Flows of electoral propaganda in the 2020 parliamentary campaign in Venezuela

Abstract

The 2020 parliamentary electoral process, the first electoral event held in Venezuela in a time of pandemic, was characterized by non-compliance with legal provisions and the persistence of irregularities. Within an electoral schedule several times modified on the fly, the campaign period was exactly one month. Part of a study by the Venezuelan Electoral Observatory (OEV) is presented, the main objective of which is to know through which types of communication media the electoral propaganda was disseminated, as one of the forms that political communication assumes, by the actors in contention, as well as which social networks and / or messaging platforms were used. Through the OEV, two evaluation forms for the 2020 electoral campaign were applied, during the first (395 observations) and the second fortnight (399 observations) of the campaign month. Observers from the OEV national network participated, distributed proportionally in the 23 states and the Capital District, based on the total number of voters and voting centers in each state. The volunteers answered the questions based on what they had observed, read or heard themselves and / or in their communities. It was perceived by OEV observers that electoral propaganda took place more through traditional means, just in times of digital communication and in the midst of pandemic restrictions. Thus, eight out of ten received electoral propaganda on television, and only six out of ten by digital media. Facebook and WhatsApp were the networks and platforms most used by political actors. In an environment of generalized disinformation and advantage, the pro-government sector practically conducted the electoral campaign alone compared to the propaganda of the non-pro-government candidates.