Journalism Practice

ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjop20

Sources of the Media Agenda: Source Selection

and Media Reform in Argentina

Mariana De Maio & Wayne Wanta

To cite this article: Mariana De Maio & Wayne Wanta (2022): Sources of the Media
Agenda: Source Selection and Media Reform in Argentina, Journalism Practice, DOI:
10.1080/17512786.2022.2043765

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2022.2043765

Published online: 29 Mar 2022.

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JOURNALISM PRACTICE
https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2022.2043765

Sources of the Media Agenda: Source Selection and Media

Reform in Argentina
a
Mariana De Maio and Wayne Wantab
a
Department of Journalism and Communication, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA, USA; bDepartment of
Journalism, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
Using agenda-setting theory and content analysis, this study Agenda setting; sources;
examines the coverage of Argentina’s 2009 emblematic media reform; media
Audiovisual Communication Services Law (ACSL). The law, which regulation; Clarín; Argentina
sparked a legal battle between the government and that nation’s
most powerful media corporation, aimed to democratize the
airwaves and to increase plurality and inclusion. To explore the
sources used in the stories covering the law, data were collected
from three national newspapers’ online publications (Clarín, La
Nación, and Página/12), between 1 March 2009, and 29 October
2013. Each newspaper’s online database was employed to
identify articles about the ACSL. Results from the analysis suggest
that the quantity of sources varied significantly across the three
papers. Further analysis revealed that at the beginning of the
controversy all newspapers used similar sources, but as the
discussion progressed, Página/12 (liberal, more supportive of the
law) tended to use more government officials while La Nación
and Clarín (conservative, opposed to the law) tended to use
oppositional leaders, unnamed sources, and media organizations
associated with the conglomerates.

In recent years, the conflict between corporate media and national governments has
become one of the most important political and visible battles (Becerra 2015; Orlando
2012). While Western countries have some rules that restrict power in the media
market because there is an agreement that a lack of plurality is a problem, in Latin
America these rules are much weaker (Hughes and Lawson 2005; Orlando 2012). The dis-
tribution of power in the private media market in the region can be characterized as oli-
gopolistic. A few large corporations compete for power (Hughes and Lawson 2005). These
oligopolies, unsurprisingly, have been entangled with the political power in each country
(Baker 2007; Doyle 2002). The rate of media concentration accelerated during the last
decade of the twentieth century (Trejo Delarbre 2010) and are continuing with that
tendency.
Argentina is not isolated from this trend. Media concentration has historically been an
issue within Latin America. Most conglomerates in the region have been run by the same
families for generations and benefited significantly from “the neoliberal reforms of the
1980s and 1990s, when market deregulation increased their assets and shares”

CONTACT Mariana De Maio mariana.demaio@lehigh.edu

© 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2 M. DE MAIO AND W. WANTA

(Márquez-Ramírez and Guerrero 2017, 48–49). These conglomerates also grew thanks to
political alliances that took place during authoritarian governments that silenced critical
journalists and protected media owners and executives with contracts and subsidies
(Márquez-Ramírez and Guerrero 2017). The region features high degrees of political par-
allelism (de Albuquerque 2013, 2018; Hallin and Mancini 2004, 2011; van der Pas, van der
Brug, and Vliegenthart 2017). This political parallelism reflects links between private
media owners and politicians, as well as the termination of a brief period of media
reform. At the beginning of the twenty-first century the role of media in democratic
societies in the region has generated media policy reform initiatives (Kitzberger 2017).
Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela and Uruguay passed new laws regulating the
media between 2004 and 2014. The recent regional calls for reforms tend to highlight
the role of the state promoting democratic values in the media. However, currently
elected conservative administrations in these countries suggest a tendency to undo
past hard-fought victories.
The public interest on the subject matter in Argentina is not restricted to just a few
actors, but it is enriched by the ideas of diverse segments of civil society; community
radio organizations, academics, unions, NGOs, consumers and others who have promoted
their initiatives within a context where the government broke away from historical inertia.
Like never before, the communication policies became visible, and open to debate and
opinion. In Argentina, this discussion became very prominent during Cristina Fernández
de Kirchner’s second presidency. The years of the presidencies of Fernández and her
husband will be remembered for, among other things, the intense debate about the
role played by mass media (Mastrini and Becerra 2017).
President Fernández understood that diversifying the voices on the broadcast airwaves
was important. On the opposite side and defending its economic interests was the Clarín
Group, a conservative media group, which became one of her most forceful enemies. This
is one of the reasons she did not wait too long to sign into law the Audiovisual Communi-
cation Services Law (ACSL) approved by Congress on the early hours of 10 October 2009.
Fernández believed reforming the old broadcasting law was an “old debt of democracy”
(Fernández 2009). With the new broadcasting law, Argentina started a much-needed
change of its media landscape. This change did not last. Immediately after it was
signed into law, the Clarín Group started a legal battle that lasted four years. Between
October 2013 and December 2015, when Mauricio Macri became the new president of
Argentina, the implementation of the law did not make many advances. And, as soon
as Macri took power, he eliminated the controversy by signing a series of executive
orders that substantially modified the law and benefited the Clarín Group (Mastrini and
Becerra 2017).
The promulgation of the ACSL was the result of an initiative from a diverse group of
civil society organizations that had been looking for plurality inclusion for decades (De
Maio 2018; Segura 2011). The legislation could have improved diversity and inclusion
in the Argentine media market, which is considered necessary for liberal democracies
to function correctly (Feintuck and Varney 2006; Gunther and Mughan 2000). It was
also used as an example for similar media regulation laws that were discussed and
implemented in the region (Orlando 2012; Santander 2014). Furthermore, this media
reform came to replace legislation from one of the darkest periods in Argentina’s
recent history, the dictatorial regime that reigned over the country with an iron fist
 JOURNALISM PRACTICE 3

