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ABSTRACT

MEDIA TRUST, MEDIA PREFERENCE, AND
LEVELS OF PUBLIC INFORMATION BY
SUB-GROUPS IN MEXICO CITY

BY

Josep Rota

This is an exploratory study, aimed at the des-
cription of some variables relating to communication
behavior in Mexico City. The variables that were analyzed
included (1) credibility in two media, television and news-
papers, as sources of social information, (2) preference
for either medium among the respondents, and (3) levels
of information about major topics in the news. The data
were analyzed by sub-groups of the population, defined
in terms of socio-economic and demographic variables.

The respondents were chosen by area probability sampling
methods.

This study revealed that residents of Mexico City
trust significantly more in television than in newspapers
as a source of public information, although they also feel
an equal need to confirm in the other medium the informa-
tion that they first get from either medium. Television

is the preferred source of public information of a

Josep Rota

significant majority of respondents, most of which also
believe that that medium does a better job of informing
the public than newspapers. In general, some differential
patterns of media trust and media preference emerged when
the data were analyzed by sub-groups.

With regard to levels of information, the general
finding is that residents of Mexico City have very low
levels of information about major news events that occur
beyond the limits of their city; that is, in the rest of
their nation and in the world. They tend to be somewhat
informed about local events and they exhibit relatively
high levels of information about entertainment-related
news. Significant differences in levels of information
for all categories of news were found among sub-groups
of the population, except when the sub-groups were defined
in terms of age.

The socio-economic and demographic variables were
generally good predictors of within group variance of
behavior patterns related to mass communication in Mexico

City.

MEDIA TRUST, MEDIA PREFERENCE, AND
LEVELS OF PUBLIC INFORMATION BY

SUB-GROUPS IN MEXICO CITY

BY

Josep Rota

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS
Department of Communication

1973

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I have a particular debt of gratitude to Dr. Verling
C. Troldahl, my advisor and thesis director, for his encourage-
ment, intellectual stimulation, constructive criticism and,
above all, for his friendship. I also extend my appreciation
to Dr. Charles K. Atkin and professor Donal Cushman, who
served on my guidance committee.

I express special thanks to Mr. Alberto Cabal,
without whose aid the data for this study would never have
been collected, and to professors Robert Irving and J. M.
Cortina of Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City, for
their assistance. Thanks are also due to Jeff Tully, Akiba
Cohen and Joanne Helfrich for their help in processing the
data, to Mark Steinberg for his insightful comments, and to
Mrs. Ann Brown for her efficient and pleasant help in the
preparation and printing of this thesis.

To my parents I am particularly grateful for their

support.

ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . . . . . .

LIST OF TABLES. . . . . . .

Chapter
I. INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . .
Background and Justification . . .
Purpose . . . . . . . . . .
Objectives . . . . . . . . .
Nature of the Study . . . . . .
II. METHODOLOGY. . . . . . . . . .
Sample and Sampling Method . . . .
Variables. . . . . . . . . .
Questionnaire Development and Pre-test
Data Collection. . . . . . . .
Statistical Analysis . . . . . .
III. FINDINGS. . . . . . . . . . .
Media Trust 0 O O O O O O O 0
Media Preference . . . . . . .
Levels of Information. . . . . .
IV. SUMMARY, INTERPRETATION, AND SUGGESTIONS
FOR FUTURE RESEARCH . . . . . . .
Summary . . . . . . . . . .
Interpretation . . . . . . . .
Suggestions for Future Research . .

BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . .

APPENDIX. 0 O O O O I O 0

iii

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ii

iv

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l3
14
15
l7
17
24
27
49
49
57
63
65

70

10.

ll.

12.
13.
14.

15.

LIST OF TABLES

Page

Trust in television and newspapers as sources

of public information . . . . . . . . 18
Amount of trust in the newspapers by occupa-

tional sub-groups. . . . . . . . . . 19
Trust in information provided by each medium,

if the medium were the only source of public

information, by sub-groups of the pOpulation. 21
Predictors of media perceived as informing the

public better . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Need to confirm or supplement information . . 25
Need to confirm or supplement information, by

education . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Overall distribution of level of information . 28
Distribution of level of information by

categories of news . . . . . . . . . 29
Combined levels of information by categories . 31
Level of information on local events, by age

sub-groups . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Levels of international information by sub-

groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Levels of national information by sub-groups . 38
Levels of regional information by sub-groups . 4l
Levels of local information by sub-groups . . 44
Levels of entertainment information by sub-

groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

iv

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Background and Justification

 

Research in the field of mass communication has
practically been non-existent in Mexico. The first major
study was published as recently as 1970 (Rota, 1970), and
even that study was limited to only one medium. Further-
more, Rota's study analyzed the content of the medium and
not its effects upon the audience or patterns of consump-
tion by the public.

However, the past 30 years have witnessed a remark-
able spread of the mass media of communication in Mexico.
Both the electronic and the print media have been a common
national phenomenon for several years, reaching almost.
every corner of the nation. Mexico City alone (the locus
of the present study) boasts 14 major daily newspapers,

35 AM radio stations, 6 television channels, and scores
of magazines.

The 14 major newspapers have a combined daily cir-
culation of 1,547,000 (Editor and Publisher, 1972). The
number of television sets in operation in the metropolitan
area of Mexico City is about 2,250,000 sets (Gertner,

1972), or about half of the national total. One tenth of

the sets are in color. The format of both media is similar
to that of their American counterparts.

In spite of such abundance of channels of mass com-
munication, no empirical data have been gathered in Mexico
that can allow us to assess the effects of the mass media
upon their Mexican receivers, even though research done in
other countries indicates that such effects do take place.
Examples of areas of study of media effects in other
countries would include patterns of consumption of mass
media content (Troldahl, 1965a), news diffusion (Deutschmann
and Danielson, 1960; Troldahl, 1963 and 1965b; Greenberg,
1964b; Funkhouser, 1971), the effects of social communi-
cation in emergent crises (Greenberg, 1965), behavioral
effects of violence in the media (Baker and Ball, 1969),
the impact of television content on children's behavior
(Atkin gt_al., 1971), effects of mass communication
(Schramm and Roberts, 1971; Schramm, 1960), diffusion of
innovations (Rogers and Shoemaker, 1971), and the effects
of communication in national development (Lerner, 1958;’
Schramm, 1964; Farace, 1966; Rogers, 1969).

The latter type of effect, the effect of communi-
cation in national development, would seem to have an
added relevance in Mexico, a "transitional society"
(Lerner, 1958) that has passed the stage of economic
"take-off" and is now in the critical stage of "accelerated

development toward economic maturity" (Rostow, 1971). It

is precisely at this stage, as Schramm points out (Schramm,
1963, pp. 38-39), where Lerner's theory of communication
as the "main instrument of modernization" (Lerner, 1963)
becomes crucia1.*

Such notions of effects, plus the importance of
knowing and explaining various aspects of human behavior,
more than warrant the empirical study of the mass media
of communication in Mexico. Therefore, the present study
is carried out with the intention of throwing light to
some hitherto empirically unknown aspects of communica-
tion behavior in Mexico. It is also hOped that this
investigation will be a foundation from which additional

communication research will continue.

Purpose
The purpose of the present study is twofold:

1. To conduct an exploratory study (cf. Selltiz
g£_31., 1959, pp. 51-65), aimed at the explanation of
some variables relating to communication behavior, in a
country with not much behavioral research (Rota, 1970).

2. To collect data that will hopefully lead to

the formulation of more precise communication research

 

*The role of communication in the development of
nations, according to Daniel Lerner's theory, seems to be
strongly supported by empirical evidence. An exhaustive
reference to such empirical studies is found in E. M. .
Rogers' book, Communication of Innovations: A Cross-
Cultural ApproaCh (New York: The Free Press, 1971),
pp. 388-466.

 

problems and the development of hypotheses. More

importantly, it is hoped that those data will lead to

tangible research efforts in Mexico.

Objectives

 

To gather data from a representative sample of
residents of Mexico City which will allow us
to describe some behavioral variables related
to mass communication channels and messages.
To measure the degree of trust that residents
of Mexico City have for two media of mass
communication: newspapers and television.

To assess which of those two media is the

preferred one as a source of public information.

 

To measure the level of information about major

 

topics in the news that residents of Mexico
City have.

To compare the amount of trust in the two
selected media and levels of information among

members of different sub-groups of the popu-

 

lation.
To find out which independent variables, defined
in terms of socio-economic and demographic

indices, are better predictors of specified

 

forms of communication behavior.

7. To establish an empirical foundation that may
lead to the prediction of specific relation-
ships and the formulation of hypotheses that

will guide future research.

