Policy 2.0 in Ecuador. Analysis of discourse and political communication on Facebook

Introduction: Social networks are recognized for their impact on users’ decisions. They have been stu-died to determine their incidence in the political arena. Methodology: This research analyzes the electoral campaign of the candidates for president of Ecuador, in the year 2021, based on three objectives: to analyze the 2.0 communication to determine to what extent the candidates establish an interactive relationship with voters on Facebook; to analyze the linguistic elements and emotions in the publications to identify the type of political discourse they use; and to determine the digital political agenda in the publications elaborated by the presidential candidates, for their campaign offer. To achieve these objectives, a mixed methodology was implemented. The research was developed in two stages. In the first stage was applied the Model of evaluation of communication 2.0 in social networks, which develops a qualitative analysis, in the same way the emotions that were transmitted in the electoral campaigns were analyzed and quantified somatically, and in the second stage 1,543 publications were codified to identify the campaign offer and the political agenda of the candidates. Results: Political communication in social networks is not strategic, there is an excess of information that saturates the social network and also lacks content of value for the citizen. Conclusions: Political communication 2.0 is incipient in Ecuador, Facebook is used as a traditional communication channel, with rhetorical and uninteresting content, but loaded with positive emotionality to try to connect with the electorate.