Cómo citar este artículo / Referencia normalizada

Altamirano - Benítez, V., Ruíz - Aguirre, P. y Baquerizo-Neira, G. (2022). Policy 2.0 in Ecua- dor. Analysis of discourse and political communication on Facebook. Revista Latina de Comu-nicación Social, 80, 200-223. https://www.doi.org/10.4185/RLCS-2022-1539

Introduction

Political communication is in an evolutionary process, which begins with a massive and controlled communication, aimed at informing in an asymmetric and unidirectional way, to a multimedia com- munication on the Internet. The main characteristic of this new communication model is the active and voluntary participation of voters through digital environments and platforms. Citizens have always sought information and references from political parties, especially candidates and their campaign proposals, to decide in the electoral process but this communication process is currently influenced by a collaborative attitude of the electorate, which implies bidirectional and interactive communication developing horizontally, in which the citizen acquires power in the communication process. Túñez and Altamirano (2015) state:

It is a fact that the democratization of the possibility of being a transmitter of messages with potential mass audiences as recipients and the universalization of interpersonal connection through the Internet allows users to interact one on one, or one to several, or, in small groups, and interact with everyone. Message flows have also varied, evolving from a unidirectional (discursive) mode to a truly interactive circulation and, simultaneously, in various media (p. 14)

“Social networks have shown themselves to be a unique environment due to their ability to connect users and facilitate interaction between the political sphere and the public” (Blasco-Duatis et al., 2018, p. 270). In other words, political communication evolves into a bidirectional, participatory, voluntary, and committed model in which the citizen is the one who controls the communication processes. In this scenario, “social networks offer greater facilities to directly contact, give visibility to the partici- pants, encourage debates, or even alert about possible conflicts” (Barandiarán, Unceta, and Peña, 2020, p.272).

Therefore, when using 2.0 communication strategies, it is essential to maintain a 2.0 attitude and commitment, that is, to adapt to the needs of the user, who, in the digital age, is the one who sets the course and trends. In this sense,Ñopo (2021) states that “new technologies are providing a new pu- blic space. On the one hand, new technologies help citizens obtain information immediately, and on the other, they open a window for citizens to exercise their freedom of expression” (p. 100). In this way, Facebook (FB) is consolidated as an ideal channel for political communication. It is considered a non-persuasive channel as it is based on three principles such as the voluntary affiliation of users, the collaborative contribution of content by each of them, and voluntary attention to the actions carried out by brands (Alonso Mosquera, and Muñoz de Luna, 2013), which allows developing non-invasive and direct communication with the target audience.

To analyze the evolution of political communication in digital environments, this research proposes three study approaches, first, communication 2.0 processes are evaluated to determine the interaction and relationship established between candidates and voters through Facebook.

Second, it focuses on the analysis of the use of language and emotionality of the candidates’ speech, for which the natural language processing tool, Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC), is applied to the data. Thirdly, it seeks to understand, from the perspective of the political agenda, why certain issues are addressed by the candidates and others are not, to understand where the focus is and what are the public policy priorities that are chosen in the discourse on social networks. Based on the content analysis, the position regarding the issues that are most interesting to transmit to citizens through the electoral proposals is examined.

With these three approaches, an attempt is made to carry out a methodological triangulation and deter- mine what linguistic elements the Ecuadorian political leaders use in their messages, the emotionality, and the topics of the political agenda that prevail in their posts. In short, it is determined how these linguistic elements also affect the 2.0 communication of the candidates with their followers.

Objectives

The research analyzes the electoral campaign of the presidential candidates for the 2021 elections in Ecuador on Facebook, for which three objectives are set:

1) Evaluate the 2.0 communication processes between presidential candidates and voters, based on the premise that communication in social media must be bidirectional and strengthen the horizontal relationship.

2) Analyze the linguistic and emotional elements of the presidential candidates’ publications as resour- ces for their campaign communication strategy.

3) Determine the digital political agenda, what were the issues addressed by the candidates on the social network.

