forty.
Television News, Mexico’s 2000 Elections and Media Effects
9
with a supportive crowd; (3) the candidate accompanied by a popular personality, such as
an entertainer, clergyman or athlete; (4) an interview with the candidate by an agreeable
interviewer; (5) an interview with a supporter of the candidate; (6) the candidate
surrounded by reporters; (7) the candidate alone; (8) the candidate speaking to a passive
audience, typically in a formal setting; (9) a disturbance at the candidate’s event; (10) the
candidate with an unsupportive crowd or heckler; (11) an interview with the candidate by
an aggressive or hostile interviewer; (12) an interview with a critic of the candidate; and
(13) other shots during campaign coverage.27 These types of images were then combined
into positive, negative and neutral categories. Pan or aerial shots of a large supportive
crowd, shots of the candidate with a supportive crowd, images of the candidate
accompanied by a popular personality, interviews of the candidate by an agreeable
interviewer and interviews with a supporter of the candidate were coded as positive images.
The reverse of these categories were coded as negative images (the exception being that
there were no images of candidates posing with generally detested or unpopular figures).
Images of the candidate alone, the candidate surrounded by reporters, or passive audiences
listening to the candidate’s speech were coded as neutral; ‘other’ images were excluded.
The summary measure ‘net positive images’ represented positive images minus negative
images, divided by total images (including neutral images but excluding ‘other’ images).28
Although this measure is hardly comprehensive, it captures a crucial element of
television coverage. This measure of tone also confirms anecdotal impressions about the
relative treatment of different candidates on Mexican television at different stages in the
campaign. For instance, Televisión Azteca was widely regarded as more sympathetic
towards Fox than was Televisa, which was generally seen as more sympathetic towards
the ruling party. Likewise, various observers noted that coverage of Labastida and
Cárdenas improved during the second half of the race.29 All of these patterns show up in
our data.
Trends in visual tone of coverage largely paralleled those in verbal tone – that is, positive
and negative references to the main candidates.30 Although verbal characterizations were
27
‘Other’ images included shots of a landscape, an unknown speaker, the president (not with the candidate),
etc. Collectively, ‘other’ images accounted for approximately 16 per cent of the total, most of which were sui
generis.
28
To maximize the validity and reliability of the data, the coding scheme was piloted three times – and amended
each time to clarify coding criteria – on news broadcasts not included in the sample. The principal coder and the
first author then separately recorded the number of positive, negative and neutral images for each of the three main
candidates in a randomly selected news broadcast. Inter-coder reliability was measured by the following formula:
[1 ⫺ [(number of images coded by first coder) ⫺ (number of images coded by second coder)]/[(number of images
coded by both coders)/2]. In this test, average inter-coder reliability across all nine categories (positive images
of Labastida, negative images of Labastida, neutral images of Labastida, positive images of Fox, negative images
of Fox, neutral images of Fox, positive images of Cárdenas, neutral images of Cárdenas, negative images of
Cárdenas) exceeded 90 per cent. After the coding was complete, two individuals who had not participated in the
original coding process were given basic instructions and asked to record the number of positive, negative and
neutral images of each candidate in the same randomly selected broadcast. Inter-coder reliabilities between the
two new coders averaged 75 per cent across all categories. Reliabilities between each new coder and the primary
coder were higher than reliabilities between the new coders, as were reliabilities for the summary measure ‘net
positive images’ for each candidate.
29
Hughes and Lawson, ‘Propaganda and Crony Capitalism’; Lawson, ‘Television Coverage, Vote Choice, and
the 2000 Campaign’.
30
Our analysis coded included all positive and negative references to the three main candidates in the course
of a broadcast, regardless of the source, other than references to the candidates by anchors or reporters that were
devoid of editorial content (for instance, when they were introducing a candidate’s campaign stop that day).
10
TABLE
L A W S O N A N D McC A N N
2
Tone of Coverage, by Network over Time
Labastida
Fox
Cárdenas
Net positive coverage on Azteca, February–April
Net positive coverage on Azteca, May–June
Net positive coverage on Azteca, total
27%
41%
36%
41%
50%
46%
31%
52%
44%
Net positive coverage on Televisa, February–April
Net positive coverage on Televisa, May–June
Net positive coverage on Televisa, total
37%
74%
59%
45%
25%
36%
7%
71%
42%
Total images on Azteca, February–April
Total images on Azteca, May–June
Total images on Azteca
91
155
246
111
147
258
88
114
202
Total images on Televisa, February–April
Total images on Televisa, May–June
Total images on Televisa
57
81
138
82
71
153
56
68
124
Note: Days included in the February–April sample were: 25 February, 3, 13, 17, 20, 22 and 27 March, 13, 17 and
25 April. Days included in the May–early June period were 2, 4, 8 and 12 May, 1, 7, 13, 14, 28 and 30 June.
Uncategorized (‘other’) images are excluded.
substantially less positive towards all of the candidates than were visual images, the relative
tone of coverage for the main candidates was similar for both measures.31 We thus feel
comfortable treating visual cues as a rough indicator of relative coverage of the main
candidates, which could be used to predict changes in viewers’ relative opinions of the
candidates.
Overall tone of coverage was similar for the three candidates: the percentage of net
positive images over the course of the campaign was 44 per cent for Labastida, 42 per cent
for Fox, and 43 per cent for Cárdenas. These aggregate data, however, mask important
differences in coverage between the two networks. The visuals that supported Labastida,
it turns out, came disproportionately from Televisa. By contrast, Televisión Azteca
coverage remained more favourable towards Fox than towards the PRI candidate.
Coverage of the Left, meanwhile, was approximately the same on both networks.
Also noteworthy are changes in the tone of coverage over the course of the campaign.
On Televisión Azteca, coverage of all three candidates shifted slightly, but the difference
was not dramatic. From February through April, coverage was 27 per cent net positive for
Labastida, 41 per cent net positive for Fox, and 31 per cent net positive for Cárdenas; the
corresponding figures for May–June were 41 per cent, 50 per cent and 52 per cent. Changes
31
For instance, Labastida fared poorly compared to Fox on Televisión Azteca in the first half of the campaign,
and he fared poorly compared to both opposition candidates on that network in the second. Likewise, verbal
characterizations of Cárdenas were particularly harsh on Televisa during the first half of the race but moderated
substantially in the second half. Had we used only verbal cues as our measure of media content, we would still
have found a media-content-basis for the large, significant attitude changes that we document in our analysis of
the panel data. In theory, we could use either verbal or visual measures. In practice, however, there were far fewer
coded verbal references to the candidates in our sample than there were coded images – only 191, in contrast to
1,121 images. Because these references were divided across three candidates, two networks and two time periods,
there were an average of approximately sixteen references per ‘cell’, with the smallest cells having just eight
references. Consequently, we felt that visual characterizations offered equally valid and more reliable estimates
of tone.
Television News, Mexico’s 2000 Elections and Media Effects
11
in the tone of coverage on Televisa, however, were pronounced. Net positive images of
Labastida on the country’s largest network soared from a respectable 37 per cent to a
whopping 74 per cent. The shift in favour of Cárdenas was even more marked, from 7 per
cent net positive to almost 71 per cent. Meanwhile net positive images of Fox on Televisa’s
nightly news programme dropped from 45 per cent to 25 per cent.32 These findings are
shown in Table 2.
In summary, content analysis reveals fairly even-handed coverage of the three main
candidates on television overall. Biases in the volume and tone of coverage were modest
over the course of the 2000 presidential campaign. Nevertheless, it is possible to identify
differences in coverage of the main candidates on different networks and at different times
during the race.
MEDIA EFFECTS IN 2000
Attitudes Towards the Main Candidates
We now turn to whether the patterns identified by content analysis were reflected in the
attitudes expressed by television viewers. As indicated in Table 2, Televisa’s coverage of
Cárdenas in the early campaign period was harsh in comparison to coverage of Fox and
Labastida; this may have hurt the PRD leader’s standing relative to that of his rivals. In
June, however, the network reversed course: Cárdenas received both more and better
coverage – roughly equivalent to the coverage received by Labastida – while coverage of
Fox deteriorated. If media coverage had an impact on public opinion, Cárdenas (and
Labastida) should have enjoyed a boost relative to Fox among Televisa viewers in the
second half of the race. On Televisión Azteca, meanwhile, coverage was less favourable
towards Labastida compared with both his main rivals. This was especially true in the
second half of the race. Assuming that this pattern of coverage was reflected at the mass
level, Televisión Azteca viewers should have downgraded their assessments of Labastida
relative to Fox and Cárdenas.
