Antecedent Conditions of Disinformation in Mexico. A Theoretical Framework

Abstract

Disinformation is a pervasive force in contemporary political communication. Nonetheless, its strength and characteristics are deeply situated by historical and conjunctural political factors of each country. Mexico is one of the Latin American democracies with more acute disinformation operations and flows. This paper describes such scenario and analyses three general categories of antecedent conditions, political elites, news media and citizens, to explain why disinformation is so pervasive. Media is underfunded and discredited by the public, whereas public media is weak and lacks credibility. Citizens are highly dependent of social media for their news consumption, and lack the abilities to identify misleading information. And politicians are characterized by populist and polarizing rhetoric, a tradition of deception against Mexican citizens, and their unwillingness to regulate or enforce any measures against disinformation, of which rip ample benefits. We conclude by recommending empirically and theoretically furthering this framework in order to better understand disinformation in non-consolidated democracies.