directly responsible for the disappearance of an estimated 30,000 people. During those
times, news outlets such as Clarín and La Nación referred to the human rights abuses
of the regime as patriotic thus contributing to build a positive image of their adminis-
tration (Borrelli 2008; De Maio, Alkazemi, and Wanta 2016; Mauersberger 2012; Sidicaro
1993, 2011). The ACSL was a much needed change since the restoration of democracy
on 10 December 1983 (Córdoba 2011; Segura 2011).
The origins of the ideas behind the 2009 media law can be found in the 1970s.
However, it took significant effort and time to achieve the necessary social support to cat-
apult these ideas onto a law. In 2004, a group of more than 300 people representing
different social segments, the Coalition for Democratic Broadcasting, created a proposal
and approached then President Nestor Kirchner with it. The main idea was to transform
the airwaves into a mode democratic, plural, and inclusive place. However, it took five
years for that proposal to turn into law, when President Fernández publicly recognized
the work of the coalition and after that it organized 24 public forums in every province
before sending the final project to Congress. The new law intended to improve demo-
cratic participation, where non-commercial media would get one third of the waves, it
would limit the market power of large corporate media owners, and it would develop a
stricter regulatory environment separated from the government (Mauersberger 2012;
Segura 2011).
The news coverage of the ACSL offers an excellent opportunity to investigate the
agenda-setting function of the news media (McCombs and Shaw 1972). This study exam-
ines the use of sources in the coverage related to the broadcasting law reform in Argen-
tina in the three main daily newspapers’ (Clarín, La Nación, and Página/12) online
publications. To do so, 2954 news stories of the main Argentine newspapers were
content-analyzed. Through a quantitative content analysis, data about sources used to
report about the new telecommunications law in news stories were collected and ana-
lyzed. Of particular concern is the tone the news media used to report about the law—
namely, what affective attributes the media linked to the law.
Differences across the three newspapers could provide evidence in difference in cover-
age of the media in their role as agenda-setters. Because Clarín had the most to lose by
the implementation of the new law, this newspaper could argue most strongly against the
law by concentrating on sources that mirror its critical stance against the law. Thus,
Clarín’s choice of critical sources could magnify negative attributes of the law while main-
taining at least some sense of neutrality.
Previous research has shown that public officials and corporations can set the agenda
of coverage in the news media. The current study examines the impact of the media
themselves in covering an issue related to the media industry. The results will provide
a framework for examining the impact of the media in the coverage of the media—an
increasingly important topic given the movement toward media reforms in countries
ranging from Brazil to Tunisia. The results may show the process of news production
when the news is about the media.