Nature of the Study

 

As cited above, this is an exploratory study aimed
at explaining some aspects of human behavior related to
mass communication. This study has been done in a country
where relatively little behavioral research has been con-
ducted and, more specifically, where behavioral research
in the field of communication is practically non-existent.

This study will be looking at many variables,
which will be analyzed in terms of several sub-groups of
the population. These variables (dependent variables) are
divided into two groups.

The first group is a set of variables pertaining
to media trust* and media preference. We are interested
in measuring how much trust residents of Mexico City have
for television and the newspapers as sources of information
and which one of the two media is preferred.

The second set of variables pertain to the level

of information about major topics in the news that

 

*The generic term "media" will be restricted
throughout this study to two media only: newspapers and
television. The generic term will be used for the sake
of conciseness.

Mexico City residents have on five different areas of
interest: international, national, regional, local, and
entertainment.

Operationally, "international" news refers to any
information which originates outside Mexico and which does
not directly involve that country. "National" news will
be understood as information of interest to the entire
nation and not primarily limited to a specific geographic
area, such as matters concerning the Mexican currency.
National news will be distinguished from "regional" news
in that this latter category refers to information which
originates in and is limited to a specific geographical
area within Mexico. "Local" information is that which
originates in and refers to Mexico City. Finally, under
the label "entertainment" we shall include Sports, stars
of the world of entertainment, and advertising; that is,
information of a less "serious" nature but which a previous
study of the content of Mexican journalism (Rota, 1970),
revealed to be of very large importance, as judged by the
space devoted to it.

Media trust and media preference, and levels of
information, will be analyzed in terms of sub-groups of
the pOpulation. These sub-groups are defined as different
levels of any of five socio-economic and demographic char-
acteristics: age, education, occupation, income, and sex,

which will be treated as independent variables.

CHAPTER II

METHODOLOGY

Sample and Sampling Method

 

Universe

The universe was first defined as the Mexico City
Metropolitan area, with a population of about 8,600,000
according to the 1970 census (Direccion General de
Estadistica, 1971). However, the inaccuracy and sometimes
outright nonexistence of maps for several districts and
towns within the metropolitan area, coupled with census
data that was found to be unreliable for some districts,
made it necessary to re—define the universe. The universe
was re-defined as Mexico City proper, with a 1970 popula-
tion of 2,902,968 inhabitants, distributed among 563,844
households (Direccion General de Estadistica, 1971).

Mexico City is divided in 12 cuarteles* or dis-

 

tricts (Direccion General de Estadistica, 1963). Each

cuartel is subdivided in several secciones. This division

 

is made for administrative purposes only and does not

 

*Since the time of this study, the 12 cuarteles
have been combined into only four districts which include
not only Mexico City proper but the entire Federal Dis-
trict (population 6,874,165). This may make sampling even
more difficult for future studies.

 

reflect any characteristics of the population. There may
be as great a variance within any given cuartel as between

cuarteles. Census data (Direccion General de Estadistica,

 

1971) and the author's own observations prior to the study,
show that extreme differences in characteristics such as
income, occupation and level of education can be found

within very small areas. Therefore, those cuarteles cannot

 

be used as the basis for stratified sampling (Cochran,

1963; Hansen et a1., 1953; Kish, 1965).

Sample Size

 

Given a confidence level set at 95% and a tolerated
error limited to i 5%, the minimum sample size was deter-
mined to be 384 (Cochran, 1963; Hansen 3E_31., 1953; Kish,
1965) for area sampling techniques with probabilities pro-
portional to size.

Previous research experience in Mexico City indi-
cated that a non-response rate of as much as 30% was pos-
sible. Consequently, the sample size was increased by
one third, to 512. Four hundred twenty-one questionnaires
were completed, giving a return rate of 82.23%, which is

somewhat better than expected.

SamplingiMethod

 

Each housing unit was defined as a sampling unit,
where any person was eligible for an interview, provided

that that person was not younger than a teen-ager. Since

"teen-ager" was apparently not adequately defined for the
interviewers, there was some inconsistency about the mini-
mum age accepted for an interview. The absolute minimum
was 14 years of age, although some interviewers placed the
lower limit at 15 years and others at 16.

The 512 sampling units were distributed propor-

tionately among all 12 cuarteles. One seccion of each

 

cuartel was randomly chosen as the sampling area for the
cuartel, with probabilities of being chosen proportional to
the size of the seccion. A walking map was drawn for each
interviewer and a starting point was randomly chosen. The
interviewers were instructed to attempt an interview at

every nth housing unit, with no replacement being per-
mitted. The interval was determined by a ratio between

the total number of housing units in the seccion and the size

of the quota (Backstrom and Hursh, 1963).

Variables

 

'As stated before, the questionnaire was divided
in three parts. One designed to measure media trust and
preference for either neWSpapers or television as sources
of information. A second one intended to measure levels
of information on major news events. The third part was
concerned with socio-economic and demographic characteris-

tics of the population.

10

Media Trust

 

Several questions designed to measure the amount
of trust and preference for the two media selected were
developed and pre-tested. The final instrument started
with two questions directly pertaining to trust:

In general, how much do you trust in TV news?
Very much
___ A fair amount
Little
Not at all
Don't know

Would you feel well informed if you only watched
TV news?

Yes

NO

Don't know

The same questions were then asked for the newspapers.

In addition, a question that directly compared
television with the newspapers was also asked: "Which of
these two media, newspapers or television, do you think

does a better job of informing the public?"

Media Preference

 

As an indication of preference, first two questions
were asked which were designed to measure the necessity
of confirmation of information or supplemental need of
information obtained from one medium in the other, by
asking, "If you first become informed of a new item on TV,
do you later look for it in the newspaper?", and "If you
first become informed of a news item in the newspaper,

do you later hOpe to find it in a TV news program?" The

11

final question in this block directly asked the respondent
to state a-preference for one of the two media: "If a
news event of great interest to you takes place, to which
of these two media, television or newspapers, would you

go first to be well informed?"

Levels of Information

 

As Troldahl points out, most of the studies on
news diffusion have been limited to determining only
whether respondents to a survey were aware of a news event
or not,* as Opposed to measuring the meaning elicited by
the news story or the level of information about that
story (Troldahl, 1965). The present study attempted to
obtain a better measure of information than simply aware-
ness. Level of information was operationalized by coding
the answer given by a respondent as "correct," "close,"
or "false," and assigning those categories a numerical
value of, respectively, three, two, and one.

For example, a question like "What international
meeting did President Echeverria go to recently in Chile?"
was coded as "correct" if the respondent said "United

Nations Conference on Trade and Development" or "UNCTAD."

 

*See, for example, Deutschmann and Danielson
(1960), Adams et a1. (1969), Budd et a1. (1966), Hill and
Bonjean (1964), Greenberg (1964a), Greenberg (1964b),
and Hazel Erskine's summary of social research in "The
Polls," a section of Public Opinion Quarterly published
in every issue of the journal since Winter, 1962.

 

12

It was coded as "close" when the respondent said things
like "United Nations," or "A meeting on commerce," or
"Something about trade," etc. Any other answers were
coded as "false."

As mentioned before, information was gathered on
five different areas of news interest: international,
national, regional, local, and entertainment. Since
several questions were asked about each area, the scores
obtained by a respondent for the various questions were
combined into a single score by adding the numerical
values up. For example, five questions were asked about
international information. A respondent who answered the
five questions correctly obtained a score of 15. The
minimum score would be 5, for those respondents who gave
a false answer to each of the five questions. Between
those two extreme values, a range was obtained which indi-
cated the level of information of a respondent on inter-
national information depending on the position along that
range.* In order to obtain a meaningful zero-point, those
values were then adjusted by subtracting the minimum value

from all scores. In the example, 5 points were subtracted

from all scores.

 

*The complete questionnaire is reproduced in the
Appendix to this report. The questions are a liberal
translation from the original Spanish text.

l3

Socio-economic and
Demographic
Variables

 

 

 

One question each for age, education, occupation,
income, and sex of the respondents was asked in order to
obtain general characteristics of the population that
would allow dividing it in different sub-groups. Measures
of trust, media preference, and level of information were
analyzed in terms of those sub-groups in order to find
out which characteristics of the population are better

predictors of the dependent measures.

Questionnaire Development and Pre-test

 

In order to select the questions that would be
used to measure level of information, a brief content
analysis of all the television news broadcasts and of a
few selected newspapers published in Mexico City during
one month was made a few weeks prior to the date when the
questionnaires would be in the field. This was done with
the purpose of identifying major news stories that had
been prominently displayed by the two selected media. An
additional consideration was that all the selected news
stories were to be about events that had repeatedly
appeared in the media during the period of the content
analysis.

