Representaciones en los medios impresos:Movimiento indígena y paro nacional en Ecuador

Ecuador’s Organic Law of Communication (LOC) and its 2008 Constitution promote the production of contents that reflect the worldviews of the country’s 17 nationalities and ethnicities, and tasks news media with producing information based on intercultural and pluricultural principles. Our paper analyzes this regulatory framework in the context of how the El Comercio newspaper in Ecuador covered the protests of October 2019. This period was marked by popular demands and unrest, as civil society rose in opposition to the economic policies of president Lenin Moreno. From October 1 to October 13, Ecuador – like other countries in the region – was torn between dissent, collective action, and social mobilization, on the one hand; and state intimidation, repression, and biased media coverage, on the other. Our survey reveals the stigmas and belittlement that indigenous peoples continue to face as political subjects. This can be seen both in the dispute over public space – an arena crisscrossed by tensions, asymmetries of power, and class conflict – and in the debate over political participation and legitimacy, where the media discourse has woven a discriminatory imaginary against indigenous peoples. In both cases, communication is instrumentalized by traditional media outlets, contributing to differentiation, social exclusion, and the legitimation of accumulation and hegemony.