Methodology

To meet the proposed objectives, a mixed methodology is used, which consists of the systematic in- tegration of quantitative and qualitative methods, in a single study, to obtain a complete vision of the addressed phenomenon. This methodology allows “generating and verifying theories, expanding the trust, validity, and understanding of the results” (Chaves - Montero, 2018, p. 182).

The research is carried out during the 2021 electoral period, which begins on December 31st, 2020, and ends on February 7th, 2021. In the first stage, the communication processes are evaluated, selec- ting as a sample the 15 candidates for the presidency, to determine if the implementation of successful

digital strategies affects the voting decision. In the second phase, to carry out the content analysis in the official Facebook accounts, the candidates who obtain 87.52% of the votes are selected. Applicants who do not exceed 3% of acceptance by Ecuadorians are not analyzed. In the research, 1,543 posts were coded, 408 posts by Andrés Arauz, 449 posts by Guillermo Lasso, 369 posts by Yaku Pérez, and 317 by Xavier Hervas.

Source: Primicias (2021). t.ly/ZxC3

Análisis de Sentimiento

Once the Facebook extraction is done, the corpus for analysis is obtained and each post is processed through the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) program to determine the use of the candida- tes’ language in the context of the electoral campaign. This software provides an English and Spanish dictionary that is empirically validated to reflect a psychological dimension in different contexts (Pennebaker, Mehl, & Niederhoffer, 2003).

The program analyzes more than 70 linguistic variables. A total of 1,543 publications of the presiden- tial candidates are processed (see chart 2), to which all the categories provided by the tool are applied, to identify emotionality as a discourse strategy used in the candidates’ posts. For each psychological dimension, the computer program calculates the relative frequency with which words related to that dimension appear in a post.

Source: Prepared by the authors

Con este análisis se observa que los candidatos políticos ecuatorianos emplean, en mayor medida, como recursos lingüísticos los pronombres personales (yo, nosotros, tu/usted, él/ella, ellos); procesos psicológicos: emociones positivas y negativas; y, dimensiones del contenido tradicional como temas sociales: familia, necesidades sociales, amigos, asuntos humanos. Y, otros temas como: tiempo, traba- jo, logro, hogar, dinero, religión. Estos últimos se contrastaron con la agenda política de los candidatos.

Results and Discussion

Communication 2 0

Political communication 2.0 is determined by the interaction and relationship established on Facebook between political candidates and voters. This relationship is based on communication that takes place in spaces of equality; therefore, it should not be traditional or unidirectional, in which the candidate speaks from a virtual platform and citizens listen, on the contrary, citizens have a voice and the candi- date establishes spaces for dialogue with them.

Presence

The research determined that there is a relationship between the candidates with the highest number of votes and those with the greatest presence on the network, although not in the same order. The presence of Guillermo Lasso is 1,046,416, the second candidate with the highest presence is Juan Fernando Ve- lasco with 278,750, it is important to emphasize that he is a recognized singer in the country and during the campaign he used his artistic account, followed by Yaku Pérez (267,969), Xavier Hervas (143,956), and Andrés Arauz (136,070). However, the penetration of the candidates is low, Lasso reaches 8% of the 13.3 million network users in the country, (Del Alcázar Ponce, 2021) Velasco and Pérez manage to attract 2%, and Hervas and Arauz reach 1%, the other candidates do not exceed 0.4%, which is related to the percentage of votes they reached.

Source: Prepared by the authors

Growth

Regarding growth, Pedro José Freire stands out, incorporating 30,087 fans, Yaku Pérez 15,631, Isidro Romero Carbo 11,973. The other candidates do not exceed 5,000 new followers, and 4 candidates do not grow, and in the case of Gerson Almeida, he loses 384 fans, probably due to the lack of a digital strategy and the saturation of the social network with uninteresting information.

Activity

From the analyzed sample, it is observed that Guillermo Lasso is the most active candidate, he publi- shes an average of 5 posts per day, while 6 candidates publish less than one post per day, which is not strategic in an electoral campaign because they saturate the social network with candidate information as in the first case, or there is a lack of information and presence as occurs with the candidates Almeida, Andrade, and Velasco.