. Forty four news stories that filled the conditions

were identified. Practical considerations such as

14

similarity of events, sensitivity or nature of the event
determined the elimination of eight items. The 36
remaining items were pretested and the 18 that showed the
most variability among reSpondents were kept for the study.
The pre-test of the questionnaire, including ques-
tions on level of information, media trust and media
preference, and socio-economic and demographic character-
istics, was done on 35 randomly selected subjects from
three different sectors of Mexico City, representing dif-

ferent socio-economic strata.

Data Collection

 

The interviewers were all advanced undergraduate
students in social sciences at Universidad Iberoamericana,
in Mexico City, who volunteered for the interviewing task.
They worked under the direction of Mr. Alberto Cabal and
received prior training.

All the interviews were completed over a period
of ten days in late June, 1972. The interviewing was con-
ducted at the respondent's home.

Some resistance and suspicion was found in many
respondents. Respondents' comments allow us to attribute
such defensive behavior to two factors: (1) The only
previous experience with interviewers (either directly or
heard from a relative, neighbor or friend) had been with
market researchers (who do not ask questions about sensi-

tive topics like politics and the national economy), or

15

with salesmen who used "research" as an excuse; (2)
suspicion that the study was being done by some agency

of the government. In most cases, resistance was satis-
factorily overcome with the presentation of an official
letter from Universidad Iberoamericana and with a standard

explanation offered by the interviewer.

Statistical Analysis

 

Data on media trust and media preference are
either at the nominal level of measurement or involve only
the comparison among frequency distributions, for which
cases Chi-square is the most appropriate inferential sta-
tistic (Siegel, 1956). For two variables, however: "In
general, how much do you trust in television news?", and
"In general, how much do you trust in the newspapers?",
the assumption of intervality can be made (McNemar, 1969;
Ferguson, 1966; Lieberman, 1971), in which case the one-
way analysis of variance to test the significance of
difference among means is an appropriate statistical test.

For all variables pertaining to level of informa-
tion, comparisons among the mean level of information for
various sub-groups of the pOpulation will be made. In
this case, the one-way analysis of variance seems to be
the most appropriate statistical test (McNemar, 1969;
Ferguson, 1966). It should be noted here that the distri-

butions of many sub-groups do not exhibit normality. Even

16

though this may reflect a true characteristic of the
population, it could be argued that the assumption of
normality is violated, invalidating inferences made on
the basis of the analyses of variance. McNemar notes,
however (McNemar, 1969, p. 288), that "there is ample evi-
dence that marked skewness, departures from normal
kurtosis, and extreme differences in variance do not
greatly disrupt the F test as a basis for judging signif-
icance in the analysis of variance." In any case, trying
to avoid any errors in inferences made in this study and
following McNemar's suggestion (McNemar, 1969, p. 288)
and Ferguson's (Ferguson, 1966, p. 294), we shall adopt

a somewhat more rigorous level for claiming significance
than the usually adopted .05 level. In this study, only
critical values of F that are significant at or beyond
the .01 level will be accepted.

Measures of correlation were not used in this
study, even in cases where it would have been desirable
to establish the degree of association between two vari-
ables, because (1) curvilinearity was found for some
variables, and (2) the assumption of intervality was

not met for many of the variables.

CHAPTER III

FINDINGS

Media Trust

 

The most significant finding of this study, in
terms of trust in the media, is that residents of Mexico
City generally trust television significantly more than
newspapers as a source of public information, as can be
seen in Table 1.

Both for television and newspapers, very few
respondents said that they do not trust in the media at all.
However, whereas almost half the respondents said that they
trust very much in television, only less than one-fourth
said the same for newspapers.

The analysis of the respondents' answers by sub-
groups shows no significant differences among the sub-
groups of any of the category variables (age, education,
occupation, income, and sex) for television. The same
applies for newspapers, except that a significant dif-
ference in the amount of trust for the newspapers was
found among occupational subgroups, as shown in Table 2.

It should be noted here that in the interpretation
of data analyzed in terms of occupation no assumption of

linearity can be made. The category variable "occupation"

l7

18

TABLE l.--Trust in television and newspapers as sources of
public information.

 

 

 

 

Amount of Trust in: Television Newspapers
(%) (%)
Very mucha’b 48.5 22.1
A fair amount/littleC 50.0 73.1
Not at all 1.5 4.8
TOTAL 100.0 100.0
N=332 N=376

 

Chi square = 56.7; d.f. = 2, p < .001.

a . .
These four categories are a rough translation from

Spanish. In the original (mucho, regular, poco, nada), and
on the basis of the pre-test of the questionnaire, these
categories seem to constitute a scale with equal-appearing
intervals (cf. Guildord, 1954).

bThe difference between the N for each category and
the total number of respondents (4217'who completed the
questionnaire is due to those who answered "don't know" or
who gave no answer.

 

CThe categories "a fair amount" and "little" were
combined into one for the analysis of these data because
of the extremely low frequencies in the latter category.
Only three respondents, out of 421, said "little" for
television, and zero for the newspapers.

is a coded variable constructed merely to delineate groups,
rather than a continuous variable. There is not a naturally
ordered sequence of occupational categories, in contrast

to variables such as income, age, and years of education.

19

TABLE 2.--Amount of trust in the newspapers by occupational
sub-groups.a

 

Mean Amount

 

 

Category Sample Size of Trust
Professional 56 2.0
Student 31 1.9
White collar 50 2.2
Blue collar, skilled 54 2.2
Blue collar, unskilled 13 2.5
Housewife _159 2.2
TOTAL 363 2.17

 

a One-way analysis of variance of means.
F = 4.91; d.f. = 5, 357; p < .001.

In addition to the question on amount of trust in
the media, the respondents were also asked whether or not
they would feel well informed if they only had either one
of the two media as their source of public information.
The results confirm the finding that residents of Mexico
City trust more in television than they do in newspapers.1

To the question "Would you feel well informed if
you only watched television news?" 56% of the respondents
answered "yes." By contrast, only 36% of the respondents
said that they would feel well informed by_gnly reading

newspapers, when asked the same question.

 

lChi square = 26.29; d.f. = 1; p < .001; n = 331.

20

The responses to those two questions were analyzed
by sub-groups of the population. Table 3 shows that
significant differences were found for all predictor
variables, except sex.

It can be seen in Table 3 that an additional
indication of greater trust for television than for news-
pepers was found for all sub-groups of the population when
the respondents were asked "Would you feel well informed
if you gnly_watched television news?" and "Would you feel
well informed by nnly reading a newspaper?"

In terms of age, there is a direct relationship
between age and trust in the media: as the age of the
respondents increases, so tends to do their trust in both
media. However, and consistent with the finding that
residents of Mexico City regard television as more trust—
worthy than newspapers, the percentage of respondents
expressing trust for television is markedly higher than
that of respondents declaring trust for newspapers.

The relationship between education and trust in the
media follows an inverted J-shaped curve. The more years
of education a respondent has, the less he trusts in both
television and newspapers up to the level of High School
graduate. Beyond that point, trust in the media tends to
increase slightly.

Different occupational sub-groups also show

statistically significant differences in trust for

21

TABLE 3.--Trust in information provided by each medium,
if the medium were the only source of public
information, by sub-groups of the population.

 

 

 

 

 

Television Newspapers
Would you feel well
informed? Don't Don't
Yes Know No Yes Know No
(%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%)

Age:

Less than 18 28.2 20.5 51.3 12.8 18.0 69.2

18 - 25 34.5 21.8 43.7 28.7 14.9 56.4

26 - 34 43.8 21.9 34.3 22.9 21.9 55.2

35 - 49 46.1 25.2 28.7 33.0 15.7 51.3

50 or more 58.7 14.6 26.7* 41.3 20.0 38.7*
Education:

Grade school or less 56.3 26.3 17.4 34.2 22.6 43.2

Junior High 36.8 16.2 47.0 29.4 8.8 61.8

High School 23.6 18.1 58.3 22.2 9.7 68.1

College, commercial 38.5 17.6 43.9*** 24.2 22.0 53.8***
Occupation:

Professional 26.2 23.0 50.8 22.9 8.2 68.9

White collar 33.3 29.4 37.3 29.4 11.8 58.8

Blue collar 55.4 20.3 24.3 24.3 23.0 52.7

Housewife 52.9 20.3 26.8 36.9 21.9 41.2

Student 15.6 12.5 71.9*** 6.3 9.4 84.3***
Income:

0 - 999 pesos/month 52.9 24.3 22.8 32.9 32.9 34.2

1,000 - 2,499 48.7 22.6 28.7 29.2 15.4 55.4

2,500 - 4,999 36.5 17.7 45.8 27.1 15.6 57.3

5,000 or more 28.3 20.0 51.7** 28.3 13.3 58.4*

 

aSample size for each category is 421.