Theoretical Framework
Constantly, in the process of producing news, media professionals may be influencing the
public perceptions on what should be considered important. This capability is called the
4 M. DE MAIO AND W. WANTA

agenda setting function of the mass media. Hundreds of studies addressing this idea have
found evidence supporting the theory since it was presented in the seminal study by
McCombs and Shaw (1972). In the original study, the authors claimed that the most
important issues for undecided voters in Chapel Hill, N.C., during the 1968 elections
were driven by the media coverage. They found a positive correlation between the fre-
quency with which an issue was covered and the perception of its importance by the
public (McCombs and Valenzuela 2020).
Agenda setting theory has continued to evolve since its conception. It provides a good
analytical framework to analyze how the mass media’s editorial process affects the way
people assign importance to different issues. Agenda setting researchers have examined
different aspects of the original concept and have diverged into different approaches of
looking at the theory (McCombs 2005; McCombs and Valenzuela 2020). These branches of
agenda setting include the contingent conditions affecting the magnitude of the effect,
the impact on policy, the second-level of agenda setting involving an agenda of attributes
linked to objects in the news and, the case of the current study, factors affecting the
media agenda. This branch of agenda setting includes the concept of agenda building,
in which the media, public and sources interact. The current study examines two of the
three actors: sources and the media. This is similar to the approach taken in a series of
studies examining the influence of the president on the media agenda (see Wanta
et al. 1989).
This study concentrates on media agenda setting, more specifically on the sources of
the media agenda. The majority of agenda-setting studies have found strong support for
the transfer of issue salience from the media to the public. Relatively few studies have
examined the construction of the media agenda — of who has an impact on what and
how the news media cover issues. This an important consideration. If the media
influence public perceptions of the important issues of the day, a significant question
is who influences the media?
Agenda setting includes the agenda about many different issues regarding public
policy, political campaigns, debates about the courts and about the legislative body,
and the particular agenda from lobbying (McCombs and Valenzuela 2020). Therefore,
for instance, a politician could transfer the salience of issues or attributes to the media
and vice-versa (McCombs, Shaw, and Weaver 1997).
Researchers have used agenda setting to ascertain the effectiveness of a political
leader (McCombs and Valenzuela 2020). Logically, for instance, the President of the
United States, as the nation’s number one newsmaker should have a significant impact
on the issues that the media cover. Attention from the president should lead to coverage
in the media. Previous studies employed a content analysis of the State of the Union
Address to measure the extent to which a president is able to set an agenda. In these
studies, the issues emphasized in the President’s speech were used to create the Presi-
dent’s agenda, which was subsequently compared to media coverage.
Along this method, Gilberg et al. (1980) studied the influence of President Jimmy
Carter’s 1978 address on three national television networks, The Washington Post and
The New York Times. McCombs, Gilberg, and Eyal (1982) explored the same issue for Pre-
sident Richard Nixon. Wanta et al. (1989) explored media coverage of four presidential
State of the Union Addresses. They studied media coverage before and after the speeches
of Presidents Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan. Overall, these studies
 JOURNALISM PRACTICE 5

argued that while Carter seemed to have reacted to previous news coverage, Nixon may
have been able to influence the media after his address, and Reagan apparently reacted to
the coverage in networks but not in newspapers. Thus, the impact of the president as a
source of the media agenda was mixed.
But the president of the United States is not the only source capable of influencing the
media agenda. Using a method similar to the State of the Union studies, Burns (2012)
content-analyzed public statements by the Pope. Burns argued that other Popes
managed to achieve similar degrees of media influence by denouncing political
regimes that, allegedly, exploited people. Hopmann et al. (2012) compared news cover-
age of election issues in Demark with press releases published by political parties to
examine if parties, through public statements in press releases could set the media
agenda. In this content analysis, they found that political parties in Denmark are
capable of influencing media coverage. In this study, they found that some political
parties were more successful than others in impacting the agenda.
Tan and Weaver (2007) examined if the media agenda was influenced by the policy
agenda or vice-versa. They found that depending on the issues, Congress may or may
not set the agenda. Werder (2002) looked at the coverage of the introduction of the
Euro in Germany and the United Kingdom and found that public officials may influence
coverage. Weaver and Elliott (1985) conducted a content analysis of news coverage in
Bloomington, Indiana, regarding a meeting at the city council. Here, they compared
the amount of time devoted to individual issues during the meeting with news coverage
of the meeting. It revealed that the issues covered by the media were matched closely by
the attention dispensed by the city council to them. Thus, there was stronger support for
source’s impact on media coverage of issues in these studies.
Collectively these studies, building on the agenda setting theory, have studied the
antecedents of media agenda with the purpose of finding out what or who sets the
media agenda (Semetko et al. 2013). These researchers have looked into what effects
media’s sources have over the media agenda and how sources could influence, indirectly,
the public agenda (Hale 1978; Turk 1986; Weaver and Elliott 1985). This area of research is
known as agenda building (Cobb and Elder 1983; Gandy 1982; Lang and Lang 1981). This
approach tries to answer the question of who impacts the construction of the media
agenda.
Notably, all of these studies examined a source purposefully influencing the media
agenda. The media in these cases were assumed to be passive in their acceptance of
outside influences. This study, however, takes this process one step further by examining
if the news media selectively use sources that specifically support their side of an issue. In
other words, the media here could promote their issue agenda through source selection.
Thus, instead of passively accepting information from sources, such as the text of the
State of the Union text, the news media may actively select sources for information
that supports their coverage patterns and subsequently impact public issue concerns.
Thus, content analyzing media coverage of issues can give an indication of the impact
of sources on that coverage.
The newspapers also would be expected to show differences in the relative importance
assigned to each source on a story. The use of many sources, percentage wise, would
suggest more thorough coverage of the issue. Bennett (1990) explained this process
through his “indexing” model. He argued that he news media “index” a range of
6 M. DE MAIO AND W. WANTA