Source: Prepared by the authors

Service level

The level of service evaluates the candidates’ response to followers. In the analyzed period, the level of service is 0 for all the candidates, showing that the interaction is low, which reflects a low engagement, mainly from Arauz, who registers 522 publications from his fans, and Lasso, who has 168 unanswered publications.

Participation

It is observed that Ecuadorians are not very active in the profiles of politicians, in the period of a little over three months, 11,954,955 interactions are recorded when there are 13.3 million users of the ne- twork (Del Alcázar Ponce, 2021). There is a direct relationship between the most active candidates on the network and those who achieve the greatest participation of the followers, however, the quality of published content can make the difference, Arauz and Hervas with fewer publications than Lasso and Pérez surpass them in interaction, and the participation of the followers of Pedro José Freire should be highlighted, who, with few publications, achieves significant interaction from his fans.

Ecuadorian voters are not very engaged in Facebook accounts, 72% of the interactions correspond to reactions, and in the same proportion (14%) users comment or share information, generating little virality of the electoral proposals. It is necessary to clarify that the majority of citizens present positive attitudes when reacting to the accounts of the presidential candidates. 74% of the reactions correspond to the “like” option and 15.8% of the followers select the “love” option, only 1.2% of the users click on the “angry” reaction and 0.2% on the “sad” reaction. The candidate who receives the highest number of negative reactions is Guillermo Lasso (49,186), followed by Andrés Arauz (39,457), Xavier Hervas (6,559), and Yaku Pérez (6,479) but they are also the ones who obtain the highest percentage of posi- tive reactions.

Source: Prepared by the authors

In the case of presidential candidates, the analysis showed that engagement is proportional to the can- didates’ participation in the network; Arauz, Hervas, Lasso, and Pérez are the ones who achieve the greatest engagement from their followers but the high percentage of engagement of Freire should be emphasized, who with very clear and valuable content, achieves that his followers participate more actively, demonstrating greater engagement.

Communication Index 2 0

The communication 2.0 evaluation model is quantitative, to have an exact vision of the interactive communication process. For the assessment, the actions, reactions, and interactions, both of the candi- dates and the 2.0 voters, in the Facebook accounts are weighted, which allows the creation of indexes of presence, growth, activity, level of service, participation, and engagement, variables selected based on the basic characteristics of communication 2.0. These indices, obtained in the research process, allow the evaluation and cataloging of the performance of the presidential candidates and each variable studied.

The Model allows evaluating communication 2.0 from a comparative perspective, that is, it interrelates several accounts of a certain social environment. Once the KPIs are obtained to evaluate the selected variables, the data is normalized, normalizing the performance indicators allows creating a standard scale that keeps the same proportions between the variables, in this process the applied formula is: Ni = (X-Min / Max. – Min.) * 100. Lastly, these results are interrelated to create the communication index 2.0. Once the indices are available, for each of the accounts, the results of the analyzed variables are added and divided by six to weigh the results and catalog them (Altamirano et al, 2018).

Table 1: Communication 2.0 Index

Candidates	Presence	Growth	Activity	Service	Participation	Engagement	Communication 2.0 Index	Category
Guillermo Lasso	100	19	100	0	69	63	58	Acceptable
Andrés Arauz	13	1	91	0	100	100	51
Yaku Perez	26	53	82	0	43	48	42
Xavier Hervas	14	1	70	0	69	89	41
Pedro José Freile	5	100	30	0	8	23	28	Acceptable low
Isidro Romero Carbo	2	41	52	0	11	19	21
César Montúfar	4	18	48	0	5	9	14	Improvable
Lucio Gutiérrez	3	5	48	0	2	4	10
Carlos Sagnay	1	2	58	0	0	0	10
Gustavo Larrea	3	2	43	0	1	2	8
Guillermo Celi	3	10	17	0	1	7	6
Juan Fernando Velasco	27	3	0	0	0	5	6
Ximena Peña	1	3	15	0	0	1	3
Gerson Almeida	2	0	9	0	1	5	3
Giovanny Andrade	0	1	0	0	0	0	0

