“In a modern and democratic society, a political strategy is not conceived, without a communication maneuver or, what is the same, the dissemination of political information. It constitutes a basic aspect in electoral campaigns, promoting that citizens can form judgments or positions on the country's political problems and thus have a global vision of the course of events ”.
From the respective appointment, the following is disserted: the Venezuelan social media have a great influence on the way of life of the population. In fact, there is a close relationship between the use of the media, the attitudes and behaviors of society. Here the written press plays an important role. On a daily basis, it is observed that much of the communication space is used by advertising and propaganda. In particular, the fact that much of the information that reaches readers through interviews or reports depends a lot on the ideological orientation of the newspaper's editorial staff, has been the object of many analyzes. Some of this information is used as propaganda to induce the reader to take certain positions regarding a particular situation.One of these positions is related to the state development of the country.
For a political party, advertising and propaganda are two types of vital actions. Propaganda is the basic function of a political party, it is a daily task present in electoral campaigns, but it has also been emphasized that political public opinion is formed from it. For its part, political advertising includes all the approaches that propaganda work has sown. So, it serves rather to reinforce the impact on public opinion. Hence, the advertising campaign, as an element of the electoral campaign, is considered important for the effect it can achieve by influencing the electoral decision of the voters.
Consequently, an interesting aspect to consider for a precision journalistic study (reportage) would be an analysis of the contents of the electoral warnings, of the interviews and reports in the process of presidential elections in the field of the 2006 written press, such as a way of analyzing what would be, on the one hand, the position assumed by these social media throughout the campaign and, therefore, their position through coverage with the reports and interviews displayed, their scope and content for each of the applications. On the other hand, the analysis of the communicational impact of electoral warnings, their cost and type of message.
The electoral campaign in Venezuela for presidential elections lasts approximately three to four months. Over the last few years, it has been seen how the electorate expects campaigns rich in novel proposals on how to face the various economic, political, educational, social situations, etc. that the country faces at that time.
So, in this expected framework: what will be the reality of the future electoral campaign? What will be the responses of political organizations and their candidates? Will the campaign address the different issues of real importance to the country? What will be the proposals of the candidates? What and how will the candidates' messages be, what percentage of the centimetry will they occupy and what importance will the media give to the candidates and their opinions? Finally, how much money will be invested in political advertising and propaganda ?, asks this one that has always been around the minds of all Venezuelans, without having concrete answers in this regard, since the spending of each of the electoral campaigns has always been managed (after all) "up your sleeve."These questions motivate the proposal of the present study of precision journalism that was presented and approved as a project, with an outstanding rating of 10/10 for the Complutense University of Madrid, master's degree in journalistic, institutional and business communication, precision journalism module, dictated by Dr. D. José Luis Dader.
In any case, it has always been thought that electoral campaigns in Venezuela are characterized by being very expensive, saturated with «slogans» and with little programmatic, educational or informative content. In other words, without concrete proposals for the electorate regarding the government plans of the candidates, this idea was widely analyzed in a thesis carried out by me and was entitled: Evaluation of electoral announcements, interviews and reports in the 1993 Electoral Campaign, where former President Rafael Caldera was elected.
Delimitation and method to apply
This report will therefore follow the methodology of an investigation of precision journalism, since it will analyze with scientific and technical rigor, verifiable numerical data, and statistical partner. Through the informative treatment method, you will apply the sociological imagination. For this reason, we will base ourselves on the formal level of the diagnosis and, therefore, a systematic process of collecting, organizing and presenting data and information around the same topic will be triggered, based on a content analysis strategy. About:
1. The analysis of the advertisements would allow to determine per day, per newspaper and per candidate:
Length or dimension (in centimeters x columns).
Cost in bolivars.
Location of the notice in the newspaper.
Type of message through the presence of «slogan» and / or «aspects of the Government Plan».
2. The content analysis of the interviews and reports would allow evaluating by day, by newspaper and by candidate:
Length or dimension (in centimeters x columns).
If the interview or report touches on any point regarding the Government Plan that you are going to undertake, and in particular, if it will deal with issues related to: health, public services, personal safety, education, cost of living and taxes.
Both processed information - consequently - will be collected in various formats prepared for this purpose. The parameters are listed below, both for the advertising electoral announcements and for the interviews and reports, and the purposes and procedures to be followed for the analysis are detailed.