'k

p < .05
**

p < .01
***

p < .001

All the levels of significance determined by Chi square test.

22

television and newspapers. However, no statements of
linear relationship between occupation and media trust can
be presented because occupation is a coded variable and
not a continuous one, as explained above.

Finally, the data show an inverse relationship
between income and media trust, although the curve
describing the relationship between income and trust in
newspapers flattens out. Nevertheless, the conclusion is
quite clear that the higher the monthly income of the
respondents, the lower their trust in television, but not
for newspapers.

A final question pertaining to media trust was
asked to the respondents: "Which of these two media,
newsPapers or television, do you think does a better job of
informing the public?"2 Consistent with the other findings,
the answers to this question also show a significantly
higher frequency count for television than for newspapers.3
Four out of five respondents chose television. In addition,
almost 3% of the respondents answered "none," and 14%
failed to make a choice.

Breaking the answers to this question down by

sub-groups of the population, it can be seen that there are

 

2This question was added as an indirect measure of
trust. Even though it yields the same results, it is
acknowledged that it might be also measuring "completeness"
of the information;

3Chi square = 123.6; d.f. = 1; p < .001.

23

statistically significant differences among the various
sub-groups defined in terms of educational level and
income. Age, occupation, and sex, on the other hand, are
good predictors of which medium is perceived by the public
of Mexico City as doing a better job of informing the

masses. This is shown in Table 4.

TABLE 4.--Predictors of media perceived as informing the
public better.

 

Percent of Respondents who Perceive Each
Medium as Informing Better

 

 

 

Predictors
. . Don't . . .
Televrsion Newspapers None Know Significance
(%) (%) (%) (%)

Age:
Less than 18 41.0 38.5 2.6 17.9 2
l8 - 25 71.3 13.8 5.7 9.2 X = 31.0
26 - 34 64.8 17.1 1.0 17.1 d.f. = 16
35 - 49 72.2 14.8 2.6 10.4 p < .02
50 or more 66.7 12.0 1.3 20.0

Occgpation:
Professional 62.3 21.3 4.9 11.5 2
White collar 80.4 9.8 3.9 5.9 X = 27.9
Blue collar 70.3 17.6 1.4 10.7 d.f. = 16
Housewife 66.8 13.4 2 1 17.7 p < .05
Student 46.9 34.4 6.3 12.4

Sex:
Male 60.3 24.4 4.5 10.8 2 = 17 1
Female 69.8 12.5 1.5

 

24

Table 4 shows that the three groups perceive
television as informing the public significantly better
than newspapers. This perception is constant across all
sub-groups of the population defined in terms of age,
occupation, or sex, except for those respondents of less
than 18 years of age. Those younger respondents are
equally divided between the two media, with about 40%
going for each medium.

This last observation may be related to the per-
centages observed for the category "student" in the sub-
group of the pOpulation defined by occupation, although

this possibility has not been specifically tested.

Media Preference

 

Quite predictably, given the findings on media
trust, television is clearly preferred over the newspapers
as a source of public information. When asked "If a news
event of great interest to you takes place, to which of
these two media, television or newspapers, would you go
first to be well informed?" two-thirds of those making a
choice said "television."4

In spite of such a large difference, no significant

differences were found among the various sub-groups of the

population.

 

4Chi square = 51.14; d.f. = l; p < .001.

25

Two other questions were asked to the respondents
in order to assess media preference: "If you first become
informed of a news item on TV, do you later look for it in
the newspaper?" and "If you first become informed of a news
item in the newspaper, do you later hope to find it in a
TV news program?" The frequency distributions for the
answers to these two questions are practically identical,

as can be seen in Table 5.

TABLE 5.—-Need to confirm or supplement information.

 

First.Informed from First Informed From
‘TV, Need to Confirm Newspapers, Need to

 

 

in Newspapers Confirm in TV
(%) Hi)
Yes 67.2 67.5
No 20.0 18.5
Don't Know 12.6 .1212
TOTAL 100.0 100.0
N=421 N=421

 

As the data show, even though the respondents trust
in television significantly more than in newspapers, and
prefer television also significantly more than newspapers
as a source of public information, they feel an equal need
to confirm or supplement the news that they get from either
medium in the other. This finding can also be interpreted

in terms of media trust as indicating that the reSpondents

26

tend to cross-check the information received from either
medium, regardless of where they become informed first.
An analysis of the data by sub-groups of the
population reveals that no statistically significant dif-
ferences exist for age, occupation, income, or sex.
Differences were found, however, when the data were
analyzed by education. Those differences are shown in

Table 6.

TABLE 6.--Need to confirm or supplement information, by
education.

 

First Informed From
Newspapers, Need to
Confirm in TV

First Informed From
TV, Need to Confirm
in Newspapers

 

Education

 

Don't Don't
Yes Know No Yes Know No
(%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%)
rade school or less 61.6 16.8 21.6 67.4 18.4 14.2
Junior High 70.6 4.4 25.0 66.2 8.8 25.0
High School 73.6 6.9 19.5 61.1 6.9 32.0
College or commercial 71.4 15.4 13.2 73.6 14.3 12.1

 

These data indicate that a curvilinear relationship

exists between levels of education and need to confirm or

supplement the information obtained from one medium in the
other. No regular patterns in the curvilinearity of the
various relationships can be inferred from these data,

except for the U-shaped distribution of the "don't know"

27

category. There is some tendency for the distributions of
the two "no" categories to exhibit an inverted U relation-
ship, although the two curves are skewed in opposite
directions. The distribution of percentages for the two
questions, however, is almost equal, consistent with the

general pattern presented in Table 6.

Levels of Information

 

Altogether, 18 questions were asked about different
major news stories that had been prominently displayed by
the media during the weeks prior to the administration of
the questionnaire, as revealed by a content analysis of the
media. The questionnaire is transcribed in the appendix.
The 18 questions were combined into five categories of
news: international, national, regional, local, and
entertainment.

The answers of the respondents to each question
were coded as correct, close to the correct answer, false,
and don't know. Since the last two categories indicate
lack of knowledge about a news event, they were both
assigned a value of one. Close was given a value of two,
and correct a value of three. The obtained values of a
respondent for each of the questions constituting a category
of news were summed, in order to obtain a category score.

The general finding is that the level of information

of the residents of Mexico City about international,

28

national, regional, local, and entertainment news, con-
sidered as a single general category, is very low. As
Table 7 shows, of the total number of responses given by

all subjects, almost half are in the category "don't know."

TABLE 7.--Overa11 distribution of level of information.

 

 

Level Percentage
Correct 35.6
Close 9.4
False 7.3
Don't Know 47.7
TOTAL 100.0

 

The percentages presented in this table correspond
to the sum total of the answers given by all respondents
to all 18 questions. Once those percentages are broken
down by categories, interesting patterns emerge (Table 8).

These data show that as the news events get closer
in physical proximity to the individual, or as the event
becomes of a "lighter" nature (sports, world of entertain-
ment, advertisements), the level of information increases
notably. The category entertainment is the only one where
the number of correct answers is markedly greater than the
number of don't knows. Local news and entertainment are

the only two categories where the sum of the correct and

29

TABLE 8.--Distribution of level of information by
categories of news.

 

Level by Category Percentage

 

International:

 

 

 

Correct 29
Close 3
False 1
Don't know 64
I00%
National:
Correct 28
Close 3
False 28
Don't know 41
I00%
Regional:
Correct 32
Close 9
False 5
Don't know 54
100%
Local:
Correct 34
Close 23
False 7
Don't know 36
100
Entertainment:
Correct 49
Close 12
False 2

Don't know

37
100%

 

30

close to correct answers (which indicate at least some
level of information) is larger than the sum of false and
don't know (which indicate no information at all).

In any case, however, the frequency distribution
is still strongly loaded toward a low level of public
information among residents of Mexico City, as revealed by
a representative sample of the population.5 The don't
know figures in Table 8 show that well.

Realizing that there was a possibility that such
large differences in the distribution were an effect of
the artifact used to measure the level of information of
the respondents, given the low percentages for "close"
and "false" in some categories, a further analysis of the
data was made. As presented in Table 9, correct and
close answers were combined into a single score which
is a measure of at least some level of information about
major tOpics in the news. False and don't know answers
were also combined as an indication of no information on
the part of the respondents on some major news stories.

The large difference in the distributions still persisted.6

 

5There is a 95% confidence in the inference and a
tolerated error of 15%. This means, for example, that when
we say that 49% of the answers to questions in the category
entertainment were correct, we are 95% confident that
between 46.55% and 51.45% of the answers are correct for
that category.

6An indication that the questions were not biased is
that if they were one would not expect the clear trend
from local and entertainment information to international
information that was found.

31

TABLE 9.--Combined levels of information by categories.

