Infotainment in national TV news A comparative content analysis of Mexican, Canadian and US news programs

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.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 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 candidate 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 Hechos), 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 Mexican 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 scoring 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, tabloidization, 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 personalization, 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, sound 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 & 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 focusing 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, 1998; 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”), 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 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, 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 research on this topic tend to agree that the main objective of infotainment is to attract audiences usually not interested or prone to watch TV news, and/or reinforce the interest of those already watching them. In the process, news may arguably become trivialized, presented as a spectacle, as dramatic, sensationalist or funny. Instead of addressing viewers as citizens, some scholars argue (Blumler, in Brants, 1998, p. 319), news programs seem to consider them as consumers and rating points.This discussion is important if we take into account that in contemporary societies, consumption and appropriation of news messages is a necessary condition for political, economic, and cultural participation of individuals at all levels: local, national, and international (Jensen, 1998, p. 16). As Jensen argues, information remains in the audience as part of its perception of the world, and can become a resource for action beyond the immediate context of exposure to the television screen (p. 58). If information, political or otherwise, is presented as infotainment, audience members may not be receiving the type of factual information useful for making decisions as citizens.Sensationalism in TV newsAccording to Starks (1997 June), sensationalism 9, was incorporated in local TV news in the United States in the late 60s and early 70s. In contrast with national news programs, heirs of the respected radio newscasts of former decades and more explicitly committed to provide responsible information to audiences regardless of ratings, local TV news programs originated with the explicit purpose of generating revenue for the stations owners. According to Starks, facing the dilemma of how to attract wider audiences, local stations decided to emphasize sensational topics like crime. Later, consultants made direct recommendations to imitate the most successful elements of prime time fictional programs:In fact, anyone watching prime-time television knew how the medium worked in the 70s, and could have guessed the advice: Crime shows like Kojak attract the largest audience. Viewers respond to likable characters. All sitcoms revolve around families. It was the genius of these marketers to take the principles of prime-time fictional television and bring them to every local newscast in the nation, where they still remain in force. (Starks, 1997, June)Consequently, likeable anchors and reporters incorporated happy talk between them and another concept developed by consulting firms: “action news”, characterized by a high number of news stories per program, striking visuals, and exciting upbeat music (Starks, 1997, June). Starks concludes that by the 80s, local newscasts in the United States had become so strong and had taken away such a large chunk of the networks newscasts ratings that the latter started to imitate the same strategies of their local counterparts (p. 39).Recent researchToday, academic research on infotainment in TV news has increased considerably, although it is still insufficient (cf. Grabe, Zhou, Lang & Bolls, 2000; Grabe, Zhou & Barnett, 2001; Gringas, 1998; Grossman, 1997 November-December; Keller, 1993; Lozano, 2000; Lozano, Garca, Lpez, Medina, Mend, Smith & Sols, 2001; Radunski, 1999; Sartori, 1998; Slattery & Hakanen, 1994; Thompson, 2000; Trejo Delarbre, 2001). Many of these studies, however, have focused on the analysis of a particular type of news (electoral news), or solely on the content of different news genres. Esser (1999), comparing tabloidization tendencies in the press of Britain, Germany and the US, concluded that “journalistic values, media cultures and economic and legal conditions are responsible for the degree of tabloidization in a given country”, attributing to these factors the expansion of tabloidization in Great Britain and the United States and the slow progress of this model in Germany. After reviewing empirical studies related to each of Kurtz elements in his definition of tabloidization 10, Esser concluded that the adoption and success of this phenomenon in German newspapers is very limited. He mentions a study by Schoenbach, who found evidence that German papers that decided to go tabloid by using more infotainment and emotion could not increase their circulation at all (p. 297). In contrast, Esser mentions a study by Golding and others in Britain showing that the amount of entertainment and human-interest stories had increased in the British press and that the amount of political news stories and their average length had become more similar between quality and tabloid newspapers (309). Brants (1998), on the other hand, reviewed several empirical studies of tabloidization in Europe and found mixed evidence of the existence of sensationalism and soft news in news reporting:In the overview of studies on television news in a number of Western European countries, there is many an example of entertainment elements in the content and style of political reporting. But on the whole, the picture is at best ambiguous and certainly does not point to infotainment taking over and to an unequivocally bad influence of commercial television (.) the news remains at the heart of their programming, and politics still forms a substantial part of most news programmes. (p. 329)In his own research about infotainment in different television genres in the Dutch election campaign of 1994, Brants also found mixed data. Although candidates tended to participate in traditional “serious” political programs (news and current affairs programs) much more than in other programs with high content of entertainment (talk shows, variety shows), the former contained some degree of entertainment (pp. 329-330). Brants concluded that the phenomenon of infotainment may be considered problematic only if three conditions are met: 1) if that is the dominant form in which politics is portrayed; 2) if it is done to hide something else; or 3) if it leads to a distorted image of politics (p. 329). In his opinion, none of these conditions seems to prevail in most European news media.Djupsund & Carlson (1998), in their analysis of tabloidization tendencies in the front pages of Swedish and Finnish newspapers found that “soft news” and “crimes and accidents” stories were more prominent in all newspapers than “hard news”. Comparing a sample of 1982 and another of 1997, they were able to determine that the phenomenon of “trivialization” was already present in the first period in the Swedish press and only developed in the second period in the Finnish newspapers (p. 104). They also concluded that the front page of the more recent period was highly “visualized”: nearly half of the front page contained pictures (p. 106). “The impressionis, from a normative perspective, slightly alarming: The values of trivialization and visualization are relatively high”, they argued in their final discussion (p. 110).Holtz-Bacha (1999), a German researcher who