Media Narratives on the indigenous Equatorian mobilization: Peace or conflict?

Abstract

This paper analyses 180 discourses that are taken from a sample of 1274 news stories that the Ecuadorian media published during the 2019 and 2022 social protests. It focuses on the framing of the “other” as an adversary and the vocabulary used to stigmatize indigenous leaders, noting the persistent involvement of social, political, and journalistic actors whose discourse still shapes Ecuador’s media environment today. Shabir Hussain’s (2023) escalatory or de-escalatory methods to media coverage, Umberto Eco’s (2013) Construction of the Enemy theory, and Johan Galtung’s (2015) paradigm of peace journalism serve as the foundation for the analysis. The national strike media coverage intensifies the phenomenon of information reticence and censorship impeding the presentation of reality, takes a combative stance by spreading ideas linked to terrorism, and shapes the presumption without evidence as a central element of its narrative structure.