168 | 31, pp. 167-185 | doxa.comunicación

July-December of 2020

The Social Communication legislation in the subnational space. The case of Mexico

ISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978

1. Introduction

The analysis of the social communication legislation in Mexico has centred on the federal area. For this reason, there is a gap in understanding how regulations in social communication are formulated from a regional scoped. It is clear that there are federal regulations exclusively as the allocation of radio and television licenses; there are others in which the state entities have the opportunity to legislate on its problems. The country, divided into 32 federal entities or states, has its state legislative congress to formulate laws to rule several aspects of social life.

This research presents a descriptive analysis of the specific laws that regulate the aspects of communication in federative entities. The objective of this research is to identify those legal instruments to classify them to be able to comprehend the role that regions have as interactive spaces with particular problems. According to Rolandi & Merello (2017: 225), the subnational space term “has its origin in decentralization processes by adding important competencies, in local and medium levels of government”. The term subnational entity will be used in this document to refer to the states of the country; this is the principal analytical category of this research. Also, the official term of federal entity or state; is used when referring to the political-administrative division of the territory.

There is a view focussed on the state community concerns when using this analytic point. The hypothesis is that social actors of each region have important enough to consolidate laws. For example, it is essential to consider that some entities innovate proposing some legal instruments that do not exist in the federal area, showing a legislative singular agenda. In this logic, 144 current state laws in Mexico are specific for communicational duties, which are part of this study.

Another conceptual axis of this research is on media development. UNESCO (2010) proposes this term when talking about the set of elements that facilitate the enhancement of the media system in a State. From this framework, media development is a quality indicator of the exercise of rights and freedoms of information and communication and in the quality of democracy. The frame of media development considers a set of conditions that are inherent and indispensable in the construction of democratic states.

UNESCO (2010) proposes a category of five indicators when identifying media development. The first is the regulator system and the legal frame that ideally must conduct to the freedom of expression, pluralism, and the diversity of media of social communication. This research focuses on the analysis of the national States in the subnational space. The regional presents particular characteristics distinguished from the national set on some occasions.

The following research question is proposed, using these approaches: how is the regulation of social communication in the subnational Mexican space? The premise is that the subnational entities are heterogeneous, which means that there are several concerns about the intern social life. According to their historicity, which is the origin of particular socio-cultural contexts, legal-political specific processes are created.