The "two fears" warned by election campaign specialists

In a campaign that begins without surprises, without acts of disruption and, especially, without discussion of the proposals, there is a common denominator that reveals the metamessage behind spots, interviews, memes and polls: fear.

According to electoral campaign experts, the main candidates for the presidency have left a fear of a predominant place in their electoral strategies. While Together for Change warns of the risks of kirchnerism returning to the economy and institutions, the Todos Front is trying to reach out to non-voters by ensuring that the adjustment of macrismo will be more and more rude.

At the same time, the federal consensus is trying to find a place at the top of the electoral race, indicating that if Mauricio Macri is still in power or if Alberto Fernández wins, the Argentineans should continue to get used to the race. insecurity and not being able to light the fire.

"There is a discussion between two fears: the adjustment or the return of Cristina Kirchner, unlike in 2015, while there was a debate on the question of whether there was a change towards moderation, today, the debate is relativized by fear, as if it were an anti-critic or anti-churcher plebiscite, "says
THE NATION political consultant Carlos Fara.

In recent days, the strategy has been highlighted, for example during the interview of María Eugenia Vidal in Journalism for All, when the governor of Buenos Aires declared that
if Axel Kicillof takes him into the province, he will govern La Cámpora or Mar del Plata, when Alberto Fernández will say that Mauricio Macri "put the brakes on the economy" when he took office .

The strategy of fear is embodied by the intention of the ruling party to strive to make a good choice in the PASS, while no presidential intern wants to settle. Therefore, says Fara, the government says it returns to the polls to warn the voter that Kirchner has a chance.

"The government will make an important educational effort to get people to vote in the PASS, this voter will start to warm up closer to the date, when he will have finished understanding the issues.the first interested to show that the Fernández are the first, "adds Fara.

According to Daniela Aruj, expert in image and political communication, the central debate of this campaign is focused on what the undecided will do and will choose a third way, now bitter to Roberto Lavagna. This is why the main candidates "base their campaigns on fear", with the aim of "scare this thin column".

In agreement with Fara, Aruj agrees that voting against a given space will be a substantial element and that is why they are more critical of the other than concrete proposals. "There is very little to be gained from the positive," he explains.

For its part, the badysis of Mario Riorda, director of the Master in Political Communication of the Southern University, highlights a "campaign of fear invested". According to the academic, "the ruling party organized for the first time a campaign of fear, which they criticized in 2015, when Kirchner did it."

"Both in 2015 and today, fear is aroused by the manager," he says.
THE NATION.

In this sense, quick impact and strong messages, such as those circulating on the Internet, have become particularly relevant. "There will be a lot of campaigns in networks and a lot of memes, it's the most powerful type of communication, it's easy to viralize and do, and it's also aimed at a non-policy segment. adds Aruj.

And that's where the focus is on the false news, a centralized tool in the network and easy to viralize to really hide a word or attitude of a candidate that would hurt him.

Until now, according to Ana Iparraguirre, Director of Dynamis Consulting, no major movement has occurred in this direction. The video of Patricia Bullrich slowed to give him a drunken look does not fall into this category because his lie could be quickly determined. "If the false news is well done, you will not realize it before it's too late," he said.

The campaigning expert described the false news as a way "to anchor the preconceptions that people already have of a person or party" and that its effectiveness rests on "intelligence" behind the broadcast material. "You have to see what information the campaign teams have about preconceived ideas [del votante] to send individual messages. "The Big Data technology, which allows to establish with certainty the segmentation of the messages, has already made its mark in the political marketing.