To assess changes in viewers’attitudes, we use survey data from the first three waves
of the Mexico 2000 Panel Study.33 The first wave was administered in February 2000 to
a randomly selected national sample of 2,400 Mexicans; it was timed to coincide with the
official start of the general election campaign. The second wave was conducted in late
April–early May, on a subset of respondents chosen at random (N ⫽ 952). In June, with
just two weeks left in the campaign, a third questionnaire was administered to a randomly
chosen group of participants from the second survey wave plus all available respondents
from the initial sample who had not been interviewed in the second wave (a total of 974).34
32
These shifts and the relative tone of coverage towards the main candidates are directionally similar if we
exclude the second half of June from our sample, though the magnitude of the changes in coverage on Televisa
is somewhat smaller.
33
Approximately half of the respondents in the first round of the panel reported watching Televisa news at least
occasionally, the bulk of whom watched three to five days per week. Just over one third of the sample reported
watching some news on Televisión Azteca. Thirteen per cent of the respondents watched news programming on
both networks, and approximately 30 per cent never watched either. Average exposure levels in later waves was
slightly higher on Televisión Azteca and about the same on Televisa.
34
By varying the number of times respondents were contacted, the study sought to cut down on
interview-induced bias and panel attrition. On the potential for interviewing to cause changes in respondent
attitudes and behaviour, see R. Gary Bridge, Leo G. Reeder, David Kanouse, Donald R. Kinder and Vivian Tong
12
L A W S O N A N D McC A N N
By using panel data, we take into account the fact that audiences might self-select to
different media outlets. For instance, it may be that opponents of the PRI disproportionately
favoured Televisión Azteca news, while sympathizers with the ruling party disproportionately remained with Televisa.35 If so, cross-sectional data alone would not allow us to
distinguish between initial audience predispositions and the effects of exposure to different
news programmes. Panel data, however, allow us to assess changes over time in the same
individual. We can thus control for respondents’ views towards the main candidates (and
other factors that might influence their vote) at the beginning of the period in question.
Largely for this reason, panel studies are the preferred method for analysing media effects
in the mass public.36
To examine the effect of the two networks on relative evaluations of the main candidates,
we calculated attitude differentials based on eleven-point ‘feeling thermometer’ scores.37
Thus we subtracted feeling thermometer ratings of Fox from analogous ratings of
Labastida to produce a Fox–Labastida score that theoretically ranged from ⫺ 20 to ⫹ 20.38
We then regressed these attitude differentials on self-reported television exposure from the
same wave,39 plus lagged attitude differentials from the previous wave.40 The addition of
the lagged dependent variable on the right-hand side makes the model explicitly dynamic,
allowing us to ascertain whether certain factors changed citizens’ initial judgements.
In theory, the use of panel data with lagged dependent variables should control for
respondents’ attitudes at the start of the campaign. It is possible, however, that respondents
not only held different initial attitudes towards the main candidates, but also had different
predispositions to change their attitudes about these candidates. If respondents’ pro(F’note continued)
Nagy, ‘Interviewing Changes Attitudes – Sometimes’, Public Opinion Quarterly, 41 (1977), 56–64; and James
Downing, Charles M. Judd and Markus Brauer, ‘Effects of Repeated Expressions on Attitude Extremity’, Journal
of Personality and Social Psychology, 63 (1992), 17–29.
35
On the other hand, it is possible that choice of news programmes was primarily determined by preference
for entertainment programmes that preceded and followed the news, rather than by political preferences. In that
case, we would expect relatively little self-selection to ideologically congruent broadcasts.
36
See Jeffrey Wooldridge, Introductory Econometrics: A Modern Approach (Mason, Ohio: South-Western
College, 2000), chap. 9.
37
Feeling thermometer ratings were obtained from the following item: ‘[Show card] I am going to ask your
opinion about political parties and candidates for President. On this scale, zero indicates that your opinion is very
bad and ten that your opinion is very good. If you don’t have an opinion, just tell me and we’ll go on to the next
one. What is your opinion of …? [READ AND ROTATE].’ Options were ‘PRI, PAN, PRD, Francisco Labastida,
Vicente Fox, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas’.
38
These attitude differentials better anticipate our subsequent model of vote choice, which involves relative
comparisons between the three main candidates. Mean feeling thermometer differentials ranged from ⫺ 0.30
(Labastida minus Fox in June) to 1.82 (Fox minus Cárdenas in February); standard deviations ranged from 4.58
(Labastida minus Fox in June) to 3.43 (Fox minus Cárdenas in April/May).
39
Television news exposure was measured using the following item: ‘Do you watch any television news
program? [IF YES] Which one? Approximately how many days a week do you watch it?’ Interviewers were
instructed to mark up to two programmes. Respondents who reported watching a particular programme six or seven
days a week were treated as watching five days a week. Those who reported watching two programmes on the
same network were treated as having been doubly exposed; i.e., their self-reported exposure to one programme
was added to their self-reported exposure to the other programme. For both networks in all three waves, over 93
per cent of respondents were coded as watching five or fewer days per week. Mean exposures for Televisión Azteca
ranged from 1.43 in February (with standard deviation of 2.41) to 1.86 in April/May (with standard deviation of
2.56); mean exposures for Televisa ranged from 1.90 in July (with standard deviation of 2.54) to 2.34 in April/May
(with standard deviation of 2.57).
40
In formal terms, the model is: Candidate Attitude Differentialt ⫽ ⫹ 1 Televisa Exposuret ⫹ 2 Azteca
Exposuret ⫹ 3 Candidate Differentialt - 1 ⫹ 4 – 21 Controls.
Television News, Mexico’s 2000 Elections and Media Effects
13
pensities to alter their relative assessments of the candidates were correlated with news
exposure, excluding them could lead us to make spurious inferences about the effects of
television.41 For instance, in comparison to the Televisa audience, Televisión Azteca
viewers are somewhat better educated, more affluent and more likely to live in urban areas.
More educated, affluent urbanites may not only be more inclined to favour Fox over
Labastida initially; they may also be inclined to favour Fox over Labastida increasingly
during the course of the campaign, regardless of their exposure to television. To take into
account such crystallization effects, we include the main demographic variables thought
to affect partisan preferences in Mexico:42 age, gender, education, socio-economic status,43
union membership, church attendance, region of the country in which the respondent
resided and whether the respondent lived in a city.
A similar point could be made with respect to partisanship. For this reason, we also
included dummy variables for the following categories: PRI identifiers or leaners, strong
PRI identifiers, PAN identifiers or leaners, strong PAN identifiers, PRD identifiers or
leaners and strong PRD identifiers.44 Finally, in order to isolate the effects of television,
we added controls for other types of campaign cues that might be correlated with both
television exposure and attitude change. These include respondents’ self-reported attention
to the campaign and the frequency with which they reported discussing politics.45
Table 3 shows the results of all three regressions on attitude differentials in late
April–early May. Table 4 reports the same results for attitude differentials in June. The
results for television exposure conform with expectations from content analysis. Early in
the campaign, those who watched newscasts on Televisa grew more negative towards the
Left relative to both of the other main candidates; this effect was not evident for exposure
to Televisión Azteca, which accorded Cárdenas coverage that was roughly equivalent in
tone to that of the other two contenders. Different patterns of coverage during the second
half of the campaign produced the opposite results. Televisión Azteca’s coverage of
Cárdenas in May–June was similar to coverage of Fox, and Televisa’s coverage of
Cárdenas during that period was similar to its coverage of Labastida; in neither of these
cases did exposure exercise a clear effect on public opinion. By contrast, Televisión Azteca
clearly favoured Cárdenas over Labastida, and Televisa’s coverage clearly favoured him
over Fox; in both of these cases, the influence of television exposure proved statistically
significant.
One puzzling finding from this analysis concerns the lack of a clear effect from exposure
to Televisa on relative attitudes towards Fox and Labastida in the second half of the race.
41
Measurement error could also produce what appear to be crystallization effects. The issue of measurement
error is discussed further below.
42
Domı́nguez and Lawson, Mexico’s Pivotal Democratic Election; Domı́nguez and Poiré, Toward Mexico’s
Democratization; Mónica Serrano, ed., Governing Mexico: Political Parties and Elections (London: Institute of
Latin American Studies, 1998); Domı́nguez and McCann, Democratizing Mexico.
