Politics Through Film: The Role of Media in Mexico and America

Since the mid and late 1900 s, Mexico and America have been the main concentration on publications through newspapers, television networks, and radio stations. There has also been a huge gap of public opinion when learning about the highlights of Charles Foster Kanes difficult life, and the establishment of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). There are two films that we have watched in class this semester that illustrate the roles of media in Mexico and North America: Citizen Kane & The Perfect Dictatorship.

Both these films depict footage taken in governmental courtrooms, theatres, and reporting offices. They also show scenes of protesting, harassment, broadcasting, alienation, loss and depression. Understanding the political corruption that happens in both of these films encourages us to explore two different stories relating to mass media. One is the life of a newspaperman who lost two wife’s and did not succeed with his ambitions. The second one is the democracy in Mexico, which leads to the background of a complex political party with different policies of sharing power. The film Citizen Kane dives into Charles Foster’s own character of being self-confident, self-centered, the intense need for love, and not having the ability to express it appropriately. When it comes to being a newspaper publisher, Kane is associated with print, but the film also strongly connects it with handwriting. When the consistency of mechanical print has been completed, handwriting becomes additional because it depicts visible signs of each hand as an authentic to any type of writing.

For example, through a handwritten note delivered to Thatcher, Kane established his coming of age in which he announces that he will take over the Inquirer. It blocks not only the content but the activity to write stresses, because Kane shows himself from a front and then a rear shot, which stands up for a sheet of paper held at a window. Kane feels this dedication to honestly delivering news and champions of the citizens.

He also thought that his rights were necessary since he wanted to make newspapers very important to the city as a gas through which they illumine the darkness, rather than just printing photographs. In fact, he felt that the current newspapers don’t understand what is most significant, just as Rawlston thought the insufficiency of the newsreel compared to the newspaper Kane has been established.

According to about the orality of Citizen Kane, it is important to vision the way Kane thinks of the journal as a public service that, before his writing was persecuted, he chose the profession in a sense of perhaps unconscious nostalgia. When Kane sees himself as an accomplished newspaper publisher, he proceeds to politics, which becomes a huge turn around in history. Kane’s last desire to be president and his immediate aim was to defeat Boss Jim Gettys in the government elections are in the context of another conflict. Kane’s evolution in space reflects directly with the duality of an open and closed space. The composition of Kane dominates a huge poster that bears the image of Kane and extends from the floor to the ceiling.

The recurring tension between the frozen two – dimensionality of cinema suggested that the interaction of distinct spaces and the possible intransigence of spatial borders is suggested. As a result of his association with Susan, the political entanglement Kane suffers in is the dissolve from Susan's apartment building, as Mrs. Kane and Gettys leave, and is sealed to the still photo in the newspaper's door. Kane and Susan discovered that the decline of their new career and marriage is reflected between the universal two - dimensional of the paper and photographs as opposed to the 3-dimensional movie.

As it may already be, the spatial dialectic in Kane includes the development of spatial situations, which add challenges to a scene rather than supporting the significance of the scene. These mistakes have become a negative impact on his personal life. Due to all of these actions, Kane is marked by regret, divorce, friendship losing, and lack of political ambition. He was very lonely and unhappy. He aimed for his passions until they came to an end.

Citizen Kane not only succeeds in explaining the political message in an effective way, it also portrays useful life lessons. The media, in particular the newspaper, were depicted as agents of political socialization, the benefits of taking risks, the restrictions of media influence and the importance of having friends and relatives. Citizen Kane also provides new tools for thinking, working, drawing conclusions and meanings, theorizing and anticipating and unexpected events that can happen in reality.

The public depends heavily upon mass media to share news. People take political decisions based on their questions and policy views to broaden the positive and negative impacts of media, whenever information is shown to the public about media conflict, policies and difficult choices. People make their own choices collectively and individually. Kane second handed his journal entries for publishing cartoons of Gettys in a skill that created a bad example of his rival in public with a convicted suit. The scandal over Kane’s Susan affair was extremely depressing. Whether it is TV or a radio, the media owners have an order as to what they can or cannot present to the public. As a newspaper owner, Kane decided to guard the interests of poor people when debating against the Public Transit Company. Another decision from Kane was when he informed his second bride that the public trusted his plans and disregarded other important principles.

Kane used written reviews regarding Susan’s wife’s opera shows too help her wife become famous and be loved by so many. Towards the end of the movie, we learned a very good life lesson. Being rich, showing love and affection and obtaining more power are not the only ways that makes a person feel complete; it is caring for others. In order to become a positively influencing man towards your own passions, there are a lot of quality habits to develop. [3: Magaaral, Sir F & MGA. Citizen Kane Framing the Possibilities.

In Mexico, democracy means understanding a systemic weakness – including the reception and accountability of its citizens through its political systems. The majority of democracy in Mexico for all purposes was a one-party system. Its official party has won almost every presidential election since 1929 under different names. In fact, the Mexican government became synonymous with the PRI and commanded huge funds and philanthropy. Because citizens were not given the essential element of choice for their own voting rights, the elections became more dramatic. The PRI has set up a system that enables the President to gather a large amount of power over the state and over the party. The procedures were to select a successor, abandon the stage, give up the successor and retire after a six-year term from public life – always ensuring a proper transfer of power.

