Pilar Mazo
Logroño, (EFE).- Videogames are, “without a doubt”, the challenge of political communication to attract the young vote, in general, unconcerned with politics, and there are manufacturers of these formats that have begun to work to address this niche.
This was detailed in an interview with EFE by the doctor in Audiovisual Communication and Advertising, María del Mar Soria Ibáñez and professor of the Master’s Degree in Research Methodology and Political Communication at the International University of La Rioja (UNIR).
Youth is a profile of the electorate “very connected to video games, social networks and everything technological”, explained this professor, whose Master’s degree has delved into the scope of the youth vote in elections.
For this reason, he understands that the future of political communication “passes through the design of videogames”, in which, for example, stories or problems of young people are recreated and they are the ones who solve their situation, through a videogame and a system of points as a reward”, something that in Spain, from his point of view, “still remains” to achieve it.
It is “desirable”, he added, that the parties keep this technology in mind, which allows them to generate daily stories, in which the electorate feels reflected and sees how the party is capable of resolving it.
There is also the format of videos, which can be distributed on social networks as movies, and which “capture a lot of an audience that, generally, is not present at the ballot box and that is the young vote”, he indicated.
YOUTH, KEY IN THE DESIGN OF CAMPAIGNS
Young people integrated into political formations should also have an increasing weight in the design of electoral campaigns, he has indicated.
Young people “are part of that generation that was born, grew up and evolved with the digital environment” and, for example, “knows how to design the image of a candidate in three dimensions and they do it with just one click”.
In addition, within this electoral niche, which is young people, there is also “another very important one” which is “gamers” -video game players-, who have “a very high presence on Twitter”, which explains the reach of these formats. in the future of political communication, has specified
This specialist in political communication has also referred to the fact that algorithms control the information that users of social networks receive, accentuating cognitive bias, polarization and hate messages.
Political formations also use this technology, based on artificial intelligence, to generate persuasive messages and there are even some, he has indicated, that have already used holograms of personalities.
In general, from his point of view, artificial intelligence “can be a communication tool with the entire electorate and, in Spain, it has already begun to be channeled through different media,” such as social networks.
Although this new technology of algorithms is present in political parties, he believes that they should take “much more advantage” of it, especially in electoral campaigns, such as the current one, in which “the melee of the campaign cannot be develop due to weather conditions” of their dates, in the middle of July, with the heat.