43
We measured socio-economic status through a factor score based on: (1) interview coding of the respondent’s
dwelling on a five-point scale; and (2) number of light bulbs in the respondent’s house. Using different measures
of socio-economic status does not materially change our findings about media influence.
44
Partisan identification was measured using the following item: ‘In general, do you consider yourself priı́sta,
panista or perredista? [If R has affiliation:] Do you consider yourself very priı́sta/panista/perredista or somewhat
priı́sta/panista/perredista? [If R has no affiliation]: Toward which party do you most lean?’
45
Some of the demographic controls mentioned above might also be construed as proxies for certain campaign
signals. For instance, church attendance is an indicator of exposure to electoral cues from religious authorities,
and regional dummies may capture differences in partisan mobilization and canvassing. See Domı́nguez and
Lawson, Mexico’s Pivotal Democratic Election, pp. 34–5, 81–3, 200.
1.30**
⫺ 1.14**
⫺ 0.015
2.05**
⫺ 1.33*
0.233
0.405**
⫺ 0.084
0.086
0.047
0.040
Weak PRI partisan or leaner (Feb.)
Weak PAN partisan or leaner (Feb.)
Weak PRD partisan or leaner (Feb.)
Strong PRI partisan (Feb.)
Strong PAN partisan (Feb.)
Strong PRD partisan (Feb.)
Attitude differential (Feb.)
Talk about politics (April/May)
Campaign attention (April/May)
Azteca exposure (April/May)
Televisa exposure (April/May)
0.056
0.054
0.041
0.135
0.176
0.054
0.052
⫺ 0.033
0.129*
734
0.35
19.8
0.036
0.131
0.170
0.390
0.388
0.534
0.455
0.595
0.834
0.009
0.259
0.303
0.132
0.111
0.390
0.139
0.379
0.396
0.370
0.910
0.376**
⫺ 0.077
⫺ 0.046
1.43**
⫺ 0.425
⫺ 1.24*
2.11**
⫺ 0.306
⫺ 1.82*
⫺ 0.018†
⫺ 0.440†
0.080
⫺ 0.121
0.045
0.203
0.024
0.091
0.399
0.081
1.17
Labastida–Cárdenas
ˆ
s.e.
741
0.26
13.3
⫺ 0.076
0.091*
0.371**
⫺ 0.005
⫺ 0.141
0.047
0.854*
⫺ 1.19*
⫺ 0.081
1.21*
⫺ 2.14**
0.007
⫺ 0.269
0.201
0.187
⫺ 0.073
⫺ 0.229
0.053
0.165
0.319
0.288
⫺ 0.145
0.048
0.045
0.037
0.114
0.149
0.332
0.349
0.470
0.377
0.534
0.729
0.008
0.227
0.266
0.115
0.098
0.342
0.121
0.332
0.346
0.324
0.797
Fox–Cárdenas
ˆ
s.e.
Note: Pairwise deletion employed. ⫽ Estimated coefficients; s.e. ⫽ standard errors. † Significant at 0.10.* Significant at 0.05.** Significant
at 0.01.
746
0.34
19.3
0.010
0.267
0.313
0.136
0.115
0.403
0.143
⫺ 0.024*
⫺ 0.156
⫺ 0.090
⫺ 0.309*
0.133
0.422
⫺ 0.046
Age
Male
Urban resident
Education
Religiosity
Union member
Income proxy
N
Adjusted R2
F-statistic
0.391
0.409
0.382
⫺ 0.082
0.023
⫺ 0.166
Northern region
Metro region
Central region
0.400
0.412
0.544
0.467
0.633
0.830
0.939
Labastida–Fox
ˆ
s.e.
Effects on Candidate Attitude Differentials, April/May
1.23
3
Constant
Variable
TABLE
14
L A W S O N A N D McC A N N
Television News, Mexico’s 2000 Elections and Media Effects
TABLE
4
15
Effects on Candidate Attitude Differentials, June
Variable
Labastida–Fox
ˆ
s.e.
Labastida–Cárdenas
ˆ
s.e.
Fox–Cárdenas
ˆ
s.e.
1.54
1.35
1.10
1.14
⫺ 0.323
1.25
Northern region
Metro region
Central region
⫺ 0.078
0.485
⫺ 0.315
0.561
0.586
0.547
⫺ 0.913†
⫺ 0.785
⫺ 0.837†
0.473
0.495
0.462
⫺ 0.795
⫺ 1.23*
⫺ 0.518
0.521
0.544
0.508
Age
Male
Urban resident
Education
Religiosity
Union member
Income proxy
⫺ 0.002
⫺ 0.019
⫺ 0.814†
⫺ 0.101
⫺ 0.042
0.686
⫺ 0.277
0.014
0.385
0.452
0.203
0.165
0.578
0.206
0.009
0.101
⫺ 0.445
0.258
⫺ 0.199
0.285
⫺ 0.220
0.012
0.325
0.381
0.171
0.139
0.487
0.173
0.010
0.104
0.382
⫺ 0.157
⫺ 0.153
⫺ 0.322
0.060
0.013
0.357
0.419
0.189
0.153
0.536
0.191
0.185
0.572
0.711
0.486
0.662
0.521
⫺ 1.07†
0.583
0.687
0.484
1.64**
0.541
⫺ 0.908
2.08**
⫺ 2.50**
⫺ 2.80*
0.780
0.667
0.895
1.19
⫺ 1.70*
2.08**
0.416
⫺ 4.16**
0.665
0.568
0.747
1.02
⫺ 0.962
0.228
2.84**
⫺ 1.54
0.733
0.596
0.835
1.13
Constant
Weak PRI partisan or
leaner (Feb.)
Weak PAN partisan or
leaner (Feb.)
Weak PRD partisan or
leaner (Feb.)
Strong PRI partisan (Feb.)
Strong PAN partisan (Feb.)
Strong PRD partisan (Feb.)
Attitude differential (April/
May)
Talk about politics (June)
Campaign attention (June)
Azteca exposure (June)
Televisa exposure (June)
N
Adjusted R2
F-statistic
0.544** 0.050
0.002 0.185
0.049
0.260
⫺ 0.080
0.088
316
0.49
15.5
0.082
0.071
0.598** 0.044
0.141
0.157
0.267
0.220
⫺ 0.124†
⫺ 0.062
315
0.57
21.2
0.069
0.060
0.546** 0.056
0.148
0.172
0.181
0.242
⫺ 0.041
⫺ 0.160*
0.076
0.067
316
0.36
9.54
Notes: Pairwise deletion employed; ˆ ⫽ estimated coefficients; s.e. ⫽ standard errors.
† Significant at 0.10.* Significant at 0.05.** Significant at 0.01.
To be sure, the coefficient has the expected sign; although it is not significantly different
from zero (p ⫽ 0.22), it is significantly different from the effect of exposure to Televisión
Azteca. Nevertheless, it appears that even quite biased coverage on Televisa had only a
limited impact on relative evaluations of the ruling party’s candidate. (We return to this
issue when discussing the effects of Televisa exposure on vote choice.)
Coefficients for the control variables in Tables 3 and 4 suggest that attitudes tended to
crystallize along expected lines over the course of the campaign. The more educated
increasingly favoured the opposition, especially the PAN, over the ruling party. Likewise,
initial supporters of the PRI liked Labastida increasingly more relative to his main rivals.
Nevertheless, these crystallization effects attenuated substantially as the campaign
progressed. By June, even partisan predispositions exercised only a limited effect on many
attitude differentials.
16
L A W S O N A N D McC A N N
The effects of television news exposure were quite powerful relative to the impact of
other variables. Standardized coefficients for news exposure were consistently larger than
those for generalized attention to the campaign or interpersonal communication about
politics (which were never significant) and for the bulk of the demographic controls. In
general, television effects approximated the crystallizing influence of education and
reached about half those of partisan predispositions. Moreover, the effects of television
coverage remained strong in the second half of the race, after crystallization effects began
to fade.
All told, these results demonstrate that television coverage had substantial and
significant effects on attitudes towards the main candidates in Mexico’s 2000 presidential
race. There was thus an important linkage between the tone of news coverage to which
respondents were exposed (on the one hand) and respondents’ opinions (on the other).
Candidates who received relatively favourable coverage tended to prosper in relative
terms; candidates who did not tended to suffer compared with their main competitors.
Vote Choice
So far, our analysis has focused on political attitudes: specifically, relative assessments of
the main candidates at different points in the campaign. We have not yet directly addressed
the issue of political behaviour – in this case, how respondents actually voted on election
day. Although it seems likely that attitude change would find expression in voting
behaviour, it is also conceivable that the effects of media exposure on mass opinion could
have failed to shape voting patterns. For instance, changes in relative candidate evaluations
might not have provoked corresponding shifts in electoral outcomes if these changes were
confined to non-voters or to voters who had already made up their minds. It is also possible
that other factors (such as election-day mobilization) could have reversed the effects of
television coverage on candidate preference. Finally, factors like vote-buying, coercion
and heavy-handed clientelism could have prevented the translation of attitude change into
shifts in electoral behaviour.
To assess the impact of television coverage on how citizens actually voted, we make
use of the fourth wave of the Mexico 2000 Panel Study, collected in the week following
the 2 July election. Among those respondents who reported voting, 47 per cent chose Fox,
38 per cent backed Labastida and 14 per cent favoured Cárdenas. This breakdown reflects
fairly well the official tally (43 per cent, 36 per cent, 17 per cent, respectively).46 Thus,
although levels of self-reported turnout were substantially higher in the post-electoral wave
of the panel, the partisan division of the vote was similar to that of the broader electorate.47
Table 5 presents the results from a multinomial logistic regression, where vote choice
was modelled as a function of presidential voting preference in the first survey wave
46
Vote in July was measured by the following question: ‘Did you vote in the elections of July 2? [If yes:] Could
you mark on this ballot for whom you voted in the elections for President of the Republic? [Hand ballot and request
that R deposit it in the box.]’ Vote preference in February was measured using the following item: ‘Now for the
purposes of this survey let’s suppose that today is election day and you are going to vote for President of the
Republic. For this I am going to give you a piece of paper where you can mark your response without me seeing
it and afterwards deposit it in this box. If the elections for President of the Republic were today, for whom would
you vote?’ [Respondents were then handed a sample ballot.] In both February and July, those who voted for one
of the tiny leftist parties were grouped with Cárdenas.
47
As is typical in post-electoral surveys, self-reported voter participation was inflated in our data. The actual
rate reported by the IFE was 64 per cent; in the Mexico 2000 Panel Study, it was 81 per cent.
Television News, Mexico’s 2000 Elections and Media Effects
TABLE
5
17
Television Exposure and Vote Choice in July
Variable
Fox v.
Labastida
ˆ
s.e.
Cárdenas/
Other v. Labastida
ˆ
s.e.
Non-voter
v Labastida
ˆ
s.e.
0.420
0.703
⫺ 0.892
0.939
3.18**
0.877
Northern region
Metro region
Central region
⫺ 0.008
⫺ 0.190
0.024
0.263
0.289
0.261
⫺ 0.445
0.232
⫺ 0.448
0.378
0.367
0.362
0.832*
0.319
0.671*
0.327
0.367
0.323
Age
Male
Urban resident
Education
Religiosity
Union member
Income proxy
⫺ 0.011
0.024
0.407†
⫺ 0.070
0.026
⫺ 0.640*
0.095
0.007
0.197
0.221
0.108
0.082
0.283
0.115
0.001
0.342
⫺ 0.155
0.092
0.117
⫺ 0.077
⫺ 0.094
0.010 ⫺ 0.045**
0.262
0.402†
0.300
0.275
0.146 ⫺ 0.221
0.108
0.067
0.371 ⫺ 0.780*
0.165
0.048
Vote for Labastida (Feb.)
Vote for Fox (Feb.)
⫺ 1.02**
1.54**
0.308
0.371
⫺ 1.25**
0.484
0.422 ⫺ 1.29** 0.353
0.470 ⫺ 0.212** 0.445
Constant
Vote for other candidate
(Feb.)
0.257
0.451
1.53**
PRI partisan or leaner (Feb.)
PAN partisan or leaner (Feb.)
PRD partisan or leaner (Feb.)
⫺ 1.17**
0.171
⫺ 0.748†
0.255
0.366
0.453
⫺ 1.32**
⫺ 0.536
0.396
Talk about politics (Feb.–July)
Campaign attention (Feb.–
July)
Azteca exposure (Feb.–July)
Televisa exposure (Feb.–July)
0.071
0.137
0.070
0.008
0.129*
0.009
0.174
0.053
0.042
⫺ 0.056
0.137*
0.006
Valid N
Pseudo-R2 (Cox and Snell)
Chi-squared statistic (60 d.f.)
0.476 ⫺ 0.772
0.010
0.237
0.259
0.138
0.097
0.387
0.144
0.539
0.369 ⫺ 0.921** 0.313
0.493
0.067
0.449
0.450
0.018
0.510
0.183 ⫺ 0.166
0.168
0.236 ⫺ 0.571** 0.218
0.069
0.079
0.066
0.057
0.019
0.051
1,062
0.26
704
Notes: ˆ ⫽ estimated coefficients; s.e. ⫽ standard errors.† Significant at 0.10.* Significant at
0.05.** Significant at 0.01.
(February) and average exposure to network news over the course of the campaign.48 As
in our analysis of attitude differentials, we include a full complement of control variables.
To make the main campaign controls comparable to television exposure, attention to the
campaign and interpersonal communication about politics were averaged over all three
pre-election waves.
The results in the first column show the impact of early presidential preferences and
television news on choosing Fox over Labastida; those in the second column show the same
results for the choice of another opposition candidate; and those in the last column show
the results for not voting (versus voting for Labastida). As might be expected, there was
a great deal of continuity in candidate support between February and July; citizens who
48
The Hausman test supports the assumption of ‘independence from irrelevant alternatives’ (IIA) for the
multinomial logistic regression model.
18
TABLE
L A W S O N A N D McC A N N
6
Effects of Television Exposure on Vote Choice in July
Fox
Labastida
Cárdenas/Other
None
Televisión Azteca
0 days
1 day
2 days
3 days
4 days
5 days
44%
46%
48%
50%
51%
53%
33%
30%
28%
25%
23%
21%
10%
10%
11%
11%
12%
12%
14%
14%
14%
14%
14%
13%
Televisa
0 days
1 day
2 days
3 days
4 days
5 days
47%
47%
47%
47%
47%
47%
29%
29%
29%
29%
28%
28%
11%
11%
11%
11%
11%
11%
14%
14%
14%
14%
14%
14%
Notes: Figures represent the marginal effect of television exposure on probability of voting
for any one candidate, with all other variables held at their mean values. Simulations using
Clarify software show that the difference in support for Fox between minimum and maximum
exposure to Televisión Azteca is significant at the 10 per cent level and that the difference for
Labastida is significant at the 5 per cent level; other differences are not significant. See Michael
Tomz, Jason Wittenberg and Gary King, ‘Clarify: Software for Interpreting and Presenting
Statistical Results’; this program is freely available at http://gking.harvard.edu. For technical
details regarding estimation routines, see Gary King, Michael Tomz and Jason Wittenberg,
‘Making the Most of Statistical Analyses: Improving Interpretation and Presentation’,
American Journal of Political Science, 44 (2000), 347–61.
supported Labastida in February were inclined to remain loyal to him on election day.
Several other control variables were also significant, operating in the expected direction.
Nevertheless, television exposure clearly had important electoral consequences, controlling for respondents’ initial dispositions, exposure to other campaign cues and various
demographic factors. Those watching Televisión Azteca became significantly more likely
to support the main opposition candidates, especially Fox, over Labastida. Exposure to
Televisa, by contrast, exercised no discernible effect.
These effects can be seen more clearly in Table 6, where the probability of voting for
each candidate is mapped as a function of television exposure levels in June. Holding all
other predictors at their mean values, individuals who did not see any Televisión Azteca
news programming in the weeks leading up to election day were nearly as likely to choose
Labastida as Fox (33 per cent versus 44 per cent). These probabilities diverged rapidly,
however, as news exposure increased. Citizens who reported seeing five days worth of
newscasts overwhelmingly flocked to Fox. Televisión Azteca also benefited the Left,
although this difference was much more modest. Clearly, though, Televisión Azteca
exerted far more than ‘minimal effects’.
One puzzling finding – which also surfaced in analysis of attitude differentials –
concerns the failure of sympathetic coverage on the Televisa network to generate support
for Labastida. If audiences responded mechanically and automatically to media messages,
Televisa viewers should have upgraded their assessments of Labastida compared with Fox
during the second half of the race, and they should also have become increasingly inclined
Television News, Mexico’s 2000 Elections and Media Effects
19
to vote for the ruling party over the course of the whole campaign. Our analysis uncovered
only weak evidence for the former and no evidence for the latter. Labastida even appeared
vulnerable when he and Cárdenas received apparently comparable coverage, as on
Televisión Azteca during the beginning of the campaign and Televisa at the end (though
neither effect reached statistical significance). It thus appears that television exercised
asymmetric effects on attitudes towards the ruling party: unfavourable coverage helped to
erode support for Labastida, but even highly favourable coverage could not do much to
stimulate it.
One possibility is that Labastida was an inherently unappealing candidate relative to the
other main contenders and thus tended to lose ground when coverage was balanced.
Another possibility is that some Mexican voters disliked the PRI but initially felt
insufficiently informed about the opposition parties to support them; as they learned more
about both groups, even when what they learned about the opposition was not uniformly
positive, they tended to shift away from Labastida.49 A third possibility is that other aspects
of television coverage on both networks – such as attention to issues like crime, corruption
and drug trafficking – may have reinforced negative attitudes towards the ruling party.50
Consequently, what appeared to be favourable coverage toward Labastida was actually
relatively balanced coverage overall, while what appeared to be only slightly favourable
coverage of the opposition was actually quite favourable.51
TESTS OF ROBUSTNESS
Because the persuasive effects we report are considerably larger than previous research
on television and campaigns might suggest, it is important to demonstrate that our results
are not flukes or artefacts of a particular statistical approach. To this end, we explicitly
consider whether the results reported above might be the product of (1) our treatment of
missing data; (2) measurement error on the key variables; (3) omitted variable bias
stemming from left-out demographic factors or campaign stimuli; or (4) audience
self-selection to particular news networks.
Missing Data
Our data are characterized by two broad types of missingness. First, and most
conventionally, we have missing answers to particular questions for certain respondents
in each panel wave. The extent of this sort of missingness is actually quite small, and using
different methods to correct for it – for example, listwise vs. pairwise deletion in our
ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions – does not materially change our findings. A
second type of missingness results from the panel structure of our data, in which certain
respondents were interviewed in some waves but not in others. Some of this missingness
49
Alejandro Moreno, ‘The Effects of Negative Campaigns on Mexican Voters’, in Domínguez and Lawson,
Mexico’s Pivotal Democratic Election, pp. 243–68.
50
Our content analysis suggests that issue coverage was similar across the two networks but that crime,
corruption and drug trafficking received substantial attention (317 minutes in our sample) compared to coverage
of the president (79 minutes), the economy (113 minutes) or education (87 minutes).
51
One other possible explanation is that Televisa was regarded as less credible than Televisión Azteca and thus
exercised less of an effect on attitudes and behaviour. Although this explanation seems plausible, we found that
exposure to Televisión Azteca was not significantly associated with greater confidence in the credibility of
television news than exposure to Televisa.
20
L A W S O N A N D McC A N N
was the product of panel attrition, as respondents from the first wave could not be located
in subsequent waves. In the fourth wave, where interviewers attempted to contact all
respondents from the February wave, attrition accounted for all missing respondents. In
the second and third waves, however, interviewers consciously attempted to contact only
a randomly pre-selected sample of respondents from the first wave in order to minimize
cost and attrition. Thus, most ‘missing’ respondents in the second and third waves were
intended to be missing.
Analysis undertaken as part of the Mexico 2000 Panel Survey suggests that panel
attrition introduced only very small biases in the composition of the sample.52 Moreover,
the potential directional consequences of any sample biases for our analysis are
indeterminate, and the fact that these individuals were randomly selected implies that their
exclusion should not affect our analysis. Nevertheless, the availability of new methods for
dealing with missing data allows us to address this possibility directly. To this end, we
re-ran our analyses using multiple imputation to fill in missing data for all respondents.53
The use of multiple imputation substantially enhanced the statistical significance of our
findings.
Measurement Error
Survey data are often riddled with measurement error. Measurement of our key
independent variable, network news exposure, is likely to be particularly unreliable.54
Random measurement error on this variable might likely bias our results towards zero,
making media effects look smaller than they really are. Meanwhile, measurement error on
our dependent variable (attitude differentials) or on other independent variables could
distort our results in ways we have not anticipated. To guard against these eventualities,
and any spurious inferences that might follow from them, we factored out measurement
error for media exposure and attitude differentials using the Wiley–Wiley method.55 The
effects of news exposure in this more elaborate model closely parallel those reported in
Tables 3 and 4. (These findings are available upon request.)
Omitted Variable Bias
As discussed above, our analysis controls for obvious confounding variables: demographic
factors, the strength and direction of partisan affiliations, and certain non-television
campaign influences. In theory, however, the attitude change that we ascribe to television
could be the result of some omitted variable that is correlated with exposure to news
programming and with changes in attitudes towards the main candidates. To address this
52
Domı́nguez and Lawson, Mexico’s Pivotal Democratic Election, pp. 14, 347–8.
Gary King, James Honaker, Anne Joseph and Kenneth Scheve, ‘Analyzing Incomplete Political Science
Data: An Alternative Algorithm for Multiple Imputation’, American Political Science Review, 95 (2001), 49–69.
54
Vincent Price and John Zaller, ‘Who Gets the News? Alternative Measures of News Reception and Their
Implications for Research’, Public Opinion Quarterly, 57 (1993), 133–64. See also Larry Bartels, ‘Messages
Received: The Political Impact of Media Exposure’, American Political Science Review, 87 (1993), 267–85.
55
Following Wiley and Wiley, we assume that: (a) the residual term in a particular regression is not correlated
with residuals in any other wave, the latent attitude variables, or any measurement errors in the survey instruments,
(b) measurement error variance is constant for each item throughout the panel, and (c) these errors in measurement
are not correlated with latent attitudes or measurement errors for survey items in any other panel wave. See David
E. Wiley and James A. Wiley, ‘The Estimation of Measurement Error in Panel Data’, American Sociological
Review, 35 (1970), 112–17.
53
Television News, Mexico’s 2000 Elections and Media Effects
21
possibility, we re-ran our analyses with various combinations of control variables. These
included:
—A bloc of demographic variables, including education, rural residency, union
membership, socio-economic status, church attendance, gender and age.
—Campaign engagement: An index of frequency with which respondents discussed
politics over all four waves of the panel, campaign attention over all four waves of
panel, and newspaper readership over first three waves of panel. (This last item was
not asked in the fourth wave.)
—Alternative campaign engagement: All elements of the index of campaign
engagement, plus interest in politics, averaged over all four waves of panel.
—Debate exposure: An index of whether respondents saw all, part or none of the first
presidential debate; saw all, part or none of the second debate; discussed the first
debate with others; discussed the second debate with others; saw comments about the
first debate; and saw comments about the second debate – based on items from the
second, third and fourth waves of panel.
—Attitude differential (AD) in February: Differences in feeling thermometer ratings
between the main candidates in February.
—Party attitude differential (AD): Differences in feeling thermometer ratings between
the main parties in February.
—1994 vote: Presidential vote in 1994, coded as Zedillo (PRI), Fernández (PAN), other
candidate and non-voter/not sure.
—1999 primary vote: Vote in 1999 PRI primary, coded as Labastida, losing candidate
and did not participate.
—Partisan identification (PID): strong PRI identification, weak PRI identification,
independent leaning to PRI, strong PAN identification, weak PAN identification,
independent leaning to PAN, strong PRD/other identification, weak PRD/other
identification, independent leaning to PRD/other, and independent non-leaners, as
reported in February.
Reporting tests of robustness across different combinations of these controls, different time
periods, different networks and different candidate dyads would fill hundreds of tables. For
economy of presentation, we simply summarize the effects of exposure to the two main
networks on differences in feeling thermometer ratings of the three main candidates in the
third wave of the panel (June), controlling for different combinations of variables. The
results of OLS regression are reported in Table 7. The first two columns of Table 7 report
the effects of exposure to Televisa news and Televisión Azteca news on differences
between Labastida and Fox. The next two columns report the effects of exposure to
Televisa news and Televisión Azteca news (respectively) on differences between
Labastida and Cárdenas. As the table shows, the effects of television news exposure
attenuate with the addition of control variables, but they remain impressive. Adding
attitudinal controls tends to moderately diminish their influence, especially for Televisión
Azteca. Adding controls for demographics and other campaign-related stimuli weakens the
effect of Televisión Azteca exposure but enhances the effects of exposure to Televisa.
