Between captured liberalism, populist pluralism and anti-populism
The case of the Ecuadorian media system before, during and after the presidency of Rafael Correa
Abstract
This study addresses the unexplored question of how populism influences the transformation of media systems in Latin America starting from the Ecuadorian experience, a critical case where the relationship between media and politics has been at the center of public and academic debate in the last 20 years. This contribution, based on the qualitative analysis of Ecuadorian journalists and media actors discourses, together with the content analysis of articles published in two of the country's most important newspapers, suggests significant patterns and changes that have marked the media system. Specifically, it examines changes on the behavior of polarization, critical press’ autonomy and journalistic professionalism before, during and after the presidency of Rafael Correa (2007-2017). Correa's government was a milestone in Ecuadorian history in which media policy took on enormous relevance with structural legal reforms. The results obtained in the research are contrasted with available academic approaches on Latin American media models, to conclude that before Correa's presidency, Ecuador could be defined as a clear 'captured liberal' system that turned into a 'populist pluralist' system during Correa's presidency where the press was more polarized, amplified its adversarial reporting, and increased its professionalism. Subsequent to Correa, and with the previous legal framework suspended, Ecuador returned to a similar state of ‘liberal captured’ media system albeit with a central anti-populist component that marks the country's current media system.
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