3. Methodology. Corpus localization and argumentative analysis

To identify the social communication legislation of subnational entities; there were visited the 32 web sites of the Mexican State Congresses. The advantage of the legal obligation to publish the current laws was beneficial. From January to June 2019, the current regulations were collected and then reviewed for its subject. It is relevant to clarify that the only norms that were collected were the primary, not the secondary instruments.

After that, the specific legal instruments related to social communication were identified, then, three extern criteria were accepted to recognize them: in the first place, they should refer to the constitutional articles sixth and seventh; second, that they correspond to any of the seven types of legislations recognized by Hallin & Mancini (2004) and third, that they match with the category indicators of the legal framework for the evaluation of the media development (UNESCO-IPDC, 2010).

The laws of the social communication of the subnational entities were identified and then classified. Table 1 presents them. After that, using program Nvivo 12 an argumentative formal analysis was conducted to check the particular and internal characteristics, but also to identify the cross features that set similarities and differences among the documents.

The formal argumentative analysis is useful to recognize the characteristics of the symbolic forms in the discourse by its features, patterns, and structural relations (Thompson, 1998). The objective of using this method was to recognize and to show clear standards in the legal texts. The methodology consists of “separating the discursive corpus in a set of sentences or organized assertions, related to certain points or topics and, to set existent relations between these sentences and topics” (Thompson, 1998: 419). In this case, the units of analysis were the articles of each law that work as units to establish concrete regulations.

A body of founded categories was developed, for the argumentative analysis, from the legislation characteristics found and its contrast with the typology proposed by Hallin & Mancini (2004). The topics considered on the constitutional articles sixth and seventh and the indicators of the media development. The categories are integrated into a book code. They are: 1) accountability and data protection, 2) governmental communication, 3) freedom of expression and right of audiences, 4) media and audiovisual industries regulations, 5) digital rights, and electronic, digital, and open government.

4. Results. Characteristics of the State Legislations on Social Communication in Mexico

When considering the communication regulations on the subnational entities, it is necessary to say that specific laws in the subject do not end up. There is an infinity of media and communication regulations dispersed in a big part of the law, even when the enforcement areas could be very different. For example, norms oriented on guaranteeing a life of dignity to vulnerable groups, on regulating education, on coordinating the war on addictions, on promoting sports, even the ones on regulating the agricultural practice as apiculture could contain articles related to communication and its tools as substantial or assistant support.