Discourse and refuge Analysis of representations of Venezuelan migrants in the Ecuadorian press in 2019

Abstract

The main objective of this article was to analyze the discourse about refuge reflected in the newspapers El Comercio and El Universo, considering that these are the newspapers with the greatest media content and circulation in the country, which cover most of Ecuador"™s social imaginary and detect the general media boom of Venezuelan migration. From the above-mentioned newspapers, several publications were taken for analysis. This research focused on the treatment of information and sought to determine how the Ecuadorian press portrays refugees from Venezuela, making a comparison with Colombian migrants and migrants from Syria and Yemen. The research sought to confirm whether the handling of information contributes to the xenophobia of Ecuadorians towards refugees of the mentioned nationalities. To this end, a conceptual inquiry was developed around the subject. Subsequently, a discourse study was conducted with different data and incorporating variables and levels of observation. Qualitative results were obtained through the analysis of headlines, keywords, evaluative adjectives, news posts on Facebook, and comments and impressions from the audience. Finally, it was concluded that there are indeed social imaginaries created in the media, which generate aversion of part of the Ecuadorian society towards refugees.