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1、Infotainment in national TV news: A comparative content analysis ofMexican, Canadian and U.S. news programs 1Jos-Carlos Lozano 2 jclozanoitesm.mxTecnolgico de Monterrey, campus Monterrey http:/cmportal.itesm.mx/wps/portal/wcmCampus?WCM_PORTLET=PC_7_0_12G_WCM&WCM_GLOBAL_CONTEXT=http:/cmpublish.itesm.
2、mx/wps/wcm/connect/MTY/Campus+Monterrey/MTY+HomepagePaper presented at the Annual Conference of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR/AIERI) 2004. Porto Alegre, Brasil, 25- 30, July 2004. Abstract:Political marketing on the one hand, and the search for profit and
3、fierce competition for ratings among electronic media on the other, are some of the most important factors explaining the adoption and expansion of “infotainment” in television news. With the changes in the political system of Mexico in recent years, leading to the first triumph of an opposition can
4、didate for the presidency in 71 years, Mexican television news programs have increasingly incorporated traits of infotainment. Based on a content analysis of one chronological week and one composite week of the leading national television news programs in Mexico (Noticiero Televisa and Noticiero Hec
5、hos), the paper presents empirical evidence about the degree in which news transmitted on these programs presents features of personalization, dramatization, fragmentation, and audiovisual effects. To put this analysis in perspective, the study compares the adoption of infotainment strategies in Mex
6、ican TV news with the use of similar strategies in the most prominent newscasts in Canada and the United States, partners of Mexico in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Findings suggest that the adoption of infotainment in Mexican TV news is still in progress, in some variables scorin
7、g higher and in other lower than their U.S. and Canadian counterparts. The paper ends with a discussion about the implications of this tendency in the political socialization of members of the public addressed more as consumers than as citizens by electronic media.Keywords: Infotainment, TV news, ta
8、bloidization, Mexican TV news, Newscasts in Mexican main networks have been characterized in the last decade by an increasing adoption of features coming from entertainment and fiction genres. Anchors and reporters editorialize and dramatize the narration of news; news stories focus on personalizati
9、on, dramatization and fragmentation in the coverage of politics, society, entertainment or sports. Stories focus on the immediate and rarely provide background. News is frequently packaged with visual effects like eyewitness camera movements, dramatic music, short and fast editing, slow motion, soun
10、d effects, and design and edition resources. This process is clearly related to the increasing global tendency in most commercial electronic media towards infotainment 3 or “tabloidization”4, the combination and fusion of news with entertainment and sensationalism (Blumler, in Brants, 1998; Djupsund
11、 & Carlson, 1988; Lozano 2000; Radunski, 1999).The specific term for this phenomenon still varies from country to country and from one theoretical approach to another. In Germany, scholars tend to use the term “boulevardisierung” in reference to the “boulevard” press, namely the popular press focusi
12、ng on scandals, celebrities, gossip, and entertainment (Esser, 1999, p. 292). Some Anglo scholars use the term “tabloidization”, referring to the adoption of values characteristic of popular newspapers by the elite press or by TV news programs (p. 292)5; others use the term “infotainment” (Brants, 1
13、998; Graber, 1994), and even others use the term “sensationalism 6” (Grabe, Zhou & Barnett, 2001) in a way that seems compatible with the general definition of the former terms. In Mexico and other Latin American countries, in contrast, scholars use the word “espectacularizacin 7” (from “spectacle”)
14、, following the popular and influential term introduced by Italian political scientist Giovanni Sartori (1998) in his famous book “Homo Videns”.Mexican and Latin American scholars are very vocal about what they consider the negative effects of this process that appeared only recently in many of the
15、media in the region(Abello, 2001; Lpez de la Roche, 2001). They argue that Latin American newspapers and TV stations have imported this model from American media in the last few years as a result of general trends in their countries towards the adoption of “neo-liberal” policies like privatization,
16、deregulation, and liberalization of media systems (Lozano, 2000; Rincn, 2003; Silva, 1996; Trejo Delarbre, 2001). Most of the discussion in Mexico and Latin America, however, remains at an abstract level, with very few empirical studies exploring explicitly dimensions and variables related to “infotainment”, “tabloidization”, or “sensationalism”8.With some differences in emphasis and operational definitions, most scholars doing resear