viewpoints that are similar to the views held by government. Sources in government have
the ability to define issues through their quotes in the news.
Hence, because the use of sources is fundamental to the possible issue salience, this
study examined the sources used in the main Argentine newspapers online editions
while covering the ACSL debate. In addition, the ACSL issue offers an ideal case to
examine biases in source selection. The newspaper included in this study are Clarín, a con-
servative newspaper that actively sought to stop the new law; La Nación, also a conserva-
tive paper; and Página/12, a progressive newspaper that was in support of the law.
Thus, the following research questions are posited:
RQ1: How does the percentage of sources used in Clarín, La Nación, and Página/12 compare
to each other over time?

RQ2: How does the type of sources used in Clarín, La Nación, and Página/12 compare to each
other?

These research questions essentially address first-level agenda setting. However, instead
of an agenda of issues, this study addresses an agenda of sources used in the media.

Beyond issue salience, the mass media also can influence attribute salience, the
“second level” of agenda setting. News coverage can link certain attributes to objects
in the news. These attributes can be substantive, involving factual information, or
affective, involving the tone of the information. As McCombs and Valenzuela (2020)
notes, the media not only influence WHAT we think about (first-level agenda setting)
but also HOW we think about objects in the news (second-level).
Researchers have found support for the influence of the media’s attribute agenda and
the public. Golan and Wanta (2001) found that substantive attributes linked to presiden-
tial candidates in the 2000 Republican primary in New Hampshire by the public closely
matched news media coverage of the candidates and attributes. Thus, members of the
public linked attributes such as “strong leader” and “tough on crime” to candidates in a
similar proportion a media coverage. They found less support for affective attributes.
Attributes share similarities with the concept of framing. However, while a news story
may have one or two main frames that focus attention to some aspect of an issue, this
study examines how individual sources used in media reports impacted the affective attri-
butes linked to the ACSL.
Based on the concept of attribute agenda setting, the following research question is
posited:
RQ3: How does the tone used to report about the law in Clarín, La Nación, and Página/12
compare to each other?

This research question deals with second-level agenda setting. Did the tone — or affective
attributes — of the depiction of the law differ among media due to their use of certain
sources?

In the case of the current study, increased coverage of the ACSL would increase the
perceived importance of the law among the public, as the original first-level of agenda
setting would suggest. Further, first-level agenda setting argues that news coverage of
“objects” in the news impact the perceived salience of those objects among the public.
The attributes linked to the ACSL would impact how the public would view the law.
 JOURNALISM PRACTICE 7

Again, differences would be expected between the newspapers in our study because of
the different degree of support the papers have for the issue. The sources selected for use
in news stories will influence how the public thinks about the ACSL.