Fuente: Elaborado por los autores

As can be seen, there is no communication process in the fan pages of the candidates for the presiden- cy of Ecuador, none of the candidates reaches the category of optimal and highly acceptable, social networks are created, without a clear objective and are mainly used to disseminate information, as a traditional means of communication, when their main characteristic is interactivity. The contents that they disseminate, as verified in the research, are thought of in the interests of the candidate, not in the needs of the audience, for that reason, the participation and engagement of the voters are low. It cannot be a coincidence that the four candidates with the highest popular acceptance and vote are the ones who obtain the best score in the communication process, this is mainly because they manage to build a community, maintain a 2.0 attitude, frequently publish on their social accounts, although the level of response and interaction is low.

When evaluating the communication 2.0 processes between presidential candidates and voters (O1), it is concluded that Facebook is underused as a traditional media that does not encourage participation (Gamir-Ríos, 2021), that is, presidential candidates only disseminate information and they lack spaces that promote debate or dialogue with voters, “because the intentions of political actors to interact with users and vice versa are almost nil; so the socio-digital networks are used as a kind of political agenda and a means of disseminating their political marketing campaigns” (Toxtle and González, 2020. p. 89), so it is concluded that, in the accounts of the candidates in presidential elections, interactive and par- ticipatory communication 2.0 is not promoted but rather is used as a broadcasting platform (Neira, Uribe, & Gonzalez, 2020; Recalde, Baquerizo, & Zunino, 2019). In none of the analyzed accounts are there any publications that promote dialogue and citizen participation or that allow the candidate to listen and know the needs of their voters, nor are there live broadcasts to interact with the citizen, much less are interactive spaces identified, such as forums, surveys, among other alternatives offered by the social network.

Data analysis with natural language processing software (LIWC

An element of the political strategy in the campaign context is the emotionality of the candidates’ speech, for this, the data is processed with the LIWC software and in the results, it is observed that the language used by the candidates towards their followers is direct, they mostly use the pronouns “he/ she” in their publications (see Chart 6), as observed in the following publications:

Peace and social tranquility are based on trust in institutions. An honest electoral process is what the Ecuadorian people demand. #AbramosLasUrnasEcuador #EstamosConYaku

For years, thousands of young people could not enter university or were denied the career of their choice. With #CapacidadParaCambiar, they will have the freedom to choose their own path to grow. We’ll give autonomy to universities! #LassoPresidente2021. (Lasso, 2021)

It is also evident that Aráuz and Hervas are the only ones who, when addressing their followers, use the pronoun “we”, a populist characteristic that “encompasses the speaker, his party, his supporters, and the people” (Charaudeau, P., and Gentile, A., 2009, p.271). The use of the first-person plural connotes a relationship with the group to which it is addressed and also determines a certain authority in the speaker (Ruas, Fernández, & Puentes, 2013), as noted in the following posts:

This second round must be an area of democratic discussion that enriches our society. ☝ We will continue to tour, listen, and offer proposals. We propose the unity of love for our country, of love for the people, with a clear objective: a better future for Ecuador. (Aráuz, 2021)

The https://www.atlasintel.org/ survey places us in 4th place with 3.3% voting intention. We grow! Thanks to all those who bet on us, the #GenteNueva. Share our proposals, help more people join. The commitment is today. #Atrévete. #XavierHervasPresidente. (Hervas, 2021)

Source: Prepared by the authors

Regarding the use of pronouns, it is observed that, as has already been said, the candidates’ discourse is not of a populist type because “there is not an us and them, that is, on the one hand, a leader and his followers; on the other, the enemies of that leader, who are also enemies of the people” (Patriau, 2012, p. 300). In the use of the language of the analyzed candidates, it is evident, to a greater extent, the use of the personal pronoun “he/she” in their publications and the topics that appeared most frequently were achievement and employment, a “coherent” speech in a country hit by the post-pandemic global economic crisis.

