Zachary Goode | 2026 I.S. Symposium
Name: Zachary Goode
Title: Big Brother or Nosy Neighbor? An Analysis of the Effects of Journalist Intimidation on Portrayal of the United States in Mexican Media Within the War on Drugs Context
Majors: Political Science; Spanish
Advisors: Kent Kille, Rebecca Garonzik
Having been interested in the issue of press freedom for years, I wanted to make it a part of my IS. Given that my majors are Political Science and Spanish, I looked to Mexico as a place to study both of my fields at once. I chose to examine how violence against journalists could affect the portrayal of the United States in Mexican news media in the context of the War on Drugs. By qualitatively analyzing articles collected from Durango, Sinaloa, Mexico City, and Yucat谩n, this study measures the portrayals of the Biden and second Trump administrations against rates of reported aggressions against journalists in order to measure whether regions with higher rates of journalist intimidation are more likely to have positive coverage of the United States despite shifts in its policy. This study鈥檚 results were mixed, with the findings from Durango and Yucat谩n somewhat supporting the hypothesis while those of Sinaloa and Mexico City not. Given these results, this study recommends more future research into this topic that could yield more insight.
Posted in Symposium 2026 on May 1, 2026.
