Políticos ecuatorianos se apropian de facebook durante campaña. Dos casos de estudio de Guayaquil y Quito

Abstract

During the last years, digital media has positioned itself as a quickly and easily communication channel that people can interact without major setbacks. Thanks to its versatility, in Ecuador, since the former President Rafael Correa Delgado`s first candidacy, social networtks have become campaign proposals candidates spaces. In 2019, sectional elections were no exception. All Guayaquil and Quito Mayor`s Office candidates (35 politicians) had a fanpage. In this research, during 45 campaign days, 743 candidates publications were analyzed. It includes Guayaquil Mayor`s Office candidates (Jimmy Jairala and Cynthia Viteri) and also Quito Municipality aspirants (Paco Moncayo and Paola Veintimilla). As a quantitative content analysis research, Karma Fanpage was used as a monitoring tool to measure generated reactions, interaction/engagement achieved levels, used message types, used multimedia elements and links and posts frequency. In addition, a code book was created to size corpus nature, research unit, analysis variables and categories (language functions, language types, themalization and discourse adressing), study period and other categories. The results show that candidates used Facebook to report their proselytizing activities, media interviews and campaign proposals. In other words, they moved off-line campaign to social networks without considering that they are two-way communication spaces. That`s why four politicians achieved engagement levels (according Karma Fanpage) are low. Cynthia Viteri obtained the highest percentage (2.58%) and Jimmy Jairala the lowest (0.42%). Politicians graphic and audiovisual projected resources (messages with referential and emotional lenguages), helped with their campaign messages dissemination. Links and live broadcasts were less used. Although hashtags were communication widely used resources, they weren`t well received by the audience. networks, forgetting that they are two-way communication spaces. That is why the level of engagement achieved by the four politicians (according to the Karma Fanpage tool) is low. Cynthia Viteri obtained the highest percentage with 2.58%, Jimmy Jairala the lowest with 0.42%. The graphic and audiovisual resources projected by politicians, accompanied by messages with a referential and emotional language, helped in the dissemination of their campaign messages. The use of links and live broadcasts was minimal. Although hashtags were a widely used resource in communication, they did not generate engagement with the public.