Onion Skin and Oxygen: Access and Research at the Televisa Script and Video Archive in Mexico City

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Onion Skin and Oxygen Access and Research at
the Televisa Script and Video Archive in Mexico
City
Emilio Azcarraga Milmo and President Gustavo Diaz
Ordaz, inaugurating Estadio Azteca on May 29,
1966. Source Televisa Archive

• Celeste Gonzalez de Bustamante, Ph.D.
• University of Arizona
• Department of Journalism

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Dissertation

• Tele-visiones (tele-visions) The Making of
  Mexican Television News, 1950-1970

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Aztec Stadium Today
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Inside Aztec Stadium
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Scripts
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Dec. 1955, G.M. News (Noticiero General Motors)
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How did I gain access?What did I do with the
docs?

• Sent email to director of archive
• Met with director of archive
• Signed appropriate paperwork
• Time spent in archive8 months

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Chapter One Introduction to Tele-Visiones

• What makes Mexican
• television news Mexican?
• Arguments
• Invention of
• tele-traditions
• Tensions on television
• Government and media executives did not walk in
  lock step

Emilio Azcárraga Milmo and President Gustavo Díaz
Ordaz inaugurate Estadio Azteca, May 29, 1966.
Source Televisa Archive, Televisa Chapultepec.
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How to analyze television news?

• Methodology
• Production
• Content
• Interpretation

• Theoretical Framework
• Hybridity of framing
• A hybrid framework that combines concepts of
  cultural hybridity and framing

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Chapter Two Inventing Tele-Tradiciones, 1950-1955

• Tele-traditions are established in the first
  decades of television

President Adolfo Ruiz Cortines and News Anchor
Jacobo Zabludovsky ca. 1953. Source Grupo Radio
Centro.
Independence Day Coverage, 16 September 1954
Source Noticiero PEMEX-Novedades, Televisa
Archive
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Chapter 3 Rebels and Revolutionaries
Inconsistent Dissidents

• Analyzes Cuban rebels and Mexican dissident
  railway workers
• Cuban rebels glorified
• Mexican dissident railway workers silenced

Jacobo Zabludovsky interviewing Fidel Castro Ruz
decades after the Cuban revolution in 1959.
Source Grupo Radio Centro
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Chapter 4Documented Border Crossings and other
Presidential Activities, 1959
Adolfo López Mateos visits compatriots in
Chicago. Source Noticiero General Motors,
October 14, 1959.

• Four state visits
• Quadripartite relationship between Mexico-United
  States-Cuba-Soviet Union
• Television diplomacy

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Cuba-Mexico Relations
Anastas Mikoyan, Vice-Premier of the Soviet
Union, visits la columna de Independencia,
November 19, 1959. Source Televisa Archive,
Televisa Chapultepec.
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Chapter 5Hot Rockets and Cold War, 1957-1969

• Space race an audiovisual expression of the Cold
  War
• Tensions revealed between media executives and
  government officials
• Mexico participates in the space race
• Mexicos precarious position in Cold War revealed

Sputnik 1 on the launch pad, October 4, 1957.
Source Sovfoto/Eastfoto/PNI
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El águila ha aterrizado

• Creating a global village

Communications between Houston and the Eagle
module as it lands on the moons surface, July
20, 1969. Source NASA
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Un paso pequeñoun salto gigante

• News coverage tends to portray the feat as a
  conquest in Mexico and Latin America

Neil Armstrong takes one small step for a manon
July 20, 1969. Source NASA
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Chapter 6Olympic Dreams, Tlatelolco Nightmares
Logo for 1968 Olympics. Source International
Olympic Committee
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Enriqueta BasilioOctober 12, 1968

• Certain women allowed on screen

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Chapter 7Back at Estadio Azteca with the
Brazilians Conflict, Competition, and
Consolidation

• World Cup, 1970
• Another image building opportunity for
  Telesistema Mexicano and the country

Brazil triumphs over Italy in the final game,
June 20, 1970. Source Televisa Archive,
Televisa Chapultepec.
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Viewership
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Conclusions
Que no te haga bobo Jacobo, Molotov, 1998

• Tele-traditions and tensions continue
• A new era for television news
• Hybrid frames created

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Future Research

• Television News in Brazil
• Comparative Project, Mexico and Brazil