Introduction¹

When covering information on international migration journals structure different discourses: a discourse (re)presenting immigrants, which characterizes who "they" are: immigrants, before who "we" are: citizens; discourses on irregular migration; discourses on how government policies and measures "should be" or "are" regarding migration and migrants, among others.

Access to journalistic discourse has been considered a resource of power (^{van Dijk, 1999}). It is essential, then, to examine who are the actors with access to it and in what way they obtain such access. Although journalistic discourses are controlled by journalists, social actors gain access in one or another way. For instance, media spread discourses on migration expressed by governmental actors, discourses considered as hegemonic or dominant (^{Spener, 2008}; ^{Bruno, 2010}).

We must bear in mind two essential features of journalism when considering how the voices of different social actors enter into the discourses: firstly, journalistic texts are to display the different viewpoints of the ones involved in the matter. In this sense, any journal which considers itself rigorous, must as a rule address all the people involved in an occurrence (^{Grijelmo, 2014}). Secondly, social actors are generally the journalists’ sources of information, therefore, they are essential for reconstructing the events (^{Rodrigo-Alsina, 1989}).

The way in which this sort of journalistic discourses and their contents are produced, among many other aspects, have been the object of numerous researches in different countries. Thus, the academic literature concerning this sort of discourses is especially prolix in Spain, mainly from a critical perspective, which reveals inconsistencies and bias in them (^{Retis, 2004}; ^{Nash, 2005}; ^{Casero-Ripollés, 2007}). Conversely, such literature concerning migration of Mexicans to the United States is scarce in both countries, there are some exceptions, however (^{Spener, 2008}).

Having said that, the main objective of this paper is to analyze how the discourses on migration of the national press are constructed with the voices of various social actors² according to the way in which journalism is carried out. Likewise, the access the press gives to the discourses of different social actors and the way in which it refers to them allows us to infer the power such actors exert in journalistic discourses.

This work is divided in four sections. Firstly, the theoretical perspective on intertextuality is presented and the way in which it enables us to draw inferences. Secondly, two types of journalism are examined: routine journalism and investigative journalism (following the typology of ^{Caminos-Marcet, 1997}); particularly, the implications such practices have concerning the use of sources of information and of resulting journalistic texts.

Thirdly, the corpus of news and the mixed methodology this paper follows is presented, in which the quantitative analysis of frequency data of certain features of informative texts is combined, some are chosen in order to analyze them in a quantitative descriptive sense. Fourthly, based on the 131 published news in the printed version of El Universal, the way in which the newspaper refers in its discourses on migration in transit to discourses of other social actors concerning the same subject is examined. Likewise, some inferences are drawn concerning the power social actors —migrants, governments, defenders of migrant rights, etc. — have in relation to journalistic discourses.

Intertextuality in the journalistic discourse and relationships of power

Discursive intertextuality assumes that texts are to be understood according to the set of texts around them in certain historical time and social space.

According to ^{Fairclough's proposal of intertextuality (1995}), in a specific discourse the presence of elements from other discourses can be analyzed. He considers intertextuality as a creative discursive, the individuals' discourse is formed with fragments of others’ discourses (^{Alonso and Callejo, 1999}; ^{Ruiz-Ruiz, 2009}). "Intertextuality may be understood as an occasional instrument at the disposal of power cable of imposing others’ discourses on the recipients" (^{Alonso and Callejo, 1999: 46-47}) and "in interpreting discourses as symptoms of dominance: subjects are reduced to mere domineering discourses players" (Ruiz-Ruiz, 2009: 15).

For his part, ^{Genette (1989}: 10) considers intertextuality as ^{Kristeva defines it (1997}) in order to define it restrictively "as a co-presence relationship among two or more texts, eidetically and frequently, as the effective presence of a text in another one"; and points out the following types of intertextuality: quotation, plagiarism, and allusion.

In this paper the restrictive notion of intertextuality by ^{Genette (1989)} is followed as well as the idea of power and dominance underlying ^{Fairclough's proposal (1995)} . This is so for three reasons:

1) Requirements of gathering information are fewer than in other perspectives on intertextuality, which fits perfectly to an analysis exclusively based on a compilation of journalistic writings.

2) Despite being a narrow concept of intertextuality, based on journalistic writings some inferences can be drawn regarding: i) the relationships of power over the discourse, who is s/he who has access to it, i.e. "who oftentimes appears in media, and above all, who is credited with a sufficient credibility so as to have his/her statements immediately spread" (^{De la Fuente-García, 2017: 3)} and ii) the relationships of power in the discourse, i.e. those referring to "the control exerted by the social actors who have access to the discourse, in its specific features such as topics widely spread or those who scarcely catch attention, to the vision offered by certain problems, to the ideological presuppositions which uphold the journalistic discourse, etc." (^{De la Fuente-García, 2017: 3}).

3) Not only does it allow giving an account of the fragments of others' discourses which are received in the journalistic discourse, but also to analyze the attitudes towards them. For example, reproducing the essential elements of other people's discourse it is not the same as choosing only less important fragments. In any case, it should be taken into account the fact that journalists have power over the journalistic discourse and that, despite being as objective as possible, the process of making references to the other people's discourse always implies manipulating the chosen discursive elements (^{Méndez-García de Paredes, 2000}). In this sense, the scheme of intertextuality followed in this paper is complemented with the different forms in which journalism is practiced: investigative journalism and routine journalism.

Routine journalism before investigative journalism: social actors as sources of information and international migration

^{Caminos-Marcet (1997}) describes and analyzes what he calls routine journalism, a way to practice journalism which supposes a passive attitude from journalists before certain sources of information to which they give the initiative, i.e. they remain silent until the institutions and official organizations provide them with information, and so set aside the possibility to search information by their own means. According to Caminos-Marcet, passivity leads to publish incompletely verified and corroborated texts.

Likewise, ^{Caminos-Marcet (1997}) underlines the reason why many journalists have such passive attitude: 1) virtually all organizations and institutions have means to control information produced and published by media; such organizations and institutions play an active role in giving great amounts of information, which is advantageous for them, to journalists. 2) the changes produced in journalistic practice due to the incorporation of new technologies have resulted in journalists spending more time in writing instead of going to the streets to gather information.

^{Chomsky and Herman's standpoint (2001}) is similar, however, in order to understand the operation of media they make more explicit the means of power by which those in power have access to journalistic discourses and control them. Their aim is to reveal how government and private domineering agents manage to send to public opinion the messages which result more advantageous to them, through an advertising model, described by them as a set of filters. One of them is the way in which news are provided: "media depend on the news provided by government, enterprises and "experts", briefly, news financed and approved by those main providers and by other agents of power" (^{Chomsky an Herman, 2001: 22}).³

Therefore, an essential mechanism of access of domineering groups, i.e. of controlling journalistic discourses, is through dependence. Such mechanism of control is, to a large extent, economical. According to ^{Chomsky and Herman (2001}), before the need massive media has of constant and reliable flows of unprocessed information —having limited resources to do so—, governmental and business sources offer them a great amount of information, which is not only free but it hardly produces any cost since it is presumed to be trustworthy compared with other sources which do not possess such reliability and are costly in terms of verification.

In this sense, ^{Chomsky and Herman (2001}) claim that the great bureaucracies of the powerful "subsidize" media and in return they obtain privileged access, becoming, thus, their "routine" sources. The power of these social actors in such situation is not limited to distribute the information media is interested in, however, but rather to "ban" other information opposed to them since "it is quite hard to call liars the authorities in whose information they depend on, despite their huge lies" (^{Chomsky and Herman, 2001: 57}).

Contrary to routine journalism, ^{Caminos-Marcet (1997}) calls investigative journalism the practice of journalism with the following features: 1) it seeks the hidden truth. That which private people or public institutions wish to keep hidden and which citizens have the right to know. 2) It does not rely on official sources of information and is suspicious of them, the investigative journalist is more interested in what such sources hide or do not mention. It is also capable of creating its own sources of information outside the routine courses. 3) It is eminently informative based on completely true facts, therefore, it relies on verified information, contrasted with other sources.

Although such kind of practice is associated with certain outcome, we do not consider routine journalism to be uninterested or as a synonym of bad quality, neither that all investigative journalism is necessarily interesting and of high quality. Both types of journalism are necessary and complement each other.

It is worth mentioning that Mexico is a dangerous country to practice journalism —in 2016, 11 journalists and workers of media were murdered (^{EFE, 2017}) —, investigative journalism is probably the weakest organism in this "chain food." Thus, in certain aspects of the migratory phenomenon practicing investigative journalism for journalists may imply putting their physical integrity at risk.

In the migration field, ^{Spener (2008)} underlines the governmental role media play in establishing a domineering discourse on "human smuggling." He says that since the role the discourse of media plays in the knowledge of citizens, media highlight the opinions of government excluding the perspectives of other authors because: first of all, the opinions of the former are considered to be worthy of becoming news and because are linked with other public relationships. Secondly, only when journalists have time and resources to do deep investigative reportages the work of coyotes is made known. Spener's findings and considerations agree ^{Caminos-Marcet's (1997}) and ^{Chomsky and Herman's (2001}).