 

 

Category Some Information
International 32%
National 30
Regional 41
Local 57
Entertainment 61

 

Table 9 confirms the finding that the level of
public information on international, national and regional
news events among residents of Mexico City is generally
very low, and that such pattern becomes reversed for local
news and entertainment, where the level of information is
rather high.

If an assumption can be made that entertainment is
as close to the respondents or closer than local events
such as politics, labor unions and disasters, then the
data of this investigation would show a direct relationship
between proximity of news events to residents of Mexico
City and level of information about those events. That
is, the closer the information is to the individual, the
better informed he is.

Given such general findings on levels of public

information in Mexico City as reported above, the next step

32

should be an analysis of those findings by sub-groups of
the population.

Of the five predictor variables (age, education,
occupation, income, and sex) that defined the various
sub-groups of the population for this study, age was the
only one that generally did not show any statistically
significant differences on level of information among sub-
groups. Information on local news events was the only
category of news that showed significant differences by

age sub-groups. The analysis is presented in Table 10.

TABLE 10.--Level of information on local events, by age

 

 

 

sub-groups.

Category Mean Level Sample Size
Less than 18 years 4.39 38
18 - 25 4.88 83
26 - 34 5.90 101
35 - 49 6.04 112
50 - 65 6.00 45
More than 65 5.55 22

TOTAL 5.57 461
One-way analysis of variance of means. F = 6.6; d.f. = 5,

400; p < .001.

33

According to those data, an inverted U-shaped
relationship between age and knowledge of local news
exists. The older a person gets, up to the 35-49 age
level, the better informed he is. Beyond that point, his
level of information tends to decrease. It should be
noted, however, that most of the difference is accounted
for by the younger respondents.

In summary, it can be said that age is not a pre-
dictor of differential levels of public information in
Mexico City, except insofar as local information is
concerned, in which case an inverted U-shape relationship
between the two variables is found to reach statistical
significance.

Consequently, in the remainder of this analysis of
levels of information by population sub-groups, age will

not be considered.

International Information

 

The level of knowledge on international news among
the respondents was tested with five questions. The first
four asked the respondents to name the presidents of the
United States, Russia, Chile, and France, all of which had
been very frequently in the news just prior to this study.
The fifth question asked for the capital of North

Vietnam.

34

As explained before, the answers were coded as
correct, close, false, and don't know. For example, the
correct answer to the question on the president of Chile
would be Allende. Frey (former president), Neruda
(politician and ambassador to France), and other national
figures closely identified with the Chilean presidency,
would be coded as "close" since, even though they failed
to identify the president, they did at least show some
knowledge of Chilean government and politics. Other
answers were coded as "false." The last answer and "don't
know" were given a value of one. "Close" was given a
value of two, and "correct" a value of three. Since there
were five questions on international information, the
maximum possible score would be 15, and five would be the
lowest score. The obtained scores were then adjusted by
subtracting five points, so that the scale would go from
0 to 10, zero becoming a meaningful value of "no
information at all." This range also places in better
perspective the means entered in Table 11.

The analysis by sub-groups (Table 11) shows that
the four category variables (education, occupation, income,
and sex) are good predictors of levels of information on
international news.

An inverted J-shaped relationship between level of
information and education was found. As years of education

increase, so does knowledge of international news, up to

35

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36

the level of college education where there is a drop in
the average level of information.

Statistically significant differences were also
found among the occupation sub-groups. As explained above,
however, no linear relationships between occupation and
level of information can be stated because occupation is
not a continuous variable. Nevertheless, the data show
that there is a significant increase in level of knowledge
as we move toward occupations that are usually associated
with higher levels of education and income.

The data for the sub-groups defined by monthly
income also show a highly significant linear relationship
with level of information on international news. The
higher the income level, the higher the level of informa-
tion.

Finally, the analysis by sex shows that men are
significantly better informed about international news
than women.

In general, however, most sub-groups of the popula-
tion of Mexico City have low levels of knowledge on inter-
national news (see also Tables 8 and 9). The data for the
mean level of information of each sub-group, presented in
Table 11, show that the average for most sub-groups falls

below the median value of 5 in a range going from 0 to 10.

37

National Information

 

National information was operationally defined as
those news stories of interest to all Mexicans, with no
geographical restrictions. The questions that were asked
were (1) "Do you know which country in the Far East did
President Echeverria visit a few months ago?" (2) "What
international meeting did President Echeverria go to
recently in Chile?" and (3) "With regard to the recent
world monetary crisis, do you know if the Mexican peso has
been devalued?" (Questions are in Spanish in the original
text of the questionnaire. These, and all questions
quoted in this thesis, are to be considered as liberal
translations from the original.) A respondent who answered
the three questions correctly would get the maximum score
of 6 points. The minimum score is 0.

Table 12 presents the data by sub-groups. The
data show a statistically significant relationship between
education and level of information on national news,
although the relationship is J-shaped. Up to the level of
commercial studies, an increase in years of education
shows a concomitant increase in information. However, for
the group with college education there is a drOp in the
mean level of information.

Occupation is also significantly related to level
of information on national news. The data reveal a clear

tendency for the mean level of information to increase as

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fl

 

38

 

 

 

 

 

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39

the kind of occupation suggests increasingly higher levels
of education and income.

A linear relationship between income and knowledge
of national news was also found, which reaches statistical
significance. It can be seen that the respondents with
higher monthly income are also higher in mean level of
information.

The level of information on national events
analyzed by sex did not reach the minimum level of statisti-
cal significance set for this study.

Finally, the data show a very low level of informa—
tion on national news among the respondents. In a distri-
bution where the minimum possible score for level of
national information is 0, and 6 is the maximum value,
all sub-groups of the pOpulation fell under the median

value of 3.

Regional Information

 

Regional information was operationally defined as
that which specifically refers to a limited geographical
area within Mexico, other than the metropolitan area of
Mexico City.

Two questions were asked. The first, "In what
state of the Republic do the Tarahumara Indians live?"
refers to a large group of Indians who live in the
mountains of northern Mexico and who had been given

considerable attention by the Mexico City media because

40

of their numerous social problems. The second question was
"What is the most important city in the Yucatan peninsula?"
It refers to the socio-politic, economic and administrative
capital of the Mexican southeast.

The distribution of scores of the responses for
this news category goes between the extreme values of zero
and four.

All the category variables that divide the popula-
tion into sub-groups show statistically significant dif-
ferences in the mean levels of information (Table 13).

For the category variable education, a linear
relationship is found between years of education and level
of information on regional news, up to the level of com-
mercial studies. After that level, a pronounced drOp in
the mean value is found.

Statistically significant differences between popu-
lation sub-groups defined by occupation and knowledge of
regional information were also found. For the non-student
and non-housewife sub-groups, the same relationship that
was found for the previous categories of information also
holds for regional news. The more an occupation would tend
to be associated with higher education and income, the
better the knowledge of regional information.

A linear relationship between income and level of
information of regional news was also found to reach

statistical significance. The relationship is a direct one,

41

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mo mammamsm mmsImso
k.

 

 

 

 

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42

so that higher income levels correspond to higher
information levels.

Sexual differences were found to be statistically
significant. Men are better informed about regional events
than women.

The data presented in Table 13 also confirm the
findings presented in Tables 8 and 9 about the generally
low level of regional information. The median value of
the theoretical distribution of information on regional
news is 2.0. This value is higher than the observed
average level of information found for most sub-groups of

the p0pu1ation.

Local Information

 

This category refers to major news events in and
about Mexico City. It excludes, however, the many news
stories that originate in Mexico City but which are
national in scope.

The level of information about local news was
measured with three questions. The first one was "At
present, who is the mayor of Mexico City?" and is self-
explanatory. The second question, "Do you know which labor
union is Fidel Velzquez the leader of?" refers to the
leader of the most powerful labor union in the country, who
was involved in several important local news events during
the weeks prior to the interviewing of respondents for the

present study. The third question deals with a storm that

43

hit Mexico City several days before interviewing the
reSpondents, and which particularly affected a suburb
where it caused considerable damage and claimed several
lives: "Could you tell me what was the sector of Mexico
City most seriously affected by the recent storm?"

An analysis of the data, presented in Table 14,
shows that all four category variables considered
exhibited statistically significant relationships with
the amount of information on local events.

The relationship with education follows an inverse
J-shaped distribution. Increases in numbers of years of
education lead to better information on local events, up
to the level of commercial studies. Beyond that level
(where we only find the sub-group with college education)
the average score of information on local news falls down.

Occupation is also significantly related to level
of local information. However, no linear relationships
can be posited given the non-continuous nature of the
category occupation. Nevertheless, and similarly to other
categories of news, there is a clear tendency for the
sub-groups with occupations usually related to higher
levels of education and income to be better informed.

