Ecuador: A State of Violence—Live Broadcast of Terror
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe research work done is good just add some media conflict theory and contribute some thing academically to the literature that you have reviewed. The effort is great but more focussed on policy suggestions I would suggest you to build an argument on theoretical aspects of media and conflict in your conclusion extracted from Literature review. The other aspects of research paper and fine.
Author Response
Comment: I would suggest you to build an argument on theoretical aspects of media and conflict in your conclusion extracted from Literature review.
Response: Thank you very much for your thoughtful and constructive feedback. In response to your suggestion, we have revised the Conclusion section of the manuscript to incorporate a theoretically grounded argument on media and conflict, as discussed in the Literature Review. Specifically, we expanded the conclusion to include insights drawn from the works of Lynch and McGoldrick (2005) and Cottle (2006), whose contributions to peace journalism and mediatized conflict theory offer valuable perspectives on how the TC Televisión attack can be interpreted not only as an isolated act of violence but as a strategic communication maneuver by criminal actors. We appreciate your insightful recommendation, which has contributed significantly to the improvement of the manuscript.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsI attach the text with some suggestions for improving the organisation of the research.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We sincerely thank you for your thoughtful and constructive feedback on our manuscript. Your observations have been highly valuable in helping us strengthen the clarity, focus, and analytical depth of our study. In response to your comments, we have made the following key revisions:
- We revised the Conclusions section to directly address the central objective of the article—namely, the representation of violence in the live broadcast of the TC Television attack. The new version provides a critical synthesis of the findings, emphasizing the symbolic, narrative, and emotional dimensions of the audiovisual material, as well as its broader implications within the framework of media and conflict theory.
- Also, we reformulated the Results section to avoid reiteration of factual descriptions and instead emphasize the interpretive findings that emerged from the sequence analysis. The revised section now focuses on how the representation of the event shaped audience perception, emotional response, and public discourse in the aftermath of the broadcast.
- All requested citations were carefully updated, verified, and properly integrated into the manuscript in accordance with the journal’s style. This includes theoretical references and updated reports from international organizations and media outlets.
- The abstract has been completely rewritten to reflect the scope and central focus of the article. It now avoids ambiguous or politically charged terms and instead centers the discussion on the media representation of the event, its emotional impact on viewers, and the methodological approach used.
- In order to maintain thematic coherence, we eliminated sections in the conclusions that previously focused on unrelated aspects such as prison conditions and public education policy. While important, these themes diverged from the article’s primary focus and have been omitted to preserve analytical consistency.
All revisions have been made directly in the manuscript and are highlighted in green for ease of reference.
Finally, we deeply appreciate your time and insightful guidance, which have significantly enhanced the academic quality and coherence of our work.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsI applaud the author for this important topic and for stating that good education and investment in education are truly the fortress and safe haven of societies. I want to draw the author’s attention to the fact that it is possible to use a quantitative analysis of the time taken by the attacks on the TV channel, which took about an hour. Providing a quantitative analysis of the number of shots, scenes, and people who appeared in these shots, the use of signals, threats with weapons, and scenes of beating can be presented quantitatively and in percentages that support the results of the current research, especially in the ‘Descriptive Phase.’ Then analyzing these shots and the signals, language, and other indications they contain qualitatively certainly supports the results of the research in the ‘Interpretative Phase’ of the results.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We are sincerely grateful for your insightful and constructive suggestion regarding the inclusion of a more detailed and layered analysis in the “Results” section of our manuscript.
In response to your recommendation, we have expanded the section significantly to incorporate both a quantitative description of the audiovisual material—highlighting the number and type of shots, individuals present, camera movement, and duration of key sequences—as well as a qualitative, narrative-based analysis focused on the symbolic, emotional, and semiotic dimensions of the live broadcast.
The updated version offers a deeper interpretation of the audiovisual structure and the representation of violence, linking the attackers’ actions to a broader strategy of symbolic domination and narrative appropriation within a mediatized conflict framework.
For your convenience, all changes have been inserted directly into the manuscript and are highlighted in blue.
Thank you once again for your valuable contribution, which has greatly enriched the academic depth and clarity of our work.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsDear authors, thank you for the introduction of the amendments made following the recommendations of my report.