During the presidential elections of 1988, Mexico’s political challenges were evident. Strong efforts were made to ensure fair elections and strong anti – government forces. A millionaire industrialist named Manuel Clouthier expressed a conservative position on a platform for close relationships between America, advocating for stronger private sectors and limited government. Former President Lazaro Cardenas’ son found a leader. Even though Cardenas and Clouthier had different viewpoints on most of the issues, they agreed that the electoral fraud of the PRI should come to an end. Within the 1980 s, Mexico was on the verge of change, with strong economic growth, improving income distribution and poverty reduction in the economic outlook. [footnoteRef:4] [4: Hing Ong, Bill Revolutionary Mexico: A Brief Economic and Political History].

Media control in Mexico was very efficient in producing coverage that authorized the single – party regime. However, Mexico’s media was not very open in the heyday of the old regime, due to the mild nature of tools used to control their selective application. In a political system known for its flexibility and nuance sensibility, certain kinds of diversity have been dealt with.

The PRI, a high –pressure degree of ideological diversity, was politically amorphous. The left – win, nationalist newspapers like El Dia cohabited with two right – wing news papers: El Heraldo in Mexico, and El Economista. That is why the rhetoric of opinion in the media reflected the broad size of the PRI’s political coalition. Given the fact that several PRI factions had connections away from the ruling party and the regime tried to maintain the illusion of free media, even anti – regime voices have been eroded.

The government – owned El Nacional, had relatively more autonomy during periods of republican leadership. The intergovernmental, regional and personalistic divisions were also encouraging official tolerance. Creating journals was another strategy to maintain their independence with Mexico’s cleavage federal state. The daily El Diario de Yucatan based in Merida had a survived conflict with local bosses because they rarely clashed with government authorities at the federal level.

The magazine Proceso was well – connected with certain state PRI figures, even if the magazine was in constant conflict with the national political establishment. Every time the regime took reformist initiatives, generally at the beginning of every presidential term, the media would have more leeway. The regime demonstrated remarkable sensitivity to its critical reporting styles. Instead of focusing attacks on subjects with greater vulnerabilities, ritual laments were more acceptable, like the condemnation of economic inequality by leftists and legal complains of official treatments by churches.

Through reexamination, critics who have respectful tones are more tolerant than mocking complaints, and can have a massive appeal. The PRI needs to maintain a system of representation with many factions and various ideologies under a single political body. Through maintenance of a public arena negotiation system, it plays a crucial role for the usage of the media. The PRI was able to manipulate media in Mexico through bribery, broadcast concession, and occasional doses of overt repression. Consequently, coverage of the media supported political institutions that exist at the moment. Traditional media ensured official domination of public debate by granting extensive coverage for government leaders.

The old system of press control helped avoid the political scandal that exposed how the system worked by maintaining a studied silence about potentially damaging topics. The pro – government media made it very challenging for the opposing party to be in favor of the governmental party over its rivals. Media control was never complete in a relatively loose authoritarian system like Mexico. Semi - Independent media would be able to proceed if the political system did not have direct challenges. Every time the scope of that medium was sufficiently limited or reporting indirectly reinforced paradigms, explicitly political challenges were tolerated. [footnoteRef:5] [5: Lawson H. Chappell Media Coverage under the Perfect Dictatorship].

The Perfect Dictatorship succeeds in demonstrating its political message on media control. Mexico’s manipulation and corruption at the highest levels is unsettled when several of Guerrero’s Southern States’ students vanished in September. Most Mexicans thought the drug gang presumably followed an order from a local mayor by murdering the students. The film illustrates TV MX, a powerful media conglomerate of cahoots with politicians ready to rate. When Mexico’s president’s TV gaffe recalls Enrique Pena Nieto, the manicure of the real-life coif of state leader, the leader’s advisors enter the mode of damage control, plotting a video demonstrating that the Governor of an unnamed state approved a bag from a drug cartel leader.

With so much hesitation from Mexican citizens, the governor made an attempt to clean up the image of the media by tipping the executive board members of the TV station. After a two different twin girls were kidnapped, the governor, who serves as president delivered the surprising news. The world's most substantial media company for Spanish language was covered by the mythical TV MX.

In past years it was charged for supporting the priest who ruled from the conflicting years following the Mexican Revolution to the presidency of opposition candidate Vicente Fox in 2000. In 2012, when Peña Nieto was being elected, Televisa received charges of pro-PRI inclination with the campaign. More than one politician has fallen into a gaffe in Latin America without news going beyond national borders. Some truths are too difficult and obscure for public expression.

The theme of The Perfect Dictatorship concentrates on the criticism of how the PRI can manipulate information, falsify events, and even nominate Presidents in conjunction with Televisa – the largest and most powerful Latin American television station. It is clear that The Perfect Dictatorship presents details that are completely unexpected in everyday life, but that have enormous implications as to whether the news is trustworthy or not. It also reflects on how media manipulation can allow the leader of a country to stand up to criticism and direct corrupt activities from the very heart of power. [footnoteRef:6] [6: Linthicum, Kate. Mexican filmmaker Luis Estrada’s satirical agenda hits home].

In conclusion, it was very hard to imagine how things in media can turn around so quickly. Being able to learn the lack of passion from a newspaper man and the inception of the different parts of a political system have taught me the importance of why media companies needs to be careful with what they publish. With the issues of mass media perpetuating, I believe it is important to carry the themes from Citizen Kane and The Perfect Dictatorship to prevent other serious causes from happening.