The data by income sub-groups show quite clearly
that an increase in monthly income is associated to an

increase in level of knowledge on local events.

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t

 

44

 

 

 

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45

With respect to sex, men are better informed than
women.

Since three questions were used to measure level of
information on local news events, the range of scores can
go from 0 to 6. Table 14 shows that more than half of the
various sub-groups of the population were above the median
in their level of information on local events. This
contrasts with the findings reported for levels of knowledge
on the three previous categories of news: international,

national, and regional.

Entertainment Information

 

Under this label we have included public information
other than "hard news." A total of five questions were
asked, covering sports and entertainment, as well as
advertising.

The two questions on sports were "Do you know who
is the featherweight boxing champion of Mexico?" and "Which
are the leading teams in Group A of the national soccer
league?" The boxing champion had been receiving considerable
media coverage. As for the two soccer teams, this study
was on the field during the last few weeks of the soccer
season, with strong competition between two local teams for
the championship of a sport that Mexican journalists often

describe with words such as "passion."

46

Two questions were asked about two very popular
actors. One was "What is the name of the artist whose
death was commemorated in April, on the 15th anniversary
of his tragic death?" The other: "Do you know which
Mexican actress is popularly known as "La Dona?" An
interesting observation is that those two questions ranked
number two and one, respectively, among the number of
correct answers for all 18 questions. Eighty-five percent
of the reSpondents knew that "La Dofia" is Maria Felix,
and 79% knew that Pedro Infante was the actor who had
died 15 years ago. It could also be mentioned that the
question that ranked third highest in terms of correct
answers was "Could you tell me the name of the president
of the United States?" Seventy-eight percent of the
respondents said Nixon.

The final question for this category was about an
advertisement: "Do you know which product has the slogan

'nguanta, aguanta, todas las pruebas' in its advertising

 

campaign?"

Table 15 shows all four category variables are good
predictors of differential levels of information on
entertainment by sub-groups of the population.

The relationship between education and knowledge
about entertainment information follows the form of a

U-shaped curve.

47

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48

No clear patterns in the relationship between sub-
groups defined by occupation and level of entertainment
information were found, although there are differences
among groups and those differences have a chance of better
than one in one thousand of reflecting true characteristics
of the groups.

The relationship between income and knowledge of
entertainment information is linear and highly significant.
As for sex, men know more about entertainment news than
women.

Finally, the data show that residents of Mexico
City are very well informed about entertainment news, as
compared to other categories of news. The median value of
the theoretical distribution of scores is 5. As can be
seen in Table 15, all the sub-groups but one are above the

median.

CHAPTER IV

SUMMARY, INTERPRETATION, AND SUGGESTIONS

FOR FUTURE RESEARCH

Summary

This was an exploratory study, aimed at the des-
cription of some variables relating to communication
behavior in a country where relatively little behavioral
research has been done. More specifically, no research on
variables such as the ones analyzed in this investigation,
and summarized below, has been done in Mexico.

Some research in mass communication has been done
in other Latin American countries. For example, McNelly
and Fonseca (1964) studied exposure of Costa Rican college
students to the mass media and related it to political
interest. Deutschmann and McNelly (1962) described and
compared the use of the mass media in two Latin American
communities, one in Colombia, the other in Costa Rica.
Deutschmann, McNelly and Ellingsworth (1961) studied the
patterns of mass media use by "sub-elites" in eleven
Latin American countries. However, no research seems to

have been carried out in Latin America on variables com-

parable to the ones of the present investigation.

49

50

Investigations in areas similar to the one of the
present study can be found in countries outside Latin
America, and particularly in the United States. Findings
of such investigations, however, were not used as a basis
for the research reported here because the nonexistence
of Mexican data would make the problems and perils of
cross-cultural generalization particularly relevant.

The variables that were analyzed included (1)
credibility in two media, newspapers and television, as
sources of public information, (2) preference for either
medium among the reSpondents, and (3) levels of informa-
tion about major tOpics in five categories of news: inter-
national, national, regional, local, and entertainment.
The data were analyzed by sub-groups of the pOpulation
which were defined by five socio-economic and demographic
variables: age, education, occupation, income, and sex.

The locus of the research was Mexico City. The
respondents were chosen by area probability sampling
methods, and constitute a fairly representative sample of
Mexico City.

In terms of accessibility, the two media selected
for this study are fairly comparable. The total combined
circulation of the 14 major daily newspapers in Mexico
City is 1,547,000 (Editor and Publisher, 1972). This

number is increased somewhat by several smaller daily

51

publications. The number of television sets in Operation
in the Mexico City metropolitan area is about 2,250,000
(Gertner, 1972).

The format of the two media is quite similar to
their average American counterparts. In terms of opera-
tion, however, the Mexican media are under greater govern-
ment control than in the U.S. Post-censorship does exist
in Mexico. Recently, the government has also moved toward
the direct acquisition of newspapers, such as Cadena
Garcia Valseca, the largest chain of newspapers in the
country. As for television, a government decree of July
1, 1969 extended the present television stations conces-
sions by 10 years, renewable for another 10 years, or a
maximum total of 20 years. After that, the decree gives

the government an option to buy any television station.

Media Trust

 

Residents of Mexico City were found to trust
significantly more in television than in newspapers as a
source of public information. Almost half the respondents
said that they trust "very much" in television, compared
to less than one-fourth for newspapers.

For the answers to the general question on trust,
no significant differences in credibility were found among
the various sub-groups of the population, except for

occupation.

52

However, when asked about their trust in the
information provided by each medium, if the medium were
the gnly_source of public information, even though the
same preference persisted, some differential patterns
emerged. It was found that for those respondents higher
in age, but lower in educational level and income, and
engaged in occupations that would tend to be associated
with low education and low income, trust in both media
tended to be higher than for other sub-groups. Trust,
however, was always significantly much higher for tele-
vision than for newspapers. Sex did never account for
any differences.

When the respondents were asked to choose between
television and newspapers as to which medium does a better
job of informing the public, four out of five reSpondents

chose television.

Media Preference

 

As would be predicted from the previous findings,
significantly more respondents preferred television over
neWSpapers as a source of public information. Two-thirds
of the respondents said that if an event of great interest
to them took place, they would go first to television in
order to be well informed.

In spite of such clear preference and greater

trust for television, however, it was also found that

53

regardless of which medium is the first source of informa-
tion, the respondents feel a need to confirm or supple-
ment the information that they get from one medium in the
other. Two-thirds of the reSpondents declared such need
to confirm or supplement in television what they found out
from newspapers. The same proportion of respondents
stated a need to confirm or supplement in neWSpapers the
information that they first get from television.

These findings apply generally in about the same
prOportion to all sub-groups of the population. Statis-
tical analyses failed to disclose any significant differ-
ences among population sub—groups, except insofar as
education is concerned, in which case the finding is that
the more education a person has the more he needs to con-
firm or supplement in newspapers what information he gets
from television, the same trend being less clear, although
still significant, when newspapers are the original source

of information.

Levels of Information

 

The general finding is that the level of informa-
tion of residents of Mexico City about all categories of
news is very low. When the answers to all questions in
all categories of news were combined into a single general
category called "public information," it was found that

almost half of the total number of responses given by all

54

subjects are in the category "don't know." If to the
number of "don't knows" we add all those answers given
which were incorrect, deriving a category of responses
which indicated complete lack of public information, the

finding is that 55% of the residents of Mexico City, as

 

inferred from a representative sample of the population,
are not informed about the major news events reported by

the local media. Of the remainder, one-tenth are just

 

vaguely informed, and only one-third are correctly
informed about major topics in the news.

It should be mentioned here that the questions
asked the reSpondents were not arbitrarily concocted by
the researcher. Rather, they were chosen from the news
events that the media in Mexico City displayed more prom—
inently and repeatedly a few weeks prior to the interview-
ing of the respondnets, as disclosed by a content analysis
of the media made during a period of one month. That
content analysis identified 44 major news events. The 18
questions that were utilized were chosen because a pre-test
of the questionnaire revealed those to be the ones with
greater variance in the responses, and therefore with
finer discriminability of answers.

An analysis of the distribution of responses that
indicate at least some knowledge of the major news events,
by category of news, shows that the percentage of

respondents with some information goes from 32% for

55

international information and 30% for national informa-
tion, to 41% for regional news, 57% for local news, and
61% for what was classified as "entertainment." In addi-
tion to indicating that residents of Mexico City are
better informed about "soft news" than about "hard news,"
those findings also lead to the interpretation that a
direct relationship between proximity of a news event to
the respondent and amount of knowledge about that event
does exist.

An analysis of the various categories of news
indicates that statistically significant differences exist

among sub-groups of the population.

