Surviving Mexico

Resistance and Resilience Among Journalists in the 21st Century

Author Celeste Gonzalez de Bustamante

Surviving Mexico: Resistance and Resilience Among Journalists in the Twenty-First Century by Celeste González de Bustamante and Jeannine E. Relly provides an in-depth examination of the systemic violence and censorship confronting regional journalists in Mexico, one of the most perilous countries globally for media professionals. Drawing on over 160 interviews conducted over a decade, the authors expose how reporters operate under constant threat from a toxic network of drug cartels, corrupt government officials, and complicit media owners who enforce a "bribe-or-bullet" dynamic. Despite the pervasive danger and a profound lack of institutional support, the book highlights the powerful ways local journalists resist oppression and maintain resilience by forming grassroots security networks, collaborating on investigative reporting, and developing self-protection strategies to keep reporting the truth.

Bio

Dr. Celeste González de Bustamante is the Vice Dean at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. As Vice Dean she supports faculty, staff and students to reach their full potential and endeavors to ensure that the Cronkite School is the global leader in journalism and communication education. She has been recognized for creating community-engaged learning experiences for students along the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, Mexico, Costa Rica and beyond.

Prior to joining ASU, Dr. González de Bustamante founded and directed the Center for Global Change and Media at the University of Texas at Austin in the Moody College of Communication, where she held the Mary Gibbs Jones Centennial Chair in Communication. In the College, she served as the Associate Dean for Global Initiatives at Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Dr. González de Bustamante also served chair of the Mexico Center (2024-2026) in the Teresa Lozano Long Institute for Latin American Studies.

Before joining the faculty at UT, she directed the Center for Border and Global Journalism at the University of Arizona and she held a dual courtesy appointment with the UA Center for Latin American Studies and was an affiliated faculty member of the Department of History, Mexican American Studies Department and of the Graduate Programs in Human Rights Practice. She held the title of UA Distinguished 1885 Scholar.

She is the lead co-editor of the Routledge Companion to Global Journalism and Media at the Borders, which is currently in press. She is the author of the award-winning Surviving Mexico: Resistance and Resilience Among Journalists in the Twenty-first Century (Austin: The University of Texas Press, 2021) with Jeannine E. Relly. She is author of “Muy buenas noches,” Mexico, Television and the Cold War (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2012), and the co-editor of Arizona Firestorm: Global Immigration Realities, National Media, and Provincial Politics (New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2012). Her work has been published in top academic journals and in 11 edited scholarly books. Over the past decade, she has presented and delivered more than 85 scholarly presentations, keynote speeches, conference papers, and invited talks around the world, and has collaborated with journalists and scholars on six continents.

Dr. González de Bustamante is an active member and leader in the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication and the International Communication Association. She worked as a television journalist in commercial and public television in the San Francisco Bay Area and the U.S. Southwest before entering the academy.

Date published
Publisher
University of Texas Press
ISBN
9781477323694
Genres
Journalism
College or unit
Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication