Granada : EDICSO, 2016. Téléchargement libre.

This book presents the analysis of the journalistic culture of Ecuador as representative of the Andean region and Latin America. Since the last two decades of the twentieth century, a steady increase in research in journalism has focused on the analysis of the journalist and their products – contents. However, it is only relatively recently that it has also taken into account the context in which the environment and the various systems – political, economic, social, cultural, media, technological, etc. – surrounding the journalists and the media are present.

This decontextualized perspective has been, and is being, much criticised for being reductionist, partial and homogeneous. For these reasons, and for others which will be discussed throughout the book, this study includes the work of journalists, their perceptions and their professional practices as integrated activities in a characteristic context and with a unique idiosyncrasy. Based on this idea, it attempts to show a vision, as closely as possible, of the journalistic culture of Ecuador and the professionals who are immersed in it. To this end, from a multilevel analysis, we analyse the dimensions of 1) self-perception of the professional role, 2) idea of objectivity, 3) ethical guidance, 4) perception of autonomy, 5) trust level in institutions, and 6) assessment of the influencing factors. The study is based on theoretical foundations, in order to subsequently focus on the “operationalizing” – how to empirically measure the theoretical proposals – and the “empirical conceptualisation” – how to theoretically explain the practices and standards – of the journalistic culture of Ecuador.

The book is structured in three parts. In the first of them (chapters I and II) the concept of Journalistic Cultures and its implications to the communication and studies in the area is developed and an approach to the concept and the reality of the journalistic culture characteristic of Latin America as a region is carried out. The second part of the work (chapters III to VI) begins with the location and contextualization of our object of study, the journalistic and communicative reality of Ecuador. Not only some of the great features that define the journalistic culture of the Andean country, but also the media system in which it is encompassed and its implications for our subject of study are analysed on these pages. In this regard, it is important to mention the new Ecuadorian law (Law of Communication, June 25, 2013), since it has come to change the communication system of the country and its relationship with both the political power and the society itself. These chapters also develop two of the current debates in Ecuador : the professionalization process on which journalism has been embarked and the proposal to incorporate communication as a public service.