Regardless, however, significant effects from exposure to television news persist when
different combinations of controls are added.
We repeated this analysis for vote choice in July, substituting vote preferences in
February (Labastida, Fox, Cárdenas/other, and none/undecided) for attitude differentials
22
L A W S O N A N D McC A N N
TABLE
7
Effects of Network News Exposure on Evaluation of the Main
Candidates in June
Labastida
minus Fox
Controls
Labastida
minus Cárdenas
Televisa
Azteca
Televisa
Azteca
AD
AD, campaign engagement
AD, campaign engagement, debate
exposure
AD, campaign engagement, debate
exposure, demographics
0.14*
0.16*
⫺ 0.39**
⫺ 0.35**
0.14*
0.16**
⫺ 0.26**
⫺ 0.24**
0.18*
⫺ 0.30**
0.17**
⫺ 0.19**
0.26**
⫺ 0.26**
0.19**
⫺ 0.16*
AD, PID
AD, party AD, PID, ’94 vote, PRI
primary vote
AD, demographics, PID
AD, campaign engagement,
demographics, PID
AD, campaign engagement, debate
exposure, demographics, PID
AD, party AD, PID, campaign
engagement, debate, demographics
AD, campaign engagement,
demographics, ’94 vote, primary
vote
0.13*
⫺ 0.23*
0.11*
⫺ 0.21**
0.13*
0.16**
⫺ 0.17**
⫺ 0.17**
0.01
0.14**
⫺ 0.11**
⫺ 0.15**
0.16**
⫺ 0.17**
0.14**
⫺ 0.15**
0.16**
⫺ 0.17*
0.15**
0.15*
0.16**
⫺ 0.13*
0.12*
⫺ 0.13*
0.18**
⫺ 0.19**
0.16**
⫺ 0.14*
** Significant at 0.01.* Significant at 0.05.† Significant at 0.1.
in February. For economy of presentation, Table 8 presents only the results for Televisión
Azteca news. (Televisa effects were consistently not significant.)
As Table 8 indicates, the coefficient for exposure to Televisión Azteca news remains
significant at the 5 per cent level regardless of which controls are included, and its
magnitude changes little. The effects of Televisión Azteca news on support for the Left
are somewhat less robust, although they are normally significant as well.
Self-selection to Media Outlets
Related to left-out variable bias is the issue of self-selection to ideologically congruent
media outlets – i.e., the fact that Fox supporters might prefer Televisión Azteca and
Labastida supporters might lean towards Televisa. In general, the panel nature of our data
should ensure that this sort of self-selection does not drive our results.56 However, it is
conceivable that initial measures of partisan predispositions do not adequately capture
propensities for attitude change, and that those propensities are somehow correlated with
network preference. If so, what we have interpreted as media-induced attitude change
could be nothing more than attitude crystallization over the course of the campaign.
If self-selection were driving our results, we would expect relatively consistent impacts
of exposure to different networks on attitudes towards the main candidates (and vote
56
See Wooldridge, Introductory Econometrics, chap. 9.
Television News, Mexico’s 2000 Elections and Media Effects
TABLE
8
23
Effect of Televisión Azteca Exposure on Vote in July (Base is Vote for
Labastida)
Controls
Fox
Other
Non-voter
February vote
February vote, campaign engagement
February vote, demographics, region, campaign
engagement
February vote, demographics, region, alternative
campaign engagement, debate exposure
0.16**
0.16**
0.14*
0.15*
⫺ 0.06
0.02
0.16**
0.13*
0.03
0.14**
0.10
February vote, PID
February vote, campaign engagement, PID
February vote, alternative campaign engagement, PID
February vote, demographics, campaign
engagement, PID
February vote, demographics, alternative campaign
engagement, PID
February vote, demographics, region, alternative
campaign engagement, debate exposure, PID
February vote, demographics, campaign
engagement, 1994 vote, 1999 primary vote
0.14**
0.12*
0.12*
0.13*
0.13*
0.12†
⫺ 0.07
⫺ 0.00
⫺ 0.00
0.13*
0.13*
0.01
0.13*
0.13†
0.01
0.13*
0.09
0.01
0.14**
0.09
0.01
0.02
** Significant at 0.01.* Significant at 0.05.† Significant at 0.1.
choice). That is, watching Televisa in February should improve assessments of Labastida
relative to Fox in April–May; watching Televisión Azteca should have the opposite effect.
Similarly, we would expect exposure to different networks to exercise roughly the same
sort of effect on Cárdenas at different points in the campaign. In both cases our data show
the opposite. Watching Televisa (and Televisión Azteca) was not a significant predictor
of attitude change towards the two main candidates during the first half of the race, when
coverage of the candidates was similar on both networks. However, television news
exposure was associated with attitude change later in the race, when the tone of news
coverage on the two networks was quite different. Self-reported exposure to network news
mattered when the content of that news was different; it did not matter when networks
accorded the candidates similar coverage.
It should also be noted that self-selection only makes sense with respect to the effects
of Televisión Azteca on comparisons between Fox and Labastida. It could not be expected
to explain attitudes towards Cárdenas, given that the Left had historically received poor
coverage on both networks. If anything, there was less animosity between the PRD and
Televisa than between the PRD and Televisión Azteca, which had been involved in a
protracted battle against the PRD’s administration in Mexico City. Nevertheless, Televisa
coverage was associated with diminished support for Cárdenas during the first half of the
campaign, whereas Televisión Azteca exposure was not.
It is theoretically possible, of course, to devise a direct test of the possibility that
self-selection to ideologically congruent media is driving our results. This approach hinges
on identifying a variable other than news exposure that captures underlying propensities
to prefer one network over another, and thus hidden dispositions to change one’s opinions
of the candidates in a way correlated with network news exposure. We chose network
preference in February, based on which television news broadcast a respondent reported
24
L A W S O N A N D McC A N N
watching first, regardless of whether the respondent also reported watching another
broadcast and regardless of how frequently she reported watching television news. We then
re-ran our analyses with both network preference and network news exposure. Including
this variable attenuated certain effects but neither altered the direction the coefficients
reported above nor rendered them statistically insignificant.
There remains the possibility that our results might be the product of viewers switching
from one network to another over the course of the campaign in response to political
coverage. For instance, Fox voters may have switched away from Televisa and towards
Televisión Azteca in response to perceived differences in coverage on the two networks.
If so, Fox supporters would wind up becoming disproportionately reliant on Televisión
Azteca, while Labastida supporters would wind up relying more on Televisa. Such
switching by committed partisans from one network to another (or changes in the amount
of television news they watched on each channel) could be responsible for what we have
interpreted as attitude change brought on by exposure to media messages.
In the Mexican context, this possibility seems extremely remote. Because biases were
quite modest compared to past elections, viewers who were inclined to change their choice
of news outlet based on their political attitudes would presumably either have switched
before the 2000 campaign or remained unmotivated to switch in the run-up to the elections.
Moreover, as an empirical matter, several of our results are the opposite of what would
be expected from self-selection during the campaign. For instance, if strong Cárdenas
supporters who watched Televisa had switched away from that network during
February–April, Televisa exposure in May–June should be correlated negatively with
attitudes towards the Left. In fact, the reverse was true.
It is nevertheless possible to address the issue of endogeneity bias explicitly by fitting
simultaneous equations, where candidate differentials affect television viewing in a given
survey period while at nearly the same time are affected by the content of the news.57 In
formal terms, these equations would be specified as follows:
Candidate differentialt
⫽
b1 (candidate differentialt - 1) ⫹ b2 (Azteca
exposuret) ⫹ b3 (Televisa exposuret) ⫹ b4 - k (controls)
Azteca exposuret
⫽
b1 (Azteca exposuret - 1) ⫹ b2 (Televisa
exposuret - 1) ⫹ b3 - k (controls)
Televisa exposuret
⫽
b1 (Televisa exposuret - 1) ⫹ b2 (Azteca
exposuret - 1) ⫹ b3 - k (controls)
The assumption underlying this model is that lagged values of television exposure are
exogenous to changes in feeling thermometer scores from one survey wave to the next.58
The independent effect of media exposure on candidate differentials when endogeneity is
purged, shown in Tables 9 and 10, corroborates the findings from Tables 3 and 4. In the
April/May wave, exposure to the Televisa network drove respondents away from Cárdenas
and towards Fox; to a lesser extent, individuals who saw programming on Televisión
Azteca moved closer to Fox relative to Labastida. In the June wave, Televisión Azteca
viewers became less supportive of Labastida relative to Cárdenas. All of these findings
were statistically significant.
