Public opinion and management of COVID-19: the role of Mexican media

Abstract

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in China was largely neglected by the Mexican media. However, the issue became of interest when it became a trend in the agenda of the population and governments after the perception of the pandemic as a tangible reality, through its effects and scope, as well as the high human, political and economic costs. A group of researchers from three Mexican public institutions conducted a study on the coverage of the issue by national corporate and independent media. The project made it possible to estimate the role played by these media in the social construction of reality and public opinion, through the production of news and the definition of positions on the pandemic and its management by the federal government. This paper reports a part of this study, under the monitoring of the monthly cultural and political magazines, Letras libres and Nexos, during the months of March to November 2020. It participates in the general objective of the larger project, which consists of: "To identify discursive antagonisms at the national level in the narratives of relevant social and political actors, around the federal health policy taken in the face of the health emergency by COVID-19 in Mexico, in order to formulate deliberative communication strategies that strengthen the public space of Mexican democracy". The methodology focused on the monitoring of digital publications and the reading of articles relevant to the project, in order to record in standardized cards the central arguments of the text and the position taken on the management of the pandemic. The main result confirms the prevalence of the opposing line of the journals to the federal government in their opinions on the health, economic and political management of the pandemic.