has studied in particular the phenomenon of personalization in electoral campaigns, argues that people are better adapted to (visual) portrayal, “whereas political activities are abstract and hard to get across”. She adds that “focusing on people is also a means of simplifying complex political processes” (p. 48). This may also be the reason why reporters prefer factual studies that lend themselves to simple description and to concrete analysis (in Gulati, Just & Crigler, 2004, p. 240). Other German scholars, like Schulz & Reimar (2004, May), studying the electoral coverage of German television in the last 10 years, concluded that in that period the presence of the candidates had increased, but their issues had not come across:The discourse provided by the news narrowed down to election and campaign as issues. References to the candidates increasingly focus on topics like campaign actions, matters of style, the competition among the candidates, and election polls. Substantial issues became less important. (p. 17)In the United States, Graber (1994) presented to a sample of television news directors hypothetical routine news events and asked them to construct news presentations and explain their framing rationales to determine to what extent are routine stories sensationalized and information content overshadow by entertainment features. She used categories related both to content (factual vs. feature style) and to formal features (dramatic elements). Her findings showed that television news producers were struggling between two conflicting styles: on the one hand, they were stressing the need to fulfill the professional criteria of news reporting, making sure that all questions were answered (who, what, when, where, how). On the other, “they were keenly aware of the need and the opportunity to attract audiences through dramatically told stories” (p. 504).Other studies have focused rather on sensationalism, a closely related term, but with a stronger emphasis in topics like crime. One piece that stands out for its approach to the study of this topic is the one by Grabe, Zhou & Barnett (2001). The authors provide a useful method for evaluating the presence of sensationalism in the audiovisual packaging of news. Comparing the TV program “60 Minutes” with “Hard Copy”, they explained that identifying sensationalism solely by news genre (crime, celebrities, and human interest) was too simplistic. They found differences in content between the two programs, with 60 Minutes focusing on socially significant news and Hard Copy focusing mostly on celebrities. However, some topics were similar in both programs, making them conclude that formal features, and not story topics, were more appropriate for the definition and analysis of sensationalism:Clearly, a sensationalist topic like crime could be packaged in such a way as to omit the merest hint of sensationalism. Just as easily, news producers, by playing up the bells and whistles of sensational formal features, could transform a story that by all rights belongs in the non-sensational topic category into a titillating tabloid experience. By moving beyond story topic into the realm of formal features, this study adds conceptual rigor to the widely used term, sensational. (p. 652) Empirical research in infotainment, tabloidization, sensationalism or “espectacularizacin” in Mexico and Latin American is still rare. Almost all the articles, chapters or books available consist in conceptual discussions about the phenomenon (Abello, 2001; Lpez de la Roche, 2001; Rincn, 2003; Silva, 1996; Trejo Delarbre, 2001). Most of the scholars stress its negative implications and consequences. Rincn (2003), for example, argues that the strongest impact of infotainment is that it takes away meaning from the complexity of society: This void of meaning is evident since TV news promotes the predominance of light and of the spectacle over reality and thought; it celebrates forgetfulness as an emblem of a society with short and ephemeral memory; It TV news expands social indifference as individual attitude, and compassion about pain as a strategy of public bond. (p. 50)In the same vein, Abello (2001) denounces the tendency of television to transform the news into a show, considering information as another link in the flow of entertainment with which the media strives to hook and maintain their levels of audience and circulation (p. 413): “In a global world our journalism entrepreneurs are only loyal imitators of the American way of news, a way that is progressively invading the news territory” (P. 414). Lpez de la Roche (2001) also agrees with his Latin American colleagues, asserting than in Colombia, newscasts have turned into advertising, sports and show biz, with only a small number of brief news stories unable to help the viewer make sense of the complexity of what is happening in the country (p. 59).One of the few empirical studies carried out in Mexico including variables related to infotainment was done by Lozano et al (2000), about the coverage of the 2000 presidential election in three leading national dailies and three national television news programs 11. They found evidence that the media sampled had adopted to a higher or lesser degree the model of infotainment or tabloidization present in other countries. Television news were significantly higher than newspapers in infotainment measures, but the dailies still scored high with only 31% of their total news stories showing no traces of infotainment in their content (p. 42). News stories devoted to the presentation or discussion of political platforms, candidate proposals for the economy, education, foreign policy, and so on were extremely rare, representing only between 5 and 10% of the total electoral coverage (p. 43). Mend (2003) in a related study of the presidential elections of 1999 in Argentina, found the same percentage of news with no reference to the electoral platform or proposals of the presidential candidates in that country (p. 97). The degree of “dramatization” in Argentinean newspapers, however, was much higher than in their Mexican counterparts: less than 5% of total space in the electoral coverage of newspapers had no features characteristic of infotainment (p. 98). These findings suggest that Mexican and Argentinean news media seem to be adopting for its electoral coverage the long historical tradition of the U.S. electoral coverage: a focus on “strategies, tactics, poll results, and candidates prospects for winning rather than on the substantive issues of the campaign” (Gulati, Just & Crigler, 2004, p. 238). As these three scholars argue, the framing of the electoral process in terms of a sports event seem to be related to reporting norms about politics: “reporters find it safer and easier to write a story about process and strategy than to report on issues. Issue coverage involves more time for research and technical explanations”.The objective of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of the transformation of Mexican TV news in the context of globalization and the adoption of U.S. models on the one hand, and the fracturing of the Mexican political system that had been characterized by a tight control of electronic media, on the other. To put this analysis in perspective, the study compares the adoption of infotainment strategies in Mexican TV news with the use of similar strategies in the most prominent newscasts in Canada and the United States, Mexicos partners in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), with higher degrees of economic and technological development, and with contrasting developments of their electronic media. Inclusion of the U.S. network news program with the highest rating (NBC Evening News) allows for comparing the degree of adoption of the American model in Mexican main national newscasts. Inclusion of the Canadian public news program The National (produced by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporat