Digital media and election campaigns

Digital media has moved from the periphery to the center of election campaigns in recent years. Analysts agree that the use of these media has played a leading role in the performance of the laureates of a wide range of election polls, from the United States in 2016 to El Salvador in 2019.

To understand the power of digital media in election campaigns, it is important to situate their use in everyday life, because the way people use political information is contextualized in the wider uses that they make of digital technology.

The digital media ecosystem is very different from that of print and broadcast media, which dominated the election campaigns of the last century. This difference is evident in the presence of digital media in every facet of everyday life.

To begin, let's consider some figures on the penetration of digital technology.

In 2016 alone, 1,600 million smartphones were sold on the planet, in addition to the 600 million non-smart mobile phones also sold during this period.

On average, a person who owns a cell phone looks at him about 80 times a day.

We spend more than half of our time keeping in touch with the media, especially mobile devices, computers and television. A good part of this time this contact is with multiple screens simultaneously.

In addition, the time spent in connection has increased considerably in recent years, mainly in connection with the use of social networks.

In 2017, 3.2 billion people used at least one social network. This represents 42% of the world's population and registered a 13% increase over 2016.

Not only do many people use the networks, but they spend a lot of time there. It is estimated that the average usage in 2017 was 135 minutes a day.

Not only do users spend a lot of time on social networks, but they also provide them with a lot of content. On average, There are over 8,000 new tweets per second.

The way we treat this huge volume of information in and out of the many screens that populate our daily landscape. This generates an audiovisual and interactive collage in which information travels at a remarkable speed. Studies show that among young people, the average duration of a window on the computer is 12 seconds. The predominant badumption is that this time is significantly shorter in the case of screens in smart mobile devices.

It is not only a question of the volume and speed of the processing of digital information, but also of an emotional link with it. Seeing our smartphone and our news on our social networking accounts is the first thing we do many after we wake up and the last one before we go to bed. And while we sleep, we often dream or have nightmares about what we saw during the day.

Disconnecting from devices and mobile networks, it is like removing the digital oxygen from our social life. Because digital media, unlike print and broadcast media, do not constitute a collection of objects, but an environment in which we live, as well as the natural environment and the urban environment.

It is much easier to cancel the newspaper subscription or turn off the TV than to disconnect from social and mobile networks. Doing this is like looking like Robinson Crusoe: it's possible, but it causes a strong social isolation. And the vast majority of people do not want to live like that.

We read the printed newspaper, listen to the radio and watch television to inform and entertain. We are in networks mainly to connect with others and to be part of the social fabric. Political communication in traditional media had to compete for attention to information on public issues; in digital media, it must first and foremost compete with everyday socialization and, secondarily, with information. This is a much bigger challenge that requires a different articulation of the electoral message.

As in different neighborhoods of the urban environment, not all platforms of the digital environment are the same. It is not so much technological capabilities as social conventions that have evolved in each platform.

When we talk about election campaigns, we often refer to Facebook and Twitter, and very recently to Instagram and WhatsApp. Understanding their different uses in everyday life is fundamental to understanding their differing roles in political communication.

Facebook is like a big mall: a place where you can do almost anything, but because of that, you've lost the sense of privacy and a lot of its users have access to it in terms of convenience. If we are going to see a movie in the mall, it is more convenient to eat something there. But it is unlikely to be the favorite restaurant.

Twitter is about information and attracts more than anyone interested. Interactions are more transient and focus on information. A large part of the users of this platform care about the current information, but this is not the case for the general population.

Instagram is like a parade, a place to see and be seen, where the interactions are very aesthetic and focused on the image. In recent years, it has become the network par excellence for a large part of the young electorate.

WhatsApp is like coffee, where all kinds of interactions, such as Facebook, coexist, but in smaller environments perceived by users as more intimate.

What does this mean for election campaigns? Campaigns that want to define a large program would do well to focus on Facebook, but those who want to reach an audience that is very interested in public affairs information should focus on Twitter. Election strategies for youth will be more effective in Instagram and engage in more intimate conversations. WhatsApp is the best option.

Beyond these differences between networks, three major trends characterize our consumption of information in the digital environment.

First, with the exception of those using Twitter, many users find information about public problems in a fortuitous way, as a by-product of their presence on the networks, rather than looking for them intentionally.

Secondly, this meeting is often less determined by the original source of messages (candidates and media) and more by the contacts on social networks "like", commented and shared. Political and journalistic institutions no longer mediate as they did before.

Third, reading time and attention are fleeting and unstable. The Soundbites command and any complex information processing will probably be lost in the whirlwind of digital life.

What does this mean for the future of election campaigns? One possible scenario is that campaign teams should view themselves more as Silicon Valley start-ups than less like the large bureaucratic organizations that once dominated the electoral landscape. They must be quick, nimble, accept failures and develop a wide variety of messages intended not only for specific voters, but also to listen to the differences between social media platforms and adapted to their way of life.

They would also be good at giving up, or at least moderating, the illusion of being able to control both the message and its circulation. In the digital ecosystem, the control of political communication pbades from candidates and media to algorithms and users.

The author is a professor at the School of Communication at Northwestern University and co-director of the Northwestern University Media and Society Studies Center (MESO). This column is a revised version of the presentation made at the IX Forum on Democracy in Latin America held in Mexico City on April 4 and 5, 2019.