57
This procedure would also correct for any tendency for respondents to overreport or underreport their level
of exposure to news broadcasts as their candidate evaluations changed over the course of the campaign.
58
Steven E. Finkel, Causal Analysis with Panel Data (Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage, 1995).
Television News, Mexico’s 2000 Elections and Media Effects
25
Based on these findings, we conclude that our substantive inferences are not the product
of our treatment of missing data, measurement unreliability on the key variables, omitted
variable bias, self-selection to ideologically congruent news broadcasts or related
confounding factors.
DISCUSSION
A decade ago, John Zaller argued that ‘massive’ media effects could be observed where
analysts developed good measures and found adequate variation on key independent
variables.59 Although our operationalization differs from Zaller’s, we reach a similar
conclusion: in Mexico’s 2000 race, we find evidence for substantial, if not ‘massive’, media
effects. Televisión Azteca tended to hurt the ruling party relative to its main rivals,
especially Vicente Fox. Meanwhile, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas was initially harmed by
negative coverage on Televisa but then rebounded when coverage of him on that network
improved markedly in the second half of the race. The scope of these effects on both
attitudes and voting behaviour was quite large.
At first glance, it seems conceivable that these findings could be the product of more
accurate measures of media content and exposure, rather than differences in political
context between the United States and Mexico. For instance, our measure of tone of
coverage is arguably more sophisticated than the purely verbal indicators employed in
many analyses of television influence. We also explicitly take advantage of the fact that
coverage may differ substantially across networks, a source of variation not examined in
most earlier studies of effects. It might be that other researchers using these same methods
would uncover comparable levels of persuasive influence in, say, American or British
elections. If so, our findings suggest a new direction for research on television and electoral
campaigns in established democracies.
That said, we are sceptical of the notion that researchers would regularly have found
large effects in established democracies if only they had looked harder. First, despite
several decades of research, few scholars have found large-scale effects of television news
coverage on voters’ partisan preferences in general election campaigns. Secondly, the
changes in attitudes and behaviour that we have documented were produced by relatively
modest biases on television. Although these biases were somewhat larger than those
documented by content analyses of television news in the United States, they were not
dramatically so.60 Nevertheless, the effects that we report on attitudes and behaviour are
substantially greater than those found in most general election campaigns in established
democracies. We thus lean strongly towards the conclusion that television influence on
voters during Mexico’s 2000 campaign was the product of particular features of the
Mexican political context. These features include not only a different media environment
but also greater susceptibility to media influence.
59
Zaller, The Nature of Public Opinion.
See Doris A. Graber, ‘Framing Election News Broadcasts: News Context and its Impact on the 1984
Presidential Election’, Social Science Quarterly, 68 (1987), 552–68; Doris A. Graber, ‘Kind Pictures and Harsh
Words’, in Kay Schozman, ed., Elections in America (Boston, Mass.: Unwin-Hyman, 1987), pp.115–41;
Kepplinger, ‘Visual Biases in Television Campaign Coverage’; C. Richard Hoffstetter, Bias in the News: Network
Television Coverage of the 1972 Election (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1976), pp. 119–30; Michael
Robinson and Margaret A. Sheehan, Over the Wire and on TV: CBS and UPI in Campaign ’80 (New York: Russell
Sage, 1983); Ansolabehere et al., ‘Mass Media and Elections’, p. 64.
60
0.047
0.797
0.997
0.244
0.185
1.45**
⫺ 1.10*
0.180
2.90**
⫺ 1.36†
0.093
0.381**
0.499
⫺ 0.844
⫺ 0.326
⫺ 0.233
PRI partisan or leaner (Feb.)
PAN partisan or leaner (Feb.)
PRD partisan or leaner (Feb.)
Strong PRI partisan (Feb.)
Strong PAN partisan (Feb.)
Strong PRD partisan (Feb.)
Attitude differential (Feb.)
Talk about politics (April/May)
Campaign attention (April/May)
Azteca exposure (April/May)
Televisa exposure (April/May)
0.114
0.227
677
0.34
17.9
0.396**
⫺ 0.040
⫺ 1.05
1.65**
⫺ 0.191
⫺ 1.16†
2.90**
0.147
⫺ 1.09
⫺ 0.015
0.019
0.460
0.086
0.072
0.207
⫺ 0.170
0.249
⫺ 0.068
⫺ 0.206
1.01
ˆ
0.232
0.179
0.047
0.774
0.962
0.472
0.476
0.619
0.567
0.694
1.08
0.013
0.291
0.368
0.176
0.126
0.423
0.165
0.493
0.463
0.472
1.19
s.e.
Labastida–Cárdenas
0.396†
0.411**
0.329**
⫺ 0.580
⫺ 0.153
0.249
0.995*
⫺ 1.48*
⫺ 0.018
1.79**
⫺ 1.50
⫺ 0.010
0.151
0.114
0.108
0.129
⫺ 0.492
0.035
0.523
0.141
⫺ 0.274
0.055
ˆ
684
0.24
11.1
0.209
0.156
0.050
0.676
0.850
0.416
0.418
0.549
0.510
0.618
0.942
0.011
0.257
0.325
0.155
0.111
0.376
0.148
0.437
0.411
0.421
1.02
s.e.
Fox–Cárdenas
Notes: Pairwise deletion employed; ˆ ⫽ estimated coefficients; s.e. ⫽ standard errors.† Significant at 0.10.* Significant at 0.05.** Significant
at 0.01.
690
0.34
17.8
0.013
0.300
0.383
0.181
0.131
0.440
0.170
⫺ 0.006
0.174
0.285
⫺ 0.004
⫺ 0.075
0.862†
⫺ 0.165
Age
Male
Urban resident
Education
Religiosity
Union member
Income proxy
N
Adjusted R2
F-statistic
0.503
0.482
0.501
⫺ 0.224
⫺ 0.090
0.233
Northern region
Metro region
Central region
0.492
0.504
0.619
0.600
0.718
1.07
1.21
1.28
s.e.
Constant
Labastida–Fox
Effects on Candidate Attitude Differentials, April/May (Two-Stage Model)
ˆ
9
Variable
TABLE
26
L A W S O N A N D McC A N N
1.04†
⫺ 1.21†
0.196
1.86**
⫺ 1.97*
⫺ 2.14†
0.480**
⫺ 0.061
0.680
⫺ 0.338†
⫺ 0.121
PRI partisan or leaner (Feb.)
PAN partisan or leaner (Feb.)
PRD partisan or leaner (Feb.)
Strong PRI partisan (Feb.)
Strong PAN partisan (Feb.)
Strong PRD partisan (Feb.)
Attitude differential (April/May)
Talk about politics (June)
Campaign attention (June)
Azteca exposure (June)
Televisa exposure (June)
0.598
0.621
0.758
0.661
0.855
1.130
0.015
0.420
0.479
0.287
0.176
0.592
0.251
0.583
0.542
0.518
⫺ 0.461*
0.019
295
0.54
17.3
0.466**
0.068
0.836
1.69**
1.05†
⫺ 0.405
2.82**
0.293
⫺ 3.49**
0.018
⫺ 0.796*
0.164
⫺ 0.248
⫺ 0.143
0.547
⫺ 0.087
0.191
0.183
0.053
0.596
0.647
0.571
0.584
0.734
0.642
0.818
1.11
0.014
0.401
0.464
0.277
0.167
0.547
0.241
0.562
0.512
0.499
1.44
⫺ 1.40
0.164
⫺ 0.461
⫺ 0.140
s.e.
ˆ
Labastida–Cárdenas
⫺ 0.121
0.049
0.520**
⫺ 0.176
0.245
0.690
2.20**
⫺ 0.177
1.03†
⫺ 2.40**
⫺ 0.972
0.009
0.065
0.305
0.149
0.032
0.069
⫺ 0.361
0.173
⫺ 1.12*
⫺ 0.165
⫺ 1.91
ˆ
295
0.38
9.5
0.190
0.181
0.063
0.593
0.653
0.562
0.572
0.732
0.589
0.824
1.10
0.014
0.394
0.455
0.271
0.167
0.546
0.234
0.549
0.505
0.488
1.40
s.e.
