The media transformation in Mexico, 2006-2024: information patterns, political discussion and fragmentation of the electorate
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Abstract
Based on data from the national surveys of the CNEP (Comparative National Election Project) in Mexico, carried out after the presidential elections of 2006, 2012, 2018 and 2024, this article documents the change in the Mexican electorate’s media consumption patterns during campaign periods and analyzes how said change impacts the level of political knowledge, discussion on political matters and agreement with the media niche or environment that the different segments of the electorate usually follow. These three aspects represent ways to approach three traits of democratic citizenship that have to do with the latter’s level of information, deliberative practices and possible degrees of political polarization entrenched in information fragmentation. One of the central questions guiding this research is the following: How does the change in communication patterns affecting information, deliberation and political polarization levels? Chief among our key findings are unsurprising aspects like differences in the consumption of new and traditional media based on age and educational level, but also other results that reflect phenomena whose confirmation has been somewhat more elusive or less solid, like the existence of echo chambers among the Mexican electorate, mainly among the most extremist, partisan segments of the ideological political spectrum.Keywords: media consumption, social media, political knowledge, political discus-sion, echo chambers, Mexican elections.
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Revista Mexicana de Opinión Pública por Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México se distribuye bajo una Licencia Creative Commons Atribución-NoComercial-SinDerivar 4.0 Internacional.
Basada en una obra en http://revistas.unam.mx/index.php/rmop.