Analysis of socio-digital political communication processes for the design of public policies in Argentina

MALVINA EUGENIA RODRÍGUEZ; AMINAHUEL, A. AIMÉ

Conferencia; Rethinking borders and boundaries Beyond the global/local dichotomy in communication studies -Conferencia anual de la Asociación Internacional de Investigación en Medios y Comunicación (IAMCR 2021); 2021

United States International University-Africa, Nairobi, Kenya International Association for Media and Communication Research - IAMCR

This paper presents an analysis of meanings constructed by socio-digital political communication in Argentina, in order to generate indicators for the design of public policies. The pandemic has impacted on research about digital communication for public policies, promoting efforts to integrate knowledge and methodologies that provide indicators for the formulation of government communication policies, including risk and crisis communication and focusing on national, regional and local governments. The debate on communication policies in Argentina and Latin America in the 21st century focuses on: the divergences between the multiple public and private actors in the expanded public space, the media and technological concentration, the regulation of media and digital services, the technological and digital divide as well as digital convergence (De Moraes, 2011 and 2013; Mastrini et.al., 2013; Becerra, 2015). In this context, it is worth asking: What challenges do government communication policies face in relation to the modalities assumed by the political communication in the digital age? The paradigm of communication as a human right understands communication as a universal right of audiences (Ottaviano, 2020) and, in this sense, implies the consideration of practices and meanings operating in diversities and inequalities, particularly in the era of globalized networks (García Canclini, 2012). The study of democratic communication policies tries to overcome the paradigm of exclusive technology policies for the information society, by a comprehensive approach towards the relations between communication and culture, which prioritizes participation, access and cooperation over competitiveness (Moragas, 2012). Furthermore, the model of socio-digital political communication, which considers the particular online and offline processes in Argentina and the region, provides an adequate theoretical and methodological approach for the study of public policies on this topic (Rodríguez, 2020). The methodological design of this work combines: a) a review of public and private regulations on risk and crisis communication in Argentina; and b) a quali-quantitative analysis of digