Dr Juan Carlos Barrón Pastor is a Professor-Researcher at the Centro de Investigaciones sobre América del Norte (CISAN) of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México in Mexico City. This presentation will take up the idea of hegemonic mass media as adaptive systems seeking the reproduction and expansion of their power. Many studies have explained how governments utilise mass-media as a channel for propaganda. However, as states have become weaker and corporations stronger relative to one another in recent decades, mass-media corporations are perhaps playing a more significant and influential role in elections by backing (or withholding support from) governments and by setting the political agenda. In this seminar, Dr Barrón Pastor will draw upon research in progress on the 2012 presidential election campaigns in the United States and Mexico to examine the role of mass-media corporations in the politics of those two countries.