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The United States as Seen from Mexico

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 January 2018

John C. Merrill
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Extract

This article is a report of a study begun in 1959 and completed in early 1962 at the State University of Iowa as a doctoral dissertation. A descriptive study, it attempted to draw in rather broad outlines the image of the United States and its people as presented in an important segment of the Mexican press1 and in opinions expressed by journalists in interviews and on questionnaires. More specifically, the study was made to determine and describe the volume and kinds of news, opinion, and pictorial material about the United States published over a randomlyselected period (January, 1960) in ten leading daily newspapers of Mexico.

Beyond this main descriptive phase, consisting of the analysis of the content of 300 separate newspaper issues, the study also had as a secondary objective the presentation of opinion about the United States given by journalists connected with the ten dailies and with a few other newspapers. This latter phase proved to be much the more interesting, and the more revealing, aspect of the study, and it is principally with this “opinion” aspect of the study that the present article deals.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Inter-American Studies , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , January 1963 , pp. 53 - 66
Copyright
Copyright © University of Miami 1963

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References

1 This segment of the Mexican press included two dailies in the capital — Excelsior and Novedades, four “independent” dailies of the provinces (El Norte of Monterrey, Diario de Culiacán, El Heraldo of San Luis Potosí, and El Diario de Yucatán of Mérida), three members of the García Valseca chain (Sol de Tampico, El Fronterizo of Ciudad Juárez, and El Occidental of Guadalajara), and one of the Healy newspapers of the northwest region, El Impartial of Hermosillo.

2 Dozens of persons — not all journalists — were very helpful to the writer during June, July, and August, 1960, while he was visiting newspapers, interviewing journalists and having open-end questionnaires filled out. A few of these, because of their particular interest, suggestions and other types of aid, should be mentioned specifically. They are Benjamin Cabrera, Jr., editor of El Diario of Saltillo; Gustavo Solis Campos of Sol del Norte, Saltillo; David H. Parra, roving correspondent for El Dictamen of Veracruz and writer for El Universal of Mexico City; Rodolfo Junco de la Vega, Jr., assistant editor of El Norte of Monterrey; José Montemayor de la Garza, writer for several magazines (El Congreso, Rutas de México, Lente, and Futuro) of Mexico City; Luis L. de Guevara, editor of the English section of El Universal, and William Shanahan, editor of The News, Mexico City.

3 “Some Observations on the Concept of Image, ” Public Opinion Quarterly, XXV (Spring, 1961), pp. 16, 18.

4 See for example, “Alianza para el Progreso,” The Department of State Bulletin, XLIX (April 3, 1961), pp. 471-478. This is an address made by President Kennedy on March 13, 1961, at a White House reception for Latin-American diplomats and members of Congress and their wives.

5 José A. Mora, “Hacia la unidad de América,” El Farol, Caracas, XX (Jan.-Feb., 1959), p. 36.

6 All but three of the ten dailies had columns which were 20 inches deep; these three had 21-inch columns. All had eight-column pages. Therefore, in this study a “page” was considered as 160 column inches (on the basis of 20 inches per column).

7 This figure was obtained by going through the 300 separate copies of the ten dailies for January, 1960, and determining the number of pages “open” or left available after all advertising, comic strips, puzzles, fiction, etc. was excluded.

8 Markham studied O Estado (Brazil), La Prensa (Argentina), El Mercurio (Chile), El Día (Uruguay), El Nacional (Venezuela), La Prensa (Peru), and El Tiempo (Colombia) for thirty days in 1959. See his A Comparative Analysis of Foreign News in Newspapers of the United States and South America (School of Journalism, Penn. State Univ., 1959).

9 Other than ‘Latin America” as a whole (excluding Mexico and Cuba which were categorized separately), the major nations given the most play in the ten dailies were the following, presented in order of emphasis given: Great Britain, France, Cuba, USSR, West Germany, and Spain. It should be noted that Britain and France, however, accounted for only 6.2 per cent and 4.2 per cent of the total foreign (non-Mexican) space respectively as compared to the U. S.'s 37 per cent.

10 Thirteen categories were used in the study for classification purposes. Items were classified according to the dominant nature of their content.

11 Editorials, columns, periodic essays, letters-to-the-editor and other mainly subjective or opinionated articles. Relating to the U. S. were 418 such items, taking up 7,497 column inches in the ten dailies of the month. This “opinion” accounted for 10.2 per cent of all items and 22 per cent of all space given to the U. S. by the ten daihes.

12 They are listed in the order of their emphasis in the ten dailies.

13 The writer made a minimum of five separate visits to each newspaper attempting to retrieve the completed forms. In two cases, he made as many as twelve visits. The mañana attitude made this necessary, and the writer is convinced that there is no way to “rush” a Mexican journalist. In spite of certain difficulties and delays, however, about seventy-five of these commentaries giving personal opinion about the U. S. were obtained either through personal contact or through the mail.

14 This does not mean, however, that the non-intellectual Mexican is devoid of traditional anti-Americanism. The writer believes that there is in all Mexican nonintellectuals, with the exception of the detached illiterate Indian segments of the population, a deep-rooted fear, envy and suspicion of the U. S. planted there by history and by the intellectual “opinion leaders.” This anti-Americanism is normally submerged beneath a neutral attitude, and at times even an admiration for the materialistic aspects of American culture which the Mexican intellectuals scorn.