Method
To explore the use of sources in the coverage of events related to the ACSL in Argentina,
three main daily newspapers’ online publications were content-analyzed. The newspapers
selected for analysis were:

(1) Clarín. This is the largest newspaper in Argentina, and it is owned by the Clarín Group,
which is also the biggest media conglomerate in the country and one of the biggest in
the region. With centrist origins back in 1945, when it was founded by Roberto Noble,
today it is considered one of the most conservative newspapers in the country due to
the paper’s contentious relation towards the Fernández’s administration as well as
that of Néstor Kirchner’s, Fernández’s late husband and preceding president. Noble
managed Clarín until his death in 1969, when his wife, Ernestina Herrera de Noble,
became the head of the group until her death in June 2017 (Bruschtein 2012;
Cocchi 2010; De Maio 2018; De Maio, Alkazemi, and Wanta 2016; Pressed 2010).
(2) La Nación, the second largest and a leading conservative newspaper. It is Clarín’s main
competitor. It was funded on 1870 by former Argentine President Bartolomé Mitre.
During the last military regime La Nación and Clarín gained control of Papel Prensa
S.A. which made them the monopoly producers of press paper rolls. Charges filed
by Kirchner and Fernández regarding the illegal appropriation of the company led
the paper to stand, together with Clarín, as one of the leading oppositional papers
(Borrelli 2008; El Informe Completo de Papel Prensa 2010; Peralta 2010). And
(3) Página/12, a smaller newspaper with a more progressive approach was founded on
1987 by Jorge Lanata (now one of the most iconic journalists of the Clarín Group),
along with Osvaldo Soriano, now deceased, and investigative journalist Horacio Ver-
bitsky. Página/12 has been considered by many as a second newspaper for many
years because it usually engages in longer and in-depth commentary on a variety
of current events relative to the two other outlets. Nonetheless, when Clarín began
to openly oppose the Kirchner administration, it became the only source of infor-
mation for many readers (De Maio 2018; De Maio, Alkazemi, and Wanta 2016).

The time frame for the search was between 1 March 2009 and 29 October 2013. This is
because the fight between the State and the Clarín Group over the ACSL started on 1 March
2009, when President Fernández announced to Congress a project to substitute Decree
22,285, a media decree that was created by the military regime and was regulating
media broadcasting in the country and finished on 29 October 2013, when the Supreme
Court declared the constitutionality of the four articles that were questioned by the Group.
The stories for the content analysis were collected from the three newspapers’ online
databases. The following key terms (in Spanish) were used to identify stories that were
pertinent to the study: “media law [ley de medios],” “Audiovisual Communication Services
Law [Ley de Servicios de Comunicación Audiovisual],” and “Broadcasting Law [Ley de
Radiodifusión].” The stories were searched within the “politics [política]” or “the country
8 M. DE MAIO AND W. WANTA

[el país]” sections of the newspapers. These sections publish hard news and feature
stories. Opinion stories were not collected or coded for this study.
The unit of analysis were the stories, and 2954 stories were identified: 1187 from Clarín,
1043 from La Nación, and 724 from Página/12. Of those stories, 29 were discarded because
even though the online search engines identified them as related to the keywords used
for the search, they did not mention the ACSL. Additionally, those stories that did not
mention the ACSL within the first 300 words of the story were discarded; a total of 40
stories. Therefore, the total number of stories used for the analysis was 2885: 1140
from Clarín, 1041 from La Nación, and 704 from Página/12. Then, each story was assigned
a number and coded for the name of the newspaper, the date of circulation, the length,
and the sources used. Coders were able to record for multiple type of sources per story.
The stories were coded by two coders that were trained together and later coded inde-
pendently 10% of the sample for intercoder reliability testing. Once reliability was
achieved, the coders worked independently. Length was measured for written documents
in number of words each document or story had. Regarding intercoder reliability for
length, Krippendorff’s α was 1. The average story in Clarín had 468 words, in La Nación
632, and in Página/12 744.
Every element analyzed was coded for the following variables: the sources used, and
the tone used. The source(s) quoted in the news story under review were coded in
terms of (1) none identified, (2) government officials, (3) opposition leaders, (4) journalists,
other media or media organizations, (5) experts, (6) readership, and (7) others. Among all
stories (n = 2885), the most frequently identified type of source was “other” (29.59%), fol-
lowed by “government officials” (26.45%), and “opposition leaders” (19.9%). The stories
that had the category other selected were stories where judicial sources or anonymous
sources were used.
Regarding intercoder reliability for sources, Krippendorff’s α was 1 for none, .82 for gov-
ernment officials, .94 for opposition leaders, .79 for journalists, .96 for experts, 1 for read-
ership (none were recorded), and .87 for others.
The tone was recorded using a five-point Likert-type scale, with 1 being “negative” and
5 being “positive.” Throughout the study, coders agreed to be conservative while coding
tone. They used “positive” or “negative” only when such designations were explicitly clear
(McCombs, Shaw, and Weaver 1997). A story was positive toward the ACSL when referred
to it as democratic and negative when it referred to it as a tool used by the government to
control media. If the words democracy or censorship were not used in the stories, then the
tone was considered either mostly negative or somewhat positive. Most of the coverage
of the debate surrounding the media law was negative (35.24%), or mostly negative
(28.86%). Only a few stories contained positive tone in their coverage (5.95%) or some-
what positive (10.77%). Regarding intercoder reliability for tone, Krippendorff’s α was .83.