It is important at this point to make special mention that when speaking of "cost" in this analysis, it refers to the cost of publishing the notices in the newspapers, but not of the other cost elements involved in advertising, such as This is the case of how much it costs the political party or other organizations to sell the candidate.
Formulation of objectives
To quantify for the main candidates, the approximate spending of the electoral advertisements, as a reference to demonstrate who dedicated the most financial resources to achieve adherence to their candidacy.
Quantify for the main candidates if the advertising electoral notice transmits information that highlights the presence of a slogan.
Quantify for the main candidates, if the advertising electoral notice, transmits information that highlights some aspect (s) of the government plan.
In the case of advertising electoral announcements, compare the results obtained in the electoral process for the Presidency of the Republic, with the results of the first three objectives.
Quantify for the main candidates the approximate area (centimeter) generated by the electoral propaganda (reports and interviews), carried out by the media to measure the service provided by them to a certain political group.
Quantify for the main candidates, if in each report or interview a point was touched on regarding your government plan and what subject (s) was discussed: health, public services, personal safety, education, cost of living and taxes.
In the case of reports and interviews, compare the results obtained in the electoral process for the Presidency of the Republic, with the evaluations of objectives five and six.
Contrast the results obtained with the results of the elections.
Election notices
1. Newspaper: To carry out this analysis of the electoral announcements, four newspapers with national circulation will be chosen, selected based on: their cost, their presentation (tabloid or standard), their coverage or scope and the socio-economic sectors of your readers. For the determination of its coverage or scope, the graph published annually in the national press of a company that enjoys credibility for the sociological research, surveys and computerized data tracing will be used. In this regard, the newspapers most widely read by the Venezuelan population are registered annually, and the type of recipient each newspaper reaches.
2. Lapse: Since the electoral propaganda process covers a defined period, it will be taken into account every month of the electoral campaign, in the understanding that it is during this period that it becomes apparent, to a lesser extent (first days of the campaign) and to a greater extent (recent months), the advertising and propaganda emphasis in the field of all social media and the message directed to the voters intensifies.
3. Length: The purpose will be to measure the dimension in centimeters per column to determine the length used by each candidate. For this study it is important to take into account the data provided by the newspapers involved in the study in terms of how they calculate the size of the notice, this because depending on the newspaper, the measurement parameters in terms of columns, characters and design styles, it varies.
4. Location: The purpose will be to determine on which page the electoral notice was located, page number and within the page which site the notice occupied. Location is also important in calculating the cost of the notice. It will be located according to:
Grid A: Located at the top, left.
Grid B: Located at the top, right.
Grid C: Located at the bottom, left.
Grid D: Located at the bottom, right.
In the event that the notice is not located exactly in the commented grids, it will be taken into account according to:
½ horizontal or vertical page
Full page.
¼ page.
5. Tariff: In order to determine the cost in bolivars for each advertising electoral notice and thus determine the economic resources invested by each candidate, the official tables of advertising rates of the selected newspapers will be used, where the prices are established according to the characteristics of each type of electoral notice. Therefore, the information will be considered in terms of day, body, page, footage, location and cost surcharge for the presence of color, for each case, since these data influence the price of the notice.
6. Presence of color: The purpose will be to determine whether or not the notice has color and the number of colors it had. Each newspaper has fees for the publication of colored advertisements, which represents an increase in cost. It is known in advance that the presence of color in electoral announcements can influence the reception of the message. This will allow us to quantitatively measure which campaigns handle more color than others.
7. Candidate: The purpose will be to delimit precision reporting to future candidates who, according to previous public opinion polls, have the opportunity to win the presidential elections. To this we must add that the elections for this year may not have as many candidates as in previous campaigns.
8. Type of message: The purpose will focus on the analysis of the type of message that the electoral notice has, through the presence or not of a slogan and whether or not it contains information related to some aspect (s) about the Government plan that the candidate would undertake.
All the details mentioned in these paragraphs will be collected in formats designed for this purpose.
Interviews and reports
For the evaluations of the interviews and reports carried out on each of the future candidates, what has been said in the previous section is equally valid for this case, except for the rate (cost). Therefore, in this section, I will only describe the classification in reports, interviews, and the points related to the government plan.
