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Fake news and politics. New challenges for elections campaigns

Abstract:

Currently, social media such as Facebook and Twitter and others have become spaces for spreading false information through accounts that, in some cases, are created for electoral moments, but come to influence public opinion. In this research, pre-electoral and electoral information was collected in Ecuador between December 2018 and March 2019. Through content analysis, two variables were examined: characterization of the information and fact checking. A total of 562 publications were produced at the country level. It was found that the fake news is a campaign strategy that is activated in the framework of the periods prior to an electoral process with the intention of influencing the voting intention, but its effectiveness is not yet clear.