According to what has been said thus far, the expected results in this analysis:

News corpus and methodological matters

The corpus for our analysis consists of 131 informative texts published in the Mexican national print version of El Universal,⁴ available also online.⁵ Through a detailed examination page by page of the "Nation" and "States" sections in the copies from January 2012 to July 2017 —of the odd months⁶—, all the informative texts (news, reportages, interviews, testimonies and reports) concerning Central American migration in transit through Mexico heading towards the United States were chosen (see ^{table 1}.) ⁷

As seen in ^{table 1}, 2014 is a remarkable year due to the great number of news published (tripling the ones from 2016). The cause of this was the humanitarian crisis of the "migrant children and teenagers" (NNAM) in the United States had a wide media coverage. The "problem" was not only circumscribed to American territory, since it was underscore a phenomenon of illegal migration of many Central American children and teenagers in transit through Mexico heading towards such country —which is part of that wider phenomenon this paper focuses on (illegal Central American migration in transit through Mexico). It was both their arrival to the United States and the fact that they went across Mexico which caught the attention of media, resulting in dozens of front pages and long news articles —the whole page— on such humanitarian crisis, as well as several reportages telling the stories of Central American migrants —including NNAM.

As for the mixed methodology followed in this paper, by using descriptive statistics, firstly, we made a quantitative analysis because it shows the frequency in which the voices of the different social actors were present in the informative texts, depending on the type of journalism —routine or investigative— and on the subject of the news. In order to accomplish this we focused our attention on quotes, the most evident type of intertextuality according to ^{Genette (1989}), in direct or indirect style (^{Reyes, 1995}). In the same way, in this first phase a subset of similar informative texts was chosen according to the three categories of analysis (prominent social actor in the news, journalism practice and subject).

In the second phase, there is a qualitative description of the chosen texts, which allows us to better comprehend the way in which the discourses of the different social actors are referred to in the texts and are part of journalistic discourses; considering the fact that, ultimately, journalistic discourses are in the hands of journalists. In addition, both the qualitative and the quantitative phases enable us to draw inferences about the power social actors have over and in the journalistic discourse.

After a previous examination of the informative texts, it was considered that social actors, whose voices are displayed in them, can be classified according to the role they play in the phenomenon of migration in transit (see table 2). It should be noted that the analysis was carried out taking into account the social actor, whose voice stands out in each one of the chosen informative texts (the one referred to in the headline appears firstly in the text and/or much space is given in it).

In order to classify the news according to the types of journalism which generated them —routine or investigative— certain features can be observed in the informative journalistic texts (see table 3).

Subjects were classified taking into account the main subject of the informative text (see table 4) which is generally the most relevant subject and appears in the first place, the one which occupies a great amount of content in the text and oftentimes is summarized in the headline. As Dijk notes (1990), a relevant feature of journalistic discourse is that its subjects can be expressed and pointed out in the headlines. Of course, several informative texts refer to more than one subject at the same time.

Intertextuality in journalistic texts on illegal Central American transmigration

Migrants' voices displayed in investigative journalism in "migrants and transit"

Migrants' voices are present in investigative reportages where journalists show the reality of illegal Central American migration in transit through the stories of migrants and their experiences during transit. Although in such reportages the voices of various social actors appear, according to the maximum of investigative journalism of recovering what the involved people say, it is migrants and their stories what gains more prominence.

In "Migrants, in the way of hell" (Migrantes, en la ruta del infierno) (^{Cha'ca and Quadratín, 2015}) the story of six Central American migrants heading towards the United States is told, they go through Chiapas and Oaxaca facing diverse dangers: "the uniformed ones" (agents of INM) and thieves. The six protagonists soon fall into a robber hands, armed with a shotgun, forces them to take off their clothes and steals all their belongings. With no backpacks and no money they end the day in a shelter. The news adds the information and reports of the defenders of migrants about danger zones for migrants and about the increase of crime and migrants’ vulnerability.

In "'El diablo', the new train of migrants" (‘El diablo’, nuevo tren de migrantes) (^{Sánchez, 2013}) the story of a Guatemalan couple is told concerning their transit through Mexico through the so-called Pacífico route. During their journey they had to deal with various criminal groups and presumed state officers as well as with the hot climate as they traveled above cargo trains. Information is added about the religious and non-religious defenders of migrants, civil servants and international organizations when referring to the routes by which migrants and state officers transit through Mexico.

Since the journalist is the active agent of investigation, the declarations of migrants captured in interviews and displayed in informative texts are spontaneous and scarcely developed because they were gathered and shaped according to the journalist’s discursive interests.

Such investigation reportages present migrants —as seen in the examples— as people in search of a better life, and underline, critically, how they are persecuted by the Mexican migration police and how they are victims of crime. These are informative texts in which journalists stand for migrants by creating similar discourses to those of the defenders, and which allow to make society conscious about the trials migrants in transit through Mexico face by telling their stories.

The qualitative analysis allows us to complement the inferences regarding power, explaining how routine and investigative journalism use in different ways the voices of social actors. In this sense, in the journalistic discourses of El Universal —on illegal Central American migration in transit— the power of state national social actors is greater than that of other social actors due to their constant presence in routine journalism as well as their ability to take advantage of its functioning in order to influence the features of informative texts: their subjects, language, aspects to be considered in news, etc. In other words, they show great power over and in journalistic discourse.

However, the power of state national actors is not absolute since —as shown in the analyzed informative texts— the defenders of migrants take part in routine journalism as well, having an important part over journalistic discourse. Likewise, in the informative texts of El Universal the anti-hegemonic discourses of such social actors who oppose to the discourses of the state national actors are displayed, therefore, they also exert considerable power in the discourse.

Little presence do the voices of the migrants in transit have in the informative texts on illegal Central American migration in transit through Mexico of El Universal. Nevertheless, this does not corresponds to an equal part of power over and in journalistic discourses on the migration phenomenon of which they are the protagonists. It is because their presence satisfies the informative interests and the initiative of journalists but not those of migrants themselves despite being texts with discourses seeking the good of migrants, since journalists construct similar discourses to the ones of the defenders of migrants.

Other social actors have less presence in informative texts. The voices of "state foreign actors" are part of routine journalism but are much less important than "state national actors." The voices of "coyotes" are scarcely present and are mainly referred to by investigative journalism. In both cases with the implications the practiced journalism has, as seen before, in how place is given to other social actors. The great absent part is citizenry, whose discourses, attitudes and opinions do not appear in the analyzed corpus.

Conclusions

The informative texts on illegal Central American migration in transit through Mexico of El Universal gather to a great extent the voices of various social actors, i.e. most of journalistic discourses are formed with extracts of other social actors' discourses. However, not all actors are referred to in the same way nor with the same frequency.

As it was expected, state actors were referred to in more occasions and in a peculiar way by routine journalism which allows us to deduce that they were the ones who exerted more power over and in the journalistic discourses on illegal Central American migration in transit through Mexico. In second place there would be the defenders of migrants, who would have great access to the discourses of routine journalism as well. If we give an account on the content of the discourses of both types of actors, it could be seen that they are antagonistic discourses, therefore, El Universal would be providing in its pages elements to feed the necessary social debate on such phenomenon.

The voices of migrants themselves are incorporated in the newspaper through investigative journalism. Their presence and the way in which their voices are presented show the scarce power they have over and in the discourse. Nonetheless their presence was greater than expected and it is relevant in terms of making citizens aware about the "problem" of illegal Central American migration in transit through Mexico.

The results obtained show that the analyzed informative texts correspond more to ^{Caminos-Marcet's scheme of routine journalism (1997}), rather than to the scheme of political advertising proposed by ^{Chomsky and Herman (2001}). Firstly, although routine journalism and its sources predominate, not all of them could be considered "routine sources" in the sense of Chomsky and Herman’s idea (2001), as it is clearly seen when space is given to the defenders of migrants. Secondly, El Universal gives a significant place to critical discourses with the performances of government raised by defenders of migrants and other actors; voices manifestly antagonistic to the discourses of state national actors on the Mexican migration policy and its implementation regarding the phenomenon of illegal migration in transit through Mexico.

Even though routine journalism predominates concerning our main subject, El Universal boasts in its interest to complement it with informative texts generated as a result of investigative journalism —where it tends to advocate for the defense of migrants—. Whatever be the case, it seems praiseworthy that such newspaper increases investigative journalism in general and stresses more the state national actors in particular. As well as the fact that it takes a more active and critical role in how it presents the discourses of social actors in routine journalism, i.e. to select more carefully what is not news, ensure a clear and appropriate writing in journalistic texts, among many other possible improvements.

Future researches could investigate and analyze more directly and deeply the established relationships of power between different social actors and journalists who cover everything related to migration, which have great relevance in determining the content of journalistic discourses; besides examining the mechanisms of power which generate them. Concerning such relationships, in this paper we have been only able to draw limited inferences.

In addition, another matter for future researches is to analyze with more detail the substantial content of journalistic discourses of the Mexican press, considering that they reflect the discourses of other social actors and that are key in how Mexican society understands the issues concerning migration.