Gulf of Mexico/Gulf of America: Critical Literacy and Mediatized Discourses in Teacher Education

Promoting the name ‘Gulf of America’ at the US federal level for a region historically identified as the ‘Gulf of Mexico’ transformed a local toponym into a global media controversy. This study analyzes how 110 preservice teachers from the Bachelor’s Degree in Primary Education at the University of Zaragoza interpret the political and ideological components of these mediatized discourses and explores the potential of this controversy for developing critical literacy. Employing a qualitative, interpretive, and critical research design, the students analyzed news articles, social media posts, memes, videos, and AI-generated responses following Cassany’s framework for critical comprehension. The content analysis of 132 narrative productions using ATLAS.ti version 9.0.20.0, generated 430 coding units organized into four categories: territory and identity (102); controversies and intentionality (99); power and ideology (142); and credibility and discourse impact (87). The results indicate an incipient shift from a naturalized reading of space toward its political interpretation: the students identify symbolic appropriations and power asymmetries, although tensions between multiperspectivity and relativism persist, alongside a partial attribution of neutrality to artificial intelligence. The controversy emerges as a useful educational context for incorporating the reading of territory, its names, and its representations into critical literacy.