Results
The overall question of this study is about the way three different newspapers in Argen-
tina covered the ACSL debate.
RQ1 asked how the percentage of sources employed by the three papers compare to
each other. A one-way ANOVA was conducted for each of the five years under study to
explore the evolution of the variable among the three newspapers.
 JOURNALISM PRACTICE 9

The one-way ANOVA for 2009 revealed that the percentage of sources varied signifi-
cantly across the three papers (F = 39.906; df = 2, 556.418; p = <.001). Significant
ANOVAs were also found for 2010 (F = 8.843; df = 2, 105.698; p = <.001), 2011 (F =
3.30; df = 2, 60; p = .044), 2012 (F = 103.738; df = 2, 480.762; p = <.001), and 2013 (F =
26.974; df = 2, 316.320; p = <.001).
Over the five-year period, the data do not suggest a discernible pattern suggesting that
the quantity of sources, expressed as percentages, used by the three newspapers vary as a
function of many factors. The data either suggest that each of the three newspapers have
a policy about the sources used, percentage wise, or, more likely, the relative difference
across time are the result of a larger and substantial differences among the three outlets.
The data do not reveal that but it is, to some extent, intriguing that even though these
differences arose over time, nonetheless, on occasions, there were some statistical simi-
larities regarding the use of tone among the newspapers.
RQ2 asked how the type of sources used in Clarín (conservative) compared to the ones
used in Página/12 (liberal) and La Nación (conservative). To address this question, disag-
gregated data are employed as shown in Table 1.
Table 1 only shows the top three types of sources used by each newspaper in the
period under study ranked as a percentage of the total number of types of sources
employed. In 2009 the top three sources employed coincided across the three papers.
In 2010 the data reveal that Clarín did not use as many government officials as the
other two papers. Clarín paid more attention to other journalists or media organizations.
This is mainly because the Clarín Group used the argument presented by the Inter Amer-
ican Press Association (IAPA) and the National Association of Argentine News Publishers
(ADEPA, according to its acronym in Spanish), both organizations that represent the inter-
ests of publishers and owners of mainstream media, to explain the flaws the ACSL had
from Clarín’s point of view.
The differences among the papers accentuated during 2011 relative to 2010. It is
noticeable that Clarín, relative to the other two papers, paid less attention to government
officials and more attention to journalists or media organizations and other sources.1 Also,
it can be noticed that Página/12 did not include sources in many of their pieces. This may

Table 1. Type of Source Used by Newspaper by Year.

Clarín La Nación Página/12
Year Type of source % Type of source % Type of source %
2009 Opposition leader/s 32.67 Government official/s 30.15 Opposition leader/s 30.39
Government official/s 27.23 Opposition leader/s 30.15 Government official/s 29
Other 18.3 Other 17.13 Other 27.84
2010 Other 39.77 Other 62.88 Other 32.65
Opposition leader/s 34.09 Government official/s 28.86 Opposition leader/s 27.55
Journalist/s 20.45 Opposition leader/s 7.21 Government official/s 24.48
2011 Opposition leader/s 26.31 Other 51.51 None 30
Journalist/s 26.31 Government official/s 27.27 Government official/s 25
Other 23.68 Opposition leader/s 12.12 Other 25
2012 Journalist/s 25.98 Other 44.56 Government official/s 42.73
Opposition leader/s 24.26 Government official/s 25.52 Other 23.07
Other 20.58 Journalist/s 21.29 Journalist/s 14.1
2013 Journalist/s 31.85 Other 42.93 Other 51.7
Government official/s 29.37 Government official/s 23.82 Government official/s 23.86
Opposition leader/s 16.56 Experts 13.61 Opposition leader/s 9.65
10 M. DE MAIO AND W. WANTA

