The Love/Hate Relationship Between Government, Media and Journalists in Ecuador

Abstract

The relationship between the government, the media and journalists in Ecuador places them at the center of the tense debate about the vested interests among these actors. In the first place due to the leading role that the government of Rafael Correa has been playing within the journalistic area through the creation of new bodies and legislation in this regard and, secondly, motivated by the political role played by certain journalists and the media. in their dialogue and relationship with the government, placing citizens at a crossroads when it comes to differentiating where information ends and official advertising or propaganda begins. This relationship between political actors and journalists is consolidating the communicational structure in the last decade (2007-2017) in the country. To learn more about this relationship in Ecuador, this article 1) analyzes the perceptions of journalists regarding their professional roles; levels of autonomy, credibility and trust; ideas of professional ethics and perceptions of contextual influences from the results obtained in the Worlds of Journalism Study project and 2) the influences from the context -in and outside the newsrooms- from the application of the Multilevel Organic Model (MOM ) proposed by Oller (2015). The results show, firstly, that the policies of the Ecuadorian government, from a communicational point of view, possess certain features that would define them as populist and, secondly, that journalists mainly exercise the role of disseminator, which It could lead to acting as “spokespersons” or interlocutors for the government, although with marked nuances of the civic role, watchdog and lawyer