1. Classification: The purpose will be to classify if the writing that appeared in the last month of the campaign was an interview or a report. Once this assessment was completed, a format would be developed to indicate what follows.
2. Evaluation of the interview or report: The purpose of the content analysis of the interview or report will be to determine if aspects of any point (s) referring to the Government Plan that the candidate would undertake were highlighted. For this, in the format developed for this purpose and, once the interview or report was reviewed, the alternatives of YES or NO would be indicated, to denote whether they were related to the Government Plan that it would undertake in regards to health, public services, personal security, education, cost of living and taxes.
Procedure and data crossing
To collect the data, a series of results tables would be designed containing the analysis elements. Here are some suggestions for tables that allow the crossing of variables:
Table A. It would allow knowing by candidate, newspaper and in a defined period (weekly or fortnightly): the cost in bolivars, number of notices published, detailing which of these contain only the slogan, which contains aspects of the government plan and which contains both variables. All the data would be represented in percentages in relation to the general total.
Table B. It would allow knowing by candidate, newspaper and in a defined period (weekly or biweekly): the centimetry, number of interviews, reports and which of these contains information exposed by the candidate on topics of national interest such as those exposed. All the data would be represented in percentages in relation to the general total.
Table C. It would allow contrasting by defined period (weekly or biweekly), by candidate, by newspaper or, if you prefer, both newspapers added together: the cost in certain periods of the month and thus observe, for example, when the message directed to the voters intensifies.
Table D. It would disclose, once the vote had been taken: the position of the elected candidates in relation to the total number of votes counted and abstention in relation to the results. This information is issued by the NATIONAL ELECTORAL COUNCIL, the official body in charge of announcing who will be the new President of the Republic.
Possible results and consequences
The investigation that is intended to be carried out refers to a small part of the political campaign deployed in Venezuela, given how laborious it would be to carry out a content analysis of the entire campaign deployed by the different media. This journalistic work was also thought based on the time that this would take, and more when the journalistic dynamic requires us to achieve the results in a timely manner.
Approaching the facts that this precision report would throw (given the interest of the module teacher) and, therefore, speculating on the results, we would infer, for example, that the electoral warnings do not provide more information or relevant information about the Government Programs of each candidate, the way to solve the country's problems and their ways of acting when becoming President of the Republic. This is a constant in electoral campaigns that requires, of course, quantitative values to support this hypothetical argument.
Notable data from this study would show which candidate, for example, published more ads, which one or more candidates devoted more importance to the "slogan" than to the duty of taking advantage of this advertising space by highlighting aspects of their Government Plan. In other words, which or which of the candidates emphasize the quantity, but not the quality of content, information or messages.
Another result that would allow us to know is the candidacy that, in the investigated medium, directed more economic resources in political advertising and to whom more space was dedicated (centimeter length in cm x col) in the printed newspapers chosen in interviews and reports. Therefore, if these results obtained, it really corresponds to a percentage position in relation to the total votes counted. This could justify the position occupied by the new President of that electoral process.
These results are considered of interest, since they could demonstrate the tendency of a specific application to use a certain type of newspaper. The electoral results regarding the candidacy of those chosen in this study, would allow us to observe, for example, which did not have a relevant deployment, compared to the rest. Likewise, which of the candidates disseminated more information to the voters on electoral matters (health, public services, cost of living, taxes, etc.) and his future tenure as President.
For example, another element that this report could shed is which of the candidates did not dedicate more financial resources to their campaign, but perhaps did make a greater deployment from the advertising point of view in terms of the number of ads. These facts could allow the reader of this precision report to reflect on the need to reorient the electoral campaigns trying to educate the electorate, instead of launching only slogans that in advertising matters aim to achieve thoughtless conditioning, that is, manipulate conduct, but not to orient, inform, much less educate voters about the candidate's expectations and his government program.
As a final reflection, I would remember what scholars have said on the subject of communication, and that is that political publicity should change towards the search to "sell a candidate", highlighting the plans and benefits that, if you become President, it would bring for the electorate and for the country, educating it governmentally. This calls for reflection and we wonder if this propaganda and journalistic effort (in the case of interviews and reports) really educates or merely superficially influences the electorate. Another element that could also be highlighted is the "inescapable" presence of the social media in an electoral campaign and observing their efforts as to whether they really impartially inform the voter about a given candidacy.