underscore a particular characteristic of Página/12’s approach to the subject, relative to

the other two papers. Its stories are more openly opinionated and as such most of the
time lack the citation of sources. The same pattern emerges during 2012. Clarín continues
to pay more attention to the opposition leaders, who are against media reform while the
other two papers pay more attention to the government officials. During 2013, a notice-
able reversal, relative to the previous years, is Clarín’s employment of more government
officials as sources of its stories. This is mainly because most of the stories published after
the Supreme Court ruling were about celebrations for the favorable decision toward the
government interest.
The ANOVAs suggest the proportion of each of the sources employed by each of the
three newspapers was significantly different each year. These results, in combination with
Table 1 show each newspaper paid, in relative terms, more attention to some sources,
suggesting different editorial preference from year to year. But absolute numbers are
not discussed. This paper presents, in Table 1, percentages as a way to reveal relative
weights assigned by each of the three newspapers to each of their three more important
sources, percentage wise, year after year.
Additionally, regressing the type of sources used on the tone linked to the coverage
provides an additional layer of information regarding the influence that the type of
source may have on the tone. Here, certain sources used by the newspapers amplified
the positive or negative attitudes held by the sources. RQ3 asked how the attributes
used to report about the law in the three newspapers affected the tone. Three separate
OLS regressions were estimated, one for each newspaper under review. The dependent
variable is the tone used by the newspaper and the independent variables are the six
types of sources included in the analysis. An inspection of the correlation matrix for
each regression shows low correlation values among the variables, suggesting that colli-
nearity is not present. The variance inflation factors in each regression support the data
found in the correlation matrix. The reference category is the source “none.”
The three separate regressions are presented in Tables 2–4. Table 2 suggests that when
Clarín used government sources ( β = .096, p < .002) the tone of their stories became more

Table 2. Regression Analysis Clarín.

Variable B SE β T p VIF
Government official/s .216 .070 .096 3.076 .002 1.119
Opposition leader/s .101 .067 .047 1.502 .133 1.099
Journalist/s .079 .075 .034 1.050 .294 1.178
Experts .64 .135 .015 .475 .635 1.073
Other .092 .075 .039 1.219 .223 1.152
Note. R2 = .010 (N = 1140). The dependent variable is tone of the stories.

Table 3. Regression Analysis La Nación.

Variable B SE β t p VIF
Government official/s .157 .075 .067 2.090 .037 1.074
Opposition leader/s -.088 .099 −.030 −.883 .378 1.248
Journalist/s .284 .091 .102 3.127 .002 1.121
Experts -.196 .145 −.043 −1.345 .179 1.095
Readership −1.576 1.155 −.042 −1.364 .173 1.006
Other −.044 .085 −.019 −.518 .605 1.367
Note. R2 = .021 (N = 1041). The dependent variable is tone of the stories.
 JOURNALISM PRACTICE 11

Table 4. Regression Analysis Página/12.

Variable B SE β T p VIF
Government official/s −.043 .148 −.012 −.288 .773 1.216
Opposition leader/s −.459 .148 −.115 −3.098 .002 1.021
Journalist/s .054 .222 .010 .242 .809 1.179
Experts 1.170 .331 .133 3.533 <.001 1.058
Other .659 .144 .181 4.573 <.001 1.165
Note. R2 = .063 (N = 704). The dependent variable is tone of the stories.

positive. The other sources are statistically insignificant. Table 3 suggests similar results (β
= .067, p < .037) for La Nación. In addition, when La Nación employed sources that were
journalists (β = .102, p < .002) the tone of the story also became more positive. The other
sources were statistically insignificant. Table 4 suggests that when Página/12 used sources
from the opposition (β = -.0115, p < .002) the tone of their stories became more negative.
And when their sources came from experts (β = .133, p < .001) or from other sources (β =
.181, p < .001) the tone became more positive.
Weinberg (1993) states that mainstream media are dominated by certain sources, with
the absence of others. This study’s findings suggest that when the two media outlets
ideologically opposed to the government use sources from the government to write
stories about the media law reform the tone invariable becomes more positive relative
to other sources. And when Página/12 employs sources from the opposition their
stories acquire a more negative tone relative to when they use other sources. Moreover,
the data suggest that when Página/12 consults their experts, the tone becomes more
positive. And the same is true when using “other” sources. Each regression alone lacks
explanatory power, but the sign and significance of the variables provides additional
information to be carefully employed in constructing an overarching narrative of the
way different news outlets cover the same event. By promoting a deeper democratic
system, the media law in Argentina was protecting the dissemination of ideas to
inform citizens who will then participate in the democratic process. If citizens have
only information filtered by the gatekeepers of one huge multimedia corporation, they
would not be able to effectively engage the political system. And as the current study
shows, the choice of sources for information selected by reporters can have a significant
impact on the affective attributes linked to issues.

