Paper short abstract:

This research aims to analyse the content and structure of the televised political ads produced by the parties during the Federal elections of 2012 in Mexico. The findings are evaluated in sight of the structural and content changes that would have been associated to the electoral reform of 2007.

Paper long abstract:

At election time the political advertisement in the mass media represents an important source of information for the citizenship. In the Mexican case, an important part of the electorate, 57%, follows closely the electoral campaign and 42 % says to pay attention to the advertising that the parties transmit through radio and television. More than a half (60%) assures to remember that publicity. Therefore, it is not surprising that the electoral legislation intervenes directly in the way the political parties access to the radio and television through a predominantly advertising format.

It is worth to underline that those advertising materials are funded by the Mexican state, both in their production and dissemination, for the purpose of promoting a democratic culture and of raising the debate of a functional and competitive democracy.

This article analyses the content and the structure of the televised advertising that the parties produce and disseminate through the official times. The main objective of this study is to evaluate the informative offer of one of the main communication tools in the current model of political communication.

The information shown in this article is based in an analysis of the spots (308 messages) seven parties produced during the federal election of 2012. To each of the spots was applied a protocol of 47 variables (of content and structure) (The protocol is based on Juárez 2007, 2009 and 2010).