Análisis semiótico del Santuario y Basílica católica “Nuestra Señora del Rosario de Agua Santa” de Baños

Abstract

Religion has always been a topic of research within the social sciences, and communication is no exception. However, the religious images present in the churches are topics absorbed by the: anthropology, history and architecture, leaving small spaces for debate within semiotics. For this reason, the need to understand the Basilica "Nuestra Señora del Rosario de Agua Santa" of Baños was born from the semiotic point of view, which opens the possibility to understand: faith, religion and the discourses of hope existing in these temples This space allowed to combine different looks where the semiotics of religious images flows, encouraging new spaces and scenarios to think about the image, and urge its communicational debate in the communication students of the Technical University of Ambato. To carry out the analysis, a methodology composed of two moments was used. The first is an iconographic analysis of some paintings present in the basilica, and the second moment consists of interviews with the devotees. He resorted to concepts such as baroqueism and iconography, using articles and books by authors such as Serge Gruzinski, Bolivar Echeverría, Jesús Mara Gonzales de Zárate, among others. After visiting the temple and applying the proposed methodology, a series of reasons were found that explain the reason for such strong faith in the inhabitants of the city and why the Virgin of Agua Santa is so important for Baños.