Discussion and Conclusion

Mass media affect the way people perceive reality and the way public opinion is
shaped. The popular quote that has been attributed to Mark Twain —and whose
author is unknown— that states that if you don’t read the newspaper you are unin-
formed, and if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed is very pertinent to
the coverage of this issue. In this study, the object under study was the ACSL. Five
years of coverage of online versions of three Argentine newspapers were content-ana-
lyzed to look for the sources used in the stories published. The results demonstrated
the difference in coverage media can have when covering issues related to their indus-
try. In other words, the results showed the process of news production when the news
is about the media.
12 M. DE MAIO AND W. WANTA

Clarín’s sources were mostly opposition leaders, unnamed sources, and organizations
of newspapers publishers and mainstream media owners. On the other hand, Página/12
had a more balanced approach, whereby government officials were given a greater
opportunity to express their opinions about the legislation. Also, the language used by
Clarín and Página/12 reveals intentionality. Clarín referred to the ACSL as “the media
control law” while Página/12 called it “the media democratization law.”
At the heart of the discussion was the role of media in a democratic society. And the
use of sources by each newspaper was aligned with their views regarding the ACSL.
Freedom of expression, a value tacitly included in political narratives, discourses, legal
precedent, and reform, played a central role in the coverage. There are two media
agendas: one that would support the values of democratization and communication
rights, and the other in which media companies are primarily concerned with economic
efficiency and view regulation as a barrier to their economic interests.
When journalists give voice to individuals’ views and experiences by applying a sys-
tematic method of inquiry and verifying the information they report, that renders the
news credible. In the U.S. most of the time journalists provide all information regarding
their sources and it is only on some occasions that they use unnamed sources. Nonethe-
less, the U.S. press system is different from others such as the Argentine one where the use
of unnamed sources is not regulated by news media internal policies, for example. While in
the U.S. journalists are more likely to give an explanation when using anonymous sources,
that is not the case in Argentine media. Furthermore, this does not appear to affect news
media credibility. However, future research on journalism practices with a specific look at
the overuse of unnamed sources by Argentine newspapers is an interesting area of inquiry.
Overall, then, the results suggest these newspapers’ attempts to promote their issue
stances through their selection of news sources. In other words, the media set their
own agenda through their choices of sources. In the case of the current study, Clarín
and Página/12 indexed their sources to highlight the issue stand of the newspapers. As
Bennett (2016) notes, journalists use sources they deem likely to influence conflicts or pol-
icies. While the sources here espoused the opinion of the respective papers, allowing the
papers to avoid criticisms of bias while showing support for their stance on the press
reform issue; the decision-making process is not clear. Reporters may have felt pressure
from editors for their sources’ selection in addition to their own biases.
The logical extension of this study would be to study how media reform was
implemented or is trying to be implemented in other Latin American countries, such as
Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Brazil. One of the central problems of media reform is
that those who are promoting it may not have much access to the public because the
media markets are already concentrated and the owners of the media conglomerates
may not be interested in promoting the agenda of groups trying to alter the balance
of power in the media market. In a larger context, comparative studies may be useful
to explore common themes emerging in different countries pre and post implementation
of media reform laws. Another avenue for future research could be a critical discourse
analysis of the newspaper coverage of the ACSL to look deeply into the language used
in each case. Additionally, the excessive use of anonymous sources by Argentine press
is something that needs to be explored as well. Furthermore, a study looking at the soci-
ology of the different media organizations, particularly focusing on systematic and organ-
izational mechanisms, may be another avenue of research.
 JOURNALISM PRACTICE 13

Future research could extend the periods of coverage under study, analyze other sec-
tions of different newspapers, use different key events to look for changes in the cover-
age, and look at other platforms such as television or social media.

Note
1. As it was recorded during coding, most of the sources that fell in the “other” category corre-
sponded to either judicial sources, documents or —in most cases (94%)— unnamed sources.

Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

ORCID
Mariana De Maio http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5033-8574

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