Fox–Cárdenas
Notes: Pairwise deletion employed; ˆ ⫽ estimated coefficients; s.e. ⫽ standard errors.† Significant at 0.10.* Significant at 0.05.** Significant
at 0.01.
296
0.51
15.5
0.202
0.181
0.011
⫺ 0.667
⫺ 0.252
⫺ 0.326
⫺ 0.259
0.397
0.317
Age
Male
Urban resident
Education
Religiosity
Union member
Income proxy
N
Adjusted R2
F-statistic
0.055
0.615
0.675
0.110
0.600
0.018
Northern region
Metro region
Central region
1.49
1.28
s.e.
Constant
Labastida–Fox
Effects on Candidate Attitude Differentials, June (Two-Stage Model)
ˆ
10
Variable
TABLE
Television News, Mexico’s 2000 Elections and Media Effects
27
28
L A W S O N A N D McC A N N
From a theoretical perspective, our findings suggest a re-reading of the literature on
campaign effects. Rather than presume that the persuasive effects of television exposure
on partisan preferences and voting behaviour are minimal, researchers might instead
assume that media effects vary with the political and informational context. Where partisan
identifications are strong, political alternatives well known, media coverage balanced and
audiences free to choose between a range of outlets, effects may well be modest. By
contrast, where partisan identifications are weak, political alternatives more unfamiliar,
media coverage less balanced and audiences dependent on a small number of sources for
political information, effects may be pronounced. Such an interpretation of campaign
effects is in keeping with recent scholarship on political communication, which has
identified various caveats to the ‘minimal effects’ model.
The magnitude of television influence in 2000 can only lead us to speculate about the
impact of television news on past presidential campaigns in Mexico. During the 2000 race,
both networks accorded the three main candidates roughly the same amount of coverage,
and residual biases in tone were relatively subtle. In the presidential campaigns of 1988
and 1994, by contrast, both the volume and tone of coverage were grossly skewed in favour
of the ruling party, and audiences were even more dependent on Televisa news for
information about the main candidates.61 It seems likely that television bias prevented
substantial defections from the ruling party in those contests.
Empirically, our ability to generalize beyond Mexico is limited by the paucity of panel
surveys with adequate indicators of media exposure. Theories of media influence,
however, offer grounds for suspecting pronounced effects. In terms of the relative
weakness of partisan attachments, the comparative unfamiliarity of political alternatives,
and the extent of dependence on biased outlets, most of the world’s electoral contests look
more like Mexico’s than they look like those in the United States. Consequently, limited
effects models developed in the United States may substantially understate media-induced
attitude change in much of the world.
Indeed, by global standards, Mexico is really an intermediate case; the factors that appear
to permit substantial media effects in that country are even more pronounced elsewhere.
In Brazil, for instance, partisan attachments at the mass level are extremely weak; citizens
rely overwhelmingly on television for information about candidates; and bias on television
can be striking.62 One might expect even greater media influence in such contexts. Such
developing democracies clearly represent promising territory for research on the political
impact of television.
61
Lawson, Building the Fourth Estate; Murray Fromson, ‘Mexico’s Struggle for a Free Press’, in Richard R.
Cole, ed., Communication in Latin America: Journalism, Mass Media, and Society (Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly
Resources Books, 1996), pp. 115–38; Adler, ‘The Mexican Case’; Arredondo-Ramírez et al., Ası́ se calló el
sistema; Victor Manuel Bernal-Sahagun and Eduardo Torreblanca-Jacques, eds, Espacios de silencio (Mexico
City: Editorial Nuestro Tiempo, 1988).
62
Roberto Amaral and Cesar Guimaraes, ‘Media Monopoly in Brazil’, Journal of Communication, 44 (1994),
26–38; Mauro Porto, ‘Making Sense of Politics: TV News and the Interpretation of Politics in Brazil’ (paper
presented at the XXII Conference of the Latin American Studies Association, Miami, 2000); Joseph D. Straubhaar,
Organ Olsen and Maria Cavaliari Nuñes, ‘The Brazilian Case: Influencing the Voter’, in Skidmore, ed., Television,
Politics, and the Transition to Democracy in Latin America, pp. 118–36.
Television News, Mexico’s 2000 Elections and Media Effects
29
APPENDIX
QUESTION WORDING AND CODINGS
Television news exposure: ‘Do you watch any television news program? [IF YES] Which one?
Approximately how many days a week do you watch it?’ Interviewers were instructed to mark up
to two programs. Respondents who reported watching a particular program six or seven days a week
were treated as watching five days a week. Those who reported watching two programs on the same
network were treated as having been doubly exposed; i.e., their self-reported exposure to one
program was added to their self-reported exposure to the other program. For both networks in all
three waves, over 93 per cent of respondents were coded as watching five or fewer days per week.
Feeling thermometers: ‘[SHOW CARD] I am going to ask your opinion about political parties and
candidates for president. On this scale, zero indicates that your opinion is very bad and ten that your
opinion is very good. If you don’t have an opinion, just tell me and we’ll go on to the next one.
What is your opinion of …? [READ AND ROTATE].’ Options were ‘PRI, PAN, PRD, Francisco
Labastida, Vicente Fox, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas’. These feeling thermometer scores were then
differenced to create attitude differentials.
Vote preference (February): ‘Now for the purposes of this survey let’s suppose that today is election
day and you are going to vote for President of the Republic. For this I am going to give you a piece
of paper where you can mark your response without me seeing it and afterwards deposit it in this
box. If the elections for President of the Republic were today, for whom would you vote?’
Respondents were then handed a sample ballot.
Vote choice (July): ‘Did you vote in the elections of July 2? [IF YES:] Could you mark on this ballot
for whom you voted in the elections for President of the Republic? [HAND BALLOT AND
REQUEST THAT R DEPOSIT IT IN THE BOX.]’
Partisan identification: ‘In general, do you consider yourself priı́sta, panista or perredista? [IF R
HAS AFFILIATION:] Do you consider yourself very priı́sta/panista/perredista or somewhat
priı́sta/panista/perredista? [IF R HAS NO AFFILIATION]: Toward which party do you most lean?’
Campaign attention: ‘And in particular how much attention are you paying to the presidential
election campaign this year – a lot, some, a little, or none?’
Talks about politics: ‘How often do you talk about politics with other people – daily, a few times
a week, a few times a month, rarely, or never?’
Debates: ‘Did you see the televised debate last week/month between …? [IF YES] Did you see all
of it or just a part? [FOR ALL RESPONDENTS] From which of the following have you heard
commentary about the debate?’ [Options were ‘Television reports, close family members, friends
or acquaintances, radio reports, any other?’].
Credibility of television news: ‘When they talk about the candidates for the presidency, how much
do you believe the news on television – a lot, a little, some, or none?’
30
L A W S O N A N D McC A N N
TABLE
A1
Responses and Distributions for Main Variables
Variable
TV
TV
TV
TV
Minimum
Azteca
Azteca
Azteca
Azteca
St. dev.
N
10
10
10
10
1.43
1.86
1.70
1.76
2.41
2.56
2.46
2.56
2,355
952
974
1,254
0
0
0
0
10
10
10
10
2.39
2.34
2.38
1.90
2.75
2.57
2.72
2.54
2,355
952
974
1,254
Labastida–Fox (February)
Labastida–Fox (April/May)
Labastida–Fox (June)
⫺ 10
⫺ 10
⫺ 10
10
10
10
⫺ 0.26
⫺ 0.05
⫺ 0.30
3.90
4.31
4.58
1,982
851
901
Labastida–Cárdenas (February)
Labastida–Cárdenas (April/May)
Labastida–Cárdenas (June)
⫺ 10
⫺ 10
⫺ 10
10
10
10
1.55
1.30
0.60
4.19
4.17
4.20
1,966
847
900
Fox–Cárdenas (February)
Fox–Cárdenas (April/May)
Fox–Cárdenas (June)
⫺ 10
⫺ 10
⫺ 10
10
10
10
1.82
1.35
0.90
3.47
3.43
3.80
1,965
852
901
exposure
exposure
exposure
exposure
(February)
(April/May)
(June)
(July)
Mean
0
0
0
0
Televisa
Televisa
Televisa
Televisa
exposure
exposure
exposure
exposure
Maximum
(February)
(April/May)
(June)
(July)
Note: Respondents scored 10 on network exposure if they reported watching two different
shows on the same network every day. Fewer than 7 per cent of respondents scored over 5
on any of the network exposure variables listed above.