Furthermore, the analysis confirms that everyone uses positive language in the campaign speech (see Chart 7). This is consistent with “charisma” as a characteristic of the political leader. The most used words in the posts are: prosperous, hope, pride, smile, affection, energy, motivation, enthusiasm, joy, honesty, happy, good vibes, efficient, better, opportunities, among others. These are observed accom- panied by hashtags with the campaign slogans. Below are two publications that refer to positive emo- tionality:

Thank you, Manabí, with its beautiful beaches and hospitable people that treated us to so much joy in a magical sunset, enjoying where we come from: the #Sea and its #Waters. Juyayay #Manabi! #YakuPresidente #ClaroQueSePuede #YakuEs. (Yaku, 2021)

I invite you to vote for CHANGE and a Government Plan that seeks freedom, the strengthening of democracy, and building a country of opportunities. With joy and enthusiasm, this February 7th we are going to vote for the #CapacidadParaCambiar. LASSO PRESIDENT 202. (Lasso, 2021)

It is also observed that, to a lesser extent, a language with negative emotionality is used. However, within this category, there are more words associated with the category “anger” (85%) than with “sad” (15%). From this, it can be inferred that, in an electoral context, the discourse is developed around elements such as disputes and disqualification between the candidates, rejection of the outgoing gover- nment, complaints of irregularities in the electoral process, or discussions of politically relevant issues (see Chart 7). In the cast are: struggle, corruption, outrage, violence, fraud, stealing, gender violence, cheating, slander, insecurity, unemployment, poverty, delinquent, crime, murderers, repression, pro- test, among others.

Source: Prepared by the authors

Posts like: “Don’t let them treat us like we’re stupid. We are fighting against demagoguery, against co- rruption. #DebatePresidencial2021 #EcuadorDecide2021 #XavierHervasPresidente (Hervas, 2021)”, represent the use of negative connotations in candidates’ campaign speech.

Source: Prepared by the authors

From the analysis of the candidates’ use of the language, other words associated with topics such as achievement and employment are identified. Hervas is the one that most uses words associated with the money category in most of his publications (54%), this is combined with his campaign proposals regarding the reactivation plans for the agricultural sector and access to national and international mar- kets. On the other hand, Lasso uses language related to achievement (41%) and employment (42%), followed by Pérez (28% achievement and 37% employment), and Aráuz (29% achievement and 30% employment).

The first is related to the offer to create two million jobs in the four years of government; the second offers employment, future, and dignity; and, the third, decent work. Some examples are shown below:

In our 4 years of government, WE WILL CREATE 2 MILLION JOBS. Ecuadorians will have a decent and productive job, well paid, and with social security. #ConLassoHayEMPLEO #Propues- tasDeLasso #CapacidadParaCambiar #LassoPresidente2021. (Lasso, 2021)

#Live | Thanks to the people of Pastaza for their enthusiasm and joy. We are getting closer! With renewed hope, the Ecuador of work, future, and dignity is coming. (Arauz, 2021)

Pérez is the only candidate who addresses the issue related to the home (16%). Few are the references linked to religion (see Chart 9).

Source: Prepared by the authors

That I am traveling to Mexico? Yes, I am in Mexico and Remigio Crespo streets in my beautiful river city of Cuenca. Playing as a family with agüita, mishkitullito, and cheerful national music. Juyayay the #Carnaval2021 (Pérez, 2021)

From the emotional analysis of the use of language by candidates in political campaigns, it can be concluded that in this case -positive emotion- is not an element that influences the increase in interac- tion between candidates and their followers. This responds to the finding of SStieglitz and Dang-Xuan (2012) who maintain that negative messages posted on Facebook receive more comments and generate more interaction than positive ones. Likewise, these authors determined that there is greater interaction because people “comment more in discussions about politically relevant problems, issues, or concer- ns” (p.12).

Analysis of the political agenda

Taking into account the percentage of attention, the following findings are obtained: The four candi- dates publish, for the most part, rhetorical, emotional content, or the transmission of campaign events (code 0) that do not represent the policies proposed by the parties, coinciding with the studies carried out byLópez-Meri, Marcos-García, and Casero-Ripollés (2020) who state that “parties and their leaders tend to promote their cam- paign events and programs, as well as to ask for votes, but they hardly use Facebook to encourage real dialogue with their followers” (p.241).