Predictor Variables

 

In summary, the data show that age is generally
not a good predictor of differential levels of public
information. Sub-groups defined by age only show signifi-
cant differences for local information. All the other
four variables are good predictors.

Education is generally related to levels of public
information in the form of an inverted J-shaped curve,
so that as the number of years of education increases, so
does the average score for information, up to the level of
"commercial studies" (which is more than high school but
less than college). At the college level there is a

decrease in the level of knowledge on public information,

56

for all categories. Such decrease in level of information

 

at the college level is rather puzzling since a high
degree of association between education and levels of
information would be expected, such that the college edu-
cated respondents, the sub-group with the most education,
should also be the best informed sub-group.

An explanation as to why such a decrease in levels
of information occurs for the college educated sub-group
cannot be adequately provided with the data gathered for
this study, and it should be the subject of a subsequent
study. A tentative explanation, however, would be that
the college educated sub-group generally exhibits a lack
of trust in the media, leading them not to use the media,
which would necessarily limit their access to news reports.
It can also be that the more educated respondents do not
use the media for reasons other than trust. For example,
some respondents may associate television with undesirable
activities ("the idiot box," "a loss of time") and there-
fore may not use that medium at all. Further research,
however, is needed seeking to explain why such an unexpected
relationship between education and levels of information
occurs, and what are the social implications of such a
relationship.

With regard to occupation, all that can be said
is that there are significant differences among different

sub-groups defined in terms of occupation, and level of

lllllllll

57

public information. However, since occupation is a non-
continuous variable, no linear predictions can be made.
Nevertheless, the data show that levels of information
are higher among those sub-groups whose occupations are
usually associated with higher levels of education and
higher income. Education and income would then be the
relevant predictor variables.

Income was found to be an excellent predictor of
differential levels of public information. The higher
the monthly income of the respondents, the higher the
level of information. This relationship was constant
across all categories of information.

Finally, sex was also found to be a good predictor
of knowledge about public information in Mexico City.
,National information was the only category of information
where sexual differences were not very clear. Otherwise,
men were found to be better informed than women.

A crude generalization of the findings of this
study would be: rich men in professional occupations and \J/
with slightly more than high school education constitute
the best informed sub-group of the population of Mexico

City.

Interpretation

 

Implications

 

The findings of this study can be synthesized

by saying that residents of Mexico Study trust in

58

television more than in newspapers and prefer the former
medium over the latter as a source of public information.
In general, those people are poorly informed about import-
ant events that happen beyond the geographical limits of
their city, including events of national scope that pre-
sumably may affect them. However, they tend to be well
informed about such things as sports, movie actresses and
folk singers, and advertisements of brandy.

The preferential use of and greater trust in
television over newspapers may be an indirect manifestation
of "functional illiteracy" (Rogers, 1969), even though the
data of this study do not allow for the establishment of
any causal links. Nevertheless, it is known that the
index of illiteracy in Mexico has dropped in recent years
from more than two-thirds of the population to less than
one-third as a national average, and to slightly under
10% for Mexico City. It is also known that the reduction
in illiteracy rates can be explained in Mexico by literacy
campaigns of short duration, and by more children going to
school, although for relatively few years. For example,
45% of the respondents in this study had had education of
grade school or less, in addition to 4% who declared they
were illiterate. Short literacy campaigns and few years
of formal education allow people to pass literacy tests,
but they usually do not lead to effective use of reading

and writing skills, nor do they lead to any meaningful

59

consumption of print media (Rogers, 1969). This may be
reflected in the findings of this study about media trust
and media preference.

An important implication may be for the development
of Mexico. If literacy is indeed an important agent of
modernization (Rogers, 1969, 1971; Lerner, 1958) and if
consumption of the mass media of communication constitutes
the "main instrument" of modernization and development
(Lerner, 1958, 1963; Schramm, 1963, 1964), then the data
of this study suggest not only that Mexico's path to
modernization has not been completed yet, but also that
efforts should be made in order to increase the consump-
tion of both print and electronic media in Mexico. It
should be noted, furthermore, that the data for this study
were gathered in a city with indices much higher than the
rest of the country in literacy rates and in develOpment
and consumption of the media.

Whether or not the mass media of communication will
actually be used to a greater extent to inform the public
better and to utilize the potential of communication as an
agent of social change and development, what should be
noted is that credibility in the media as sources of public
information is lowest among the better educated sub-groups,
with higher income, and in professional occupations. It
is precisely among members of such sub-groups of the pOpu-

lation where one is likely to find the leaders that

60

control the social mechanisms. Whether or not those
leaders also exhibit lack of credibility in the media,

and whether or not such mistrust, if any, is circumscribed
to the present content of the media, or is generalized to

the media institutions, is an empirical question which

 

cannot be answered in the present study. But if that were
the case, the implications for a continued social, economic,
and political development of Mexico would be rather noxious.

It can also be assumed from the present study that
important negative factors exist in Mexico City which may
potentially limit and be detrimental to an active partici-
pation in the social, political, and economic life of
Mexico by many sub-groups of the population.

It should be obvious that public communication and
adequate levels of information about the important aSpects
of Mexico's life are prerequisites for a functional par-
ticipation by individuals and groups in various socio-
economic and political aspects of the country. However,
the data of the present study show that the level of
public information for most of the population of Mexico
City is very low. Consequently, it can be inferred that
a sizeable percentage of the population is poorly equipped
to participate meaningfully in important decisions that
affect all Mexicans.

When relatively high indices of knowledge on

public information were found for a majority of sub-groups

 

it‘lll'I’

61

of the population, for things other than entertainment-
related news, the news events were of a local nature.
This would tend to present the population of Mexico City
as oriented toward their immediate environment, and rela-
tively isolated from the national and world scenes. This
lack of "cosmopoliteness" (Rogers, 1969) can be inter-
preted, according to Rogers' theory (Rogers, 1969, 1971),
as an indication of "traditionalism" that still subsists
in the more modern, "transitional" Mexican society
(Lerner, 1958) and which may restrain Mexico from truly
"accelerated development toward economic maturity"
(Rostow, 1971).

It can also be inferred from the present study
that residents of Mexico City use the media primarily
for entertainment. Authors like Schramm and Stephenson*
would equate such use of the media with a need for instant
gratification and immediate reward. If this were gener-
alized as a characteristic of the entire population (and
it can be, given the representativeness of the sample),
it might be suggestive of a somewhat immature social

psychology.

Generalizability

 

The data of the present study referred to a repre-

sentative sample of residents of Mexico City. The sample

 

*See, for example, Schramm (1949), Schramm and
Roberts (1971), and Stephenson (1967).

62

was drawn by area probability sampling methods, in order
to maximize the possibility that all residents of the
city would have an equal change of being interviewed for
this study.

Given a representative sample, the findings of
this study should be fairly generalizable to the entire

population of Mexico City.

Reservations

 

Data for this study were gathered for only two
media: neWSpapers and television. In order to have a
better picture of media credibility and media preference,
an effort should be made to include other media. (In
this study, it was decided not to include magazines as
one of the media because their limited circulation makes
a comparison with television and newspapers difficult, in
terms of accessibility. Radio was excluded because the
present author has come to the conclusion, through per-
sonal observation, that many of the radio news programs
obtain all of their material from neWSpapers.)

The data could have been analyzed in more power-
ful ways if the questions on socio-economic and demographic
variables had been supplemented with other social indi-
cators.

Finally, a more precise instrument for the

measurement of social information should be developed.

63

Even though the present instrument was developed in an
effort to improve upon those commonly used in studies of
news diffusion (Deutschmann and Danielson, 1960; Troldahl,
1963; Greenberg, 1964a, 1964b), this instrument still
represented a rather crude and imprecise scale for the
measurement of information. Furthermore, the questionnaire
used in this study did not make any attempt to assess the

meaning elicited by the information, as Troldahl suggests

 

(Troldahl, 1965a), nor the effects of that information on
the respondents' values, attitudes, beliefs, opinions,

and, ultimately, behavior.

Suggestions for Future Research

 

l. The data presented here should be used to
formulate more precise communication research problems
in Mexico, and to develop and empirically test hypotheses
regarding human behavior in general, and communication
behavior in particular, in Mexico.

2. A study should be done aimed at explaining
why the trust in the media (newspapers and television) is
so low, and why is it so much lower for newspapers.

3. An attempt should be made to discover the
factors that lie behind such low levels of public informa-
tion in Mexico City.

4. Research should be done aimed at discovering
ways of increasing levels of public information among

residents of Mexico City.

64

5. With regard to the inverted J-shaped distri-
bution of level of public information by education, it is
suggested that research be done in order to explain the
reason why beyond the level of "commercial" studies there
is a drop in the level of information. That is, why
peOple with college education are less informed than
people with only high school education.

