Post-Media Wars in Latin America: the Reform of the Organic Communication Law in Post-Correa’s Ecuador

Abstract

The governments of the left turn in LatinAmerica maintained confrontational relations with the media-journalistic institutions and promoted radical regulatory reforms in the sector. The crisis of these experiences of government raises questions about thelegacies of these conflicts. This work focuses on the reform of the controversialOrganic LawofCommunication mobilized by the Lenin Moreno’s government and approved by lawin February 2019 in Ecuador. The reconstruction of the political process of the counter-reform showsthat itwas a central part in the constitution of a government, heir to the “Citizen Revolution”, but faced Rafael Correa sincethe presidential inauguration of his successor. However, beyond the governmental framing of restitution of a regulation compatible with international standards of freedom ofexpression, the legislative debate process mobilized the contradictory interestsregulated by the legal norm.The final result shows that, although the business sector regains certain privileged access to decision-making, it is not a return to thestatus quo ante, by virtue of the ability of the actorsincorporated in thecorreista reform to mobilize defensively and sustain their positions in the reformed legal framework.