To a lesser extent, the candidates present their electoral offer: Lasso bases his proposal on employ- ment and health; Arauz talks about government and public administration and education. For his part, Hervas addresses issues related to government and public administration with the economy; and Pérez focuses on the codes of government and public administration and environment.

Source. Prepared by the authors.

The most important thing to note is that the percentage of attention partially coincides with the par- tisan logic of ownership of issues, thus, if the concentration of attention on government and public administration is taken into account, an issue that can be considered typical of left-wing parties, it coincides with the candidates Arauz, Pérez, and Hervas, which is related to what is determined by the academic literature. In the case of Lasso, there is no ideological parallelism, that is, considering that he is a candidate in the right-wing ideological spectrum, he does not focus on the conservative issues that the academic literature determines, for example, economics or domestic policy and justice, in fact, he focuses on topics such as employment and health. This may be precisely because the public agenda and public opinion polls determined which are the most important issues for Ecuadorians, where issues such as employment (within the economy) and health are the most important. Particular issues of each candidate, it is seen that they go hand in hand with the work plans of the candidates. For example, Pé- rez has as the third most important issue, the problem of the environment. Hervas and Arauz, economy and education, respectively.

Finally, the most striking issue is that the concentration of the political agenda does not go to issues with political content, rather the opposite, it focuses on issues that, for this study, we have called “rhe- toric” where it is evident that the candidates use campaign slogans, discursive narratives, an emotional language without political substance. This shows the need to transmit a message of form, persuasion, without real proposals but that generate cultural resonance, but not to punctually point out the cam- paign proposals and their ways of achieving them. This is evidenced in Chart 10.

Source: Prepared by the authors

Conclusions

Much is said about the importance of Facebook and its impact on the electoral campaign, it is conside- red as a platform for disseminating political offers that makes it possible to reach segmented but nume- rous audiences and some more idealistic strategists speak of the possibility of establishing relations- hips between candidates and voters. However, the reality is completely different, research shows that, in Ecuador, the impact is really low, only 15.9% of Facebook users in the country follow the account of a presidential candidate, probably due to the lack of strategy in campaigns and the “improvised” dissemination of content that is not interesting for the audience because it does not adapt to their needs or interests, much less show solutions to their problems.

For their part, voters, in the absence of a creative strategy, interesting content, and spaces that promote debate, adopt a passive attitude since their interaction is not very engaged, they participate through the “like” option and do not generate or share content, essential actions to obtain referencing and virality, which allow more people to join the electoral proposal. Despite these results, there is a coincidence, the four candidates who best develop the digital communication strategy are those who lead the electoral process, although it should be emphasized that they are also the ones who pay the most advertising. On the Facebook social network, Lasso invested $598,410, Arauz devoted $210,699, Pérez paid $180,148 in ads, and Hervas $70,687 (Facebook, 2021).

Among the results, it stands out that the participation of the voters is proportional to the activity in the account when the levels of publication are low, that is, the lower the number of publications of the candidates, the less the interaction of the citizens, but it should be noted that interactivity is influenced by the quality of the published content and the political discourse. Another interesting finding of the research is that smaller communities generate greater engagement, unlike accounts with a greater num- ber of followers, which may be the subject of another research to verify the authenticity of the profiles.

As a result of the analysis of the linguistic elements (O2), it was identified that the use of language does not respond to a populist discourse and that the emotionality of the publications is positive, this determines that the message used by political leaders is a strategy that allows accelerating the diffusion of the message in the network (Dang-Xuan, Stieglitz, Wladarsch, & Neuberger, 2013) and generates an increase of votes (Zullow, Oettingen, Peterson, & Seligman, 1988). For future research, it is important to consider that a limitation of the natural language pro- cessing tool (LIWC) is that it does not discriminate against the use of hashtags in publications.

Finally, when analyzing the digital political agenda and what were the issues addressed by the candida- tes in the social network (O3), it is determined that the political agenda used in social networks clearly has a rhetorical approach or is mostly focused on it, leaving for the future the need to deepen this and possibly its discursive relationship with populism.

Annex 1. Political agenda, 24 main topics

Source: Prepared by the authors