Fake news and the construction of agnological stories as a political strategy in the October 2019 mobilizations in Ecuador

Abstract

Lies deliberately reproduced in social networks have communication and not the expression of thought as their central function; this as part of political strategies of groups that hold power, which seek to destabilize citizens and also seek to underestimate the audience through misleading and malicious content. The semantic, rhetorical and situational analysis of 53 news that circulated on FaceBook, Twitter and WhatsApp the 11 days of the National Unemployment in Ecuador, allowed us to show that the language received by society went through the repressive, expressive and appellative function, the latter, regime from emotionality, which showed the hostile character that was stirred up between social groups.