Prensa escrita e imaginario social: estudio de caso sobre la construcción de la realidad minera a través de los principales diarios de Cuenca-Ecuador 2020-2021

Abstract

The objective of this research was to identify the discourses characterized by the social imaginaries about mining created by the newspapers, El Mercurio, El Comercio and El Nuevo Tiempo, in their digital version through the analysis of their press releases. The type of research was the holistic multiple case analysis at a descriptive level with a qualitative approach. First, an observation of the web page of the newspapers was carried out to proceed to the collection of press releases. Successively, content analysis and discourse analysis were performed. With regard to results, El Nuevo Tiempo was shown to be irrelevant for this study; On the other hand, El Mercurio presented a discourse essentially socio-political-environmental of opposition to mining, which transmitted a social imaginary of polarization and citizen conflict; while El Comercio maintains a pro-mining discourse of economic nature that revolves around the social imaginary about the legal-illegal dilemma of mining activity. Therefore, it was determined that the two newspapers maintain a political intentionality in their speeches. Finally, it can be concluded by saying that both newspapers are not completely objective since they do not reflect a holistic reality of the mining problem.