Have you been on TV before? Well we were on TV in Cuenca for about 10 seconds when the camera panned to us while we were watching a cooking show be taped live at the Unsión television station. It was so interesting for me to visit the station today because my group and I did the facilitation on media in Ecuador, so I had some background knowledge of media in Ecuador. Due to the oppression of speech here in Ecuador resulting from President Correa, I was expecting to see evidence of oppression of speech at the studio. I was pleasantly surprised to not see much overt evidence of it. Our tour guide of the station did however make it very clear that the station is not owned by the government and that it is a private corporation. The station itself appeared very efficient and professional. What stood out to me the most was the fact that it is the second largest TV station in Cuenca, but that the station’s building itself was not very large. This definitely relates back to the concept of space and how I expected a much larger space because I come from a culture where larger spaces mean larger corporations. This is not necessarily the case here: they appear to be more efficient with their space.
I also found the format of the “behind the scenes” part of the office interesting because it was similar to most corporate offices back in the U.S. in the sense that it was divided into work functions. For example, the graphic designers were all in a work area together, the editors were together, and the sound people were all together. I also noticed that the people higher up in the organization, like the producer, had his office right amongst the rest of the employees and that he did not have a huge sign at the entrance of his office indicating his high status in the organization. This is different from most American corporations where the people higher up, like the CEO and other management, have offices far away from the other employees like sometimes even on a completely different floor, and also where they have large signs on their doors indicating their high status. This difference in the office set-up relates to the power distance dimension of cultural variability. American corporations tend to have high power distance where there are inequalities among the people higher up in the organization and the people in the lower levels, and also where there are privileges for people of higher status like their own separate office away from everyone below them. This television station is a good example of how Ecuador has a mainly low power distance because it showed how the people of higher status appeared equal to the rest of the employees since they worked right alongside them, and because they did not have signs on their offices symbolizing their high status. It was very interesting to see this low power distance because I am definitely not used to it.
Overall, I really enjoyed touring the television station and seeing how Ecuador creates its media, but that was not the only thing I enjoyed today! When I arrived home later in the day, my mom, dad, sister, niece, and I all ate dinner together as we usually do. After dinner my niece had to work on homework, so I assumed she would go back home with her mother to work on it. I was pleasantly surprised because she actually stayed and worked on it with her mom and grandma. I was also able to help because she was working on math, and I love math! It was so refreshing and different to see her mom and grandma both help her with her homework because I never once did my homework with my mom and grandma growing up. At first I thought it was odd that they were all doing her homework together because I was seeing it through my own “homework doing” schema back home were I do my homework by myself, but I quickly reminded myself that this is not odd and that it is actually very cool that they can all do it together. From being in Ecuador about a week and a half now, I know that Ecuadorians place a very high value on family, and that they do so many things all together; but this was a major moment where it hit me that they really do do a lot of stuff together. I am amazed daily by the strength of this family.
