Context

Peru will celebrate the bicentenary of its independence in 2021. During the last 50 years, three dark periods of authoritarianism, violence and corruption have shaken the foundations of the media and affected its evolution and ownership.

Peru´s culture is ancient. 5000 years ago, while other civilizations were developing in China, Egypt and Mesopotamia, it constructed its own to the north of Lima known as Caral.

Peru has spent half of its 195-year history as a republic under military governments that came to power through coup d'etat. The country endured two of South America’s most disastrous events: the War of the Pacific against Chile, and the war against terrorism provoked by Sendero Luminoso and MRTA.

Various institutions including the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) consider Peru to have shone as one of the stars of the economy of Latin America in the last decade due to its rapid growth (an annual average of 5.9%), low inflation and a significant reduction in poverty.

As was the case elsewhere in the world, the first mass media to reach the population of Vice-Royal Peru was the newspaper. The pioneers, the Diario de Lima and Mercurio Peruano, to name the most important, date back to the 17th century.

Under the Constitution, Peru´s supreme law, the state protects the fundamental right of the people to liberties of information, opinion, expression, the dissemination of thought and the possibility of doing so through media.

In Peru, a country with more than 31 million inhabitants, the population's access to communications technology is unequal, be it computers, smartphones, or Internet with access to different instant messaging applications, social media or video broadcasts. Urban areas, particularly Lima and some other coastal cities, have the greatest access to these kinds of technologies.