6. If proximity of a news event to an individual
is indeed related to that individual's level of informa-
tion about that event, research should be done in order
to discover the factors that explain such a relationship.

7. Research efforts aimed at explaining the
relationship between the findings reported in this study
and the social, economic and political development of

Mexico should become tangible.

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

65

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Adams, John B., J. J. Mullen, and H. M. Wilson. 1969.
"Diffusion of a 'Minor' Foreign Affairs News Event,"
Journalism Quarterly, Vol. 46, pp. 545-551.

 

Atkin, Charles K., J. P. Murray, and O. B. Nayman. 1971.
Television and Social Behavior: An Annotated
BiEliEgraphy of Research Focusing on Television's
Impact on Children. Washington, D.C.: National
Institute of Mental Health.

Backstrom, Charles H., and G. D. Hursh. 1963. Surve
Research. Chicago: Northwestern Univer51ty Press.

Baker, Robert K., and S. J. Ball. 1969. Mass Media and
Violence. A report to the national commision on
the causes and prevention of violence.

 

Budd, Richard W., M. S. MacLean, and A. M. Barnes. 1966.
"Regularities in the Diffusion of Two Major News
Events," Journalism Quarterly, Vol. 43, pp. 221-
230.

Cochran, William G. 1963. Sampling Techniques. New York:
John Wiley and Sons.

 

Direccion General de Estadistica. 1963. Anuario Estadistico
de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos. Mexico City.

 

Direccion General de Estadistica. 1971. Anuario Estadistico
de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos. Mexico City.

 

Deutschmann, Paul J., and W. A. Danielson. 1960. "Diffusion
of Knowledge of the Major News Story," Journalism
Quarterly, Vol. 37, pp. 345-355.

 

 

., and J. T. McNelly. 1962. El Uso de Los Medics

de Comunicacion Masiva en Dos Ciudades Latinoamericanas.
San Jose, Costa Rica: Programa Interamericano de
Informacion Popular.

 

66

67

., J. T. McNelly, and H. Ellingsworth. 1961.
"Mass Media Use by Sub-Elites in 11 Latin American
Countries," Journalism Quarterly, Vol. 38, pp. 460-472.

Editor and Publisher. 1972. International Yearbook.

Erskine, Hazel G. "The Polls," published in every issue of
Public Qpinion Quarterly, vols. XXVI-to present.

Farace, R. Vincent. 1966. "A Study of Mass Communication
and National Development," Journalism Quarterly,
Vol. 43, pp. 305-313.

Ferguson, George A. 1966. Statistical Analysis in
Psychology and Education. New York: McGraw-Hill
Book Co.

 

Funkhouser, G. Ray, and M. E. McCombs. 1971. "The Rise
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Gertner, Richard. 1972. ed., International Television
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Greenberg, Bradley S. 1964a. "Diffusion of News of the
Kennedy Assassination," Public Opinion Quarterly,
Vol. 28, pp. 225-232.

. 1964b. "Person-to-Person Communication in the
Diffusion of News Events," Journalism Quarterly,
V01. 41’ pp. 490—494.

., and E. B. Parker, editors. 1965. The Kennedy
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Guilford, J. P. 1954. Psychometric Methods. 2nd edition.
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Hansen, Morris H., W. N. Hurwitz, and W. G. Madow. 1953.
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Hill, Richard J., and C. M. Bonjean. 1964. "News Diffusion:
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Kish, Leslie. 1965. Survey Sampling. New York: John
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Lerner, Daniel. 1963. Toward a Communication Theory_of
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. 1958. The Passing of Traditional Society:
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Lieberman, Bernhardt. 1971. Contemporary Problems in
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McNelly, John T., and E. Fonseca. 1964. "Media Use and
Political Interest at the University of Costa
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McNemar, Quinn. 1969. Psychological Statistics. Fourth
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Pye, Lucian W., ed. 1963. Communigations and Political
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Rogers, Everett N., and F. F. Shoemaker. 1971. Communication
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., with Lynn Svenning. 1969. Modernization Among
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Rostow, Walt W. 1971. The Stages of Economic Growth,_
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Schramm, Wilbur. 1949. "The Nature of News," Journalism
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Stephenson, William. 1967. The Plgy Theory of Mass
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Troldahl, Verling C. 1963. Mediated Communication and
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., and R. V. Dam. 1965. "Face-to-Face Communication
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APPENDIX

70

*
QUESTIONNAIRE

INTRODUCTION: I am of Universidad Iberoamericana.

We are doing a scientific study of the mass media of communica—
tion in Mexico City and we will appreciate very much your help
in this investigation. It will only take your answers to a

few questions.

First, let me ask you about television:

1.

Do you watch television news programs?

es No /g_/ No answer_/ /
GO TO Q. 7.

E

 

Could you tell me which TV news programs do you usually
watch?

One program
Two programs
3 or more

None, no TV.

 

How frequently do you watch (it) (them)?

Every day

4—6 times a week

2-3 times a week

Once a week or less
Don't know, no answer

What type of information do you like better in TV news
programs?

 

In general, how much do you trust in TV news?

Very much

A fair amount

Little

Not at all
Don't_know, no answer

 

*
Liberal translation from Spanish.
71

 

 

lit‘ri‘ll

10.

11.

12.

72

Would you feel well informed if you only watched TV news?

Yes
NO
Don't know, no answer

NOW ABOUT NEWSPAPERS . . .

Which newspapers do you usually read?

 

if "noneiigo to Q. 16

 

How frequently do you read (it) (them)?

Every day

4-6 times a week

2-2 times a week

Once a week or less
Don't know, no answer

What type of information do you like better in the
newspapers?

 

In general, how much do you trust in the newspapers?

Very much

A fair amount

Little

Not at all

Don't know, no answer

 

Would you feel well informed by only reading the
newspapers?

Yes
No
No answer, don't know

Which of these two media, newspapers or television, do
you think does a better job of informing the public?

Newspapers

Television

Both

None

Don't know, no answer

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.
18.
19.
20.

21.

22.

73

'If you first become informed of a news item on TV, do

you later look for it in the newspaper?

Yes
No
Don't know, no answer

And if you first become informed of a news item in the
newspaper, do you later hope to find it in a TV news
program.?

Yes
No
Don't know, no answer

If a news event of great interest to you takes place,
to which of these two media, television or newspapers,
would you go first to be well informed?

Television

Newspapers

Both

None

Don't know, no answer

 

And now . . . Could you tell me the name of the President
of the United States?

Correct (Nixon)

Close (e.g., Johnson, Agnew)
False

Don't know, no answer (*)

. . . the name of the President of Russia?

. . . the name of the President of Chile?

. . . and the name of the President of France?
What is the capital of North Vietnam?

Do you know which country in the Far East did President
Echeverria visit a fews months ago?

What international meeting did President Echeverria go
to recently in Chile?

 

(*)

Questions 16 to 33 have the same answer codes,

therefore only the question will be entered.

23.

24.

25.
26.

27.

28.

29.

30.

31.

32.

33.

74

With regard to the recent world monetary crisis, do you
know if the Mexican peso has been devalued?

In what state of the Republic do the Tarahumara Indians
live?

What is the most important city in the Yucatan peninsula?
At present, who is the mayor of Mexico City?

Do you know which labor union is Fidel Velazquez the
leader of?

Could you tell me what was the sector in Mexico City
most affected by the recent storm?

Do you know who is the featherweight boxing champion
of Mexico?

Which are the leading teams in Group A of the national
soccer league?

What is the name of the artist whose death was
commemorated in April, on the 15th anniversary of his
tragic death?

Do you kngw which Mexican actress is popularly known
as "La Dona?"

Do you know which product has the slogan "Aguanta,
aguanta, todas las pruebas" in its advertising campaign?

And now . . . I would appreciate your answers to a few
important final questions:

34.

What is your age?

Less than 18 years

66 or more
No answer

18 - 25
26 - 34
35 - 49
50 - 65

75

35. What was the last year of school you finished?

Illiterate

Grade school or less
7th to 9th

10th to 12th
"Commerical" studies
College or professional
Don't know, no answer

 

35. What is your occupation or profession?

Professional, business

White collar

Blue collar, skilled

Blue collar, unskilled; manual laborer
Student

Housewife

Other

Don't know, no answer

 

 

37. Would you tell me, according to this card///HAND CARD
TO RESPONDENT///in which group is your approximate
monthly income. Please, tell me the number of the
group only.

Less than 1000 pesos a month
From $1000 to $2499

From $2500 to $4999

From $5000 to $9999

More than $10000

Don't know, no answer

U'lnwal-J
o o o o o

38. Sex

Male
Female

THANK YOU very much for your cooperation.

"IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII’IIIIIIIIIIIIIII ES

 

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