{"id":2342,"date":"2025-03-31T09:09:03","date_gmt":"2025-03-31T15:09:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.juan-larrosa.com\/?p=2342"},"modified":"2025-03-31T09:14:54","modified_gmt":"2025-03-31T15:14:54","slug":"epistemic-and-journalistic-challenges-in-the-judicial-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juan-larrosa.com\/en\/epistemic-and-journalistic-challenges-in-the-judicial-election\/","title":{"rendered":"Epistemic and Journalistic Challenges in the Judicial Election"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Juan Larrosa, March 31, 2025<\/p>\n

Yesterday, March 30, marked the beginning of political campaigns for an unprecedented election in Mexico: judicial positions will be filled through direct voting for the first time in the country’s history. This type of election is rare, even at the international level. Few countries subject judicial appointments to popular vote, making this a highly uncertain process that deserves close attention.<\/p>\n

In this piece, I want to focus on an issue of public and political communication: the role of the media and journalism during an electoral process.<\/p>\n

In any democratic system\u2014be it Republican, Representative, or Elitist\u2014one of the core foundations is the existence of social mechanisms that enable the production and distribution of political knowledge among a community’s members. In an electoral context, this knowledge should revolve around the rules of the election, the candidates, and their proposals.<\/p>\n

This knowledge is generated through various institutions, but in modern democracies, the media plays a fundamental role. It is the only institution with relative independence from public power that produces political knowledge while also possessing the infrastructure to distribute that information on a large scale\u2014whether through print media, radio, television, or digital platforms.<\/p>\n

In theory, their role is clear: to inform the public so that, at the time of voting, people can exercise their rights in an informed manner. Knowing that an election is taking place, understanding the rules, identifying the candidates, and, above all, discerning their positions and proposals is essential to casting a reasoned vote.<\/p>\n

That’s the theory.<\/p>\n

In practice, however, we face a structural epistemic-journalistic production problem. In other words, the media in Mexico, both as an institution and as an industry, cannot generate and disseminate the volume and quality of information needed for large-scale elections with numerous simultaneous candidacies.<\/p>\n

This phenomenon was documented in a study I conducted with my colleague Sof\u00eda Palau<\/a>\u00a0as part of the media monitoring for the Electoral and Citizen Participation Institute of Jalisco during the 2021 state elections. We found that local media could not cover all candidates running for municipal and legislative offices. Some candidates were not mentioned even once throughout the entire campaign. This means that the public, at least through the media, was not even informed about who was on the ballot.<\/p>\n

That constitutes a severe epistemic failure. And while current data is still pending, all signs suggest that the upcoming judicial election will suffer from the same problem.<\/p>\n

Why? Mexico lacks the media and journalistic infrastructure necessary to cover an election of this magnitude. There are not enough journalists, newsrooms, resources, or working conditions to produce the information this election requires\u2014both in terms of quantity and quality. Most voters will likely arrive at the polls without knowing who the candidates are, their backgrounds, or what they propose.<\/p>\n

This order represents a serious democratic issue. It is urgent to rethink how elections are designed and strengthen the structural conditions of information production: more media outlets, more journalists, more resources, and better coverage.<\/p>\n

This text was originally read on the NTR Radio newscast broadcast on March 31, 2025, hosted by journalist Sergio Ren\u00e9 de Dios Corona.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Juan Larrosa, March 31, 2025 Yesterday, March 30, marked the beginning of political campaigns for an unprecedented election in Mexico: judicial positions will be filled through direct voting for the first time in the country’s history. This type of election is rare, even at the international level. Few countries subject judicial appointments to popular vote, making this a highly… Read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[154,156,151,153],"tags":[160,169,163],"class_list":["post-2342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-electoral-campaigns-in-mexico","category-guadalajaras-communication-system","category-media-observatories","category-political-communication","tag-electoral-campaigns","tag-electoral-campaigns-in-mexico","tag-political-communication","xfolkentry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":897,"url":"https:\/\/www.juan-larrosa.com\/en\/new-article-within-tipodos-monograph-on-social-networks-politics-and-democracy-towards-hybrid-political-communication\/","url_meta":{"origin":2342,"position":0},"title":"New article within Tipodos’ monograph on Social Networks, Politics and Democracy. Towards Hybrid Political Communication","author":"Juan S. Larrosa-Fuentes","date":"24 March, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"In recent weeks the Catalonian journal Tripods published the monograph \"Social Networks, Politics and Democracy. Towards Hybrid Political Communication,\" where was released my article \"Deliberation and Conversation between Political Elites and Social Media Users during Guadalajara\u2019s Election: a Political Communication Systems\u2019 Approach.\" The abstract of the article is the following:\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Electoral Campaigns in Mexico"","block_context":{"text":"Electoral Campaigns in Mexico","link":"https:\/\/www.juan-larrosa.com\/en\/category\/political-communication\/electoral-campaigns-in-mexico\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Revista Tr\u00edpodos","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.juan-larrosa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/cover_issue_12_es_ES.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":483,"url":"https:\/\/www.juan-larrosa.com\/en\/digital-media-power-and-democracy-in-election-campaigns-a-workshop\/","url_meta":{"origin":2342,"position":1},"title":"Digital Media, Power, and Democracy in Election Campaigns: a Workshop","author":"Juan S. Larrosa-Fuentes","date":"30 June, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"This week I will be participating in the workshop \"Digital Media, Power, and Democracy in Election Campaigns\". The workshop is organized by Jennifer Stromer-Galley and Andrew Chadwick, both communication scholars that are specialized in political communication. This event will occur in Washington DC on July 2 and 3. \"Political Deliberation\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.juan-larrosa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Screen-Shot-2016-05-08-at-11.26.53-AM.png?fit=1200%2C896&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.juan-larrosa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Screen-Shot-2016-05-08-at-11.26.53-AM.png?fit=1200%2C896&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.juan-larrosa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Screen-Shot-2016-05-08-at-11.26.53-AM.png?fit=1200%2C896&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.juan-larrosa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Screen-Shot-2016-05-08-at-11.26.53-AM.png?fit=1200%2C896&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.juan-larrosa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Screen-Shot-2016-05-08-at-11.26.53-AM.png?fit=1200%2C896&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":843,"url":"https:\/\/www.juan-larrosa.com\/en\/making-sense-of-election-2016-a-political-communication-perspective\/","url_meta":{"origin":2342,"position":2},"title":"“Making Sense of Election 2016”: a Political Communication Perspective","author":"Juan S. 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