Social media. They are spoken of as the fifth estate. But, in the current global landscape and the way we inhabit the world today, it seems their influence goes beyond this simple designation. Wall Street's stock market adds significant numbers thanks to them, and the elections of political leaders foster massive strategies within them that change behaviors and orient them towards their objectives.
Colombia is one year away from electing new leaders. After several years of right-wing and establishment leadership, the country is flirting with other political currents. In the last race for the Casa de Nariño, Twitter was the battlefield on which candidates and citizens converged their most sincere debates. The 2018 campaign found in this social network an ideal place to reach as many voters as possible.
Traditional meetings seem to be a thing of the past as the most effective way to garner votes, and while face-to-face interaction with people and the media remains important, social media has played a starring role in the relationship between voters and candidates. Political leaders are seeking to capture the attention of young people, who are the demographic that most frequents these virtual spaces, and from there generate opinions and reactions.
There is great anticipation for the upcoming elections due to the participation of young people, considering that they were the main protagonists of the protests that took place across the country this year. Until very recently, they ignored politics. Currently, they are the strongest and most powerful voices in Colombian society. Therefore, presidential and congressional candidates want to win their favor.
According to the results of the National Youth Survey, conducted this year by the Universidad del Rosario and El Tiempo, 51% of people between the ages of 18 and 32 agree that social media is the institution they trust the most. According to the National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE), there are more than 10.9 million young people in the country. A significant portion of them will be eligible to vote next year. These figures explain the surprising social media posts by some candidates.
And it's that not only Twitter, with its limited space for opinion and the sobriety that characterizes it, serves as a cyber channel for candidates to express opinions and campaign pre-election. This time, surprisingly, TikTok also proves to be a space for presidential and congressional hopefuls to gain sympathy with fun and fresh posts. All in order to reach those who, for one reason or another, are unaware of their proposals, with the aim of “changing the country.”.
And it gives the impression that politicians no longer need the backing of traditional media outlets to echo their work. Alejandro Gaviria announced his candidacy for the upcoming elections via YouTube. Alicia Peñaranda, an advisor and educational influencer in politics, explained to El Tiempo that “for some elections now, political leaders have understood that they have their own platform to communicate without their content going through media filters. Therefore, they prioritize their own networks, where there is no editing whatsoever and the contact is direct.”.
With the new way of consuming information and the importance that young people have taken on in the country's political and electoral context, everything seems to be turning towards their way of doing things, consuming them, and digesting them. Here lies the raison d'être of social networks in a complex and controversial society, and in a political race that seeks, from each current, to gain space among a skeptical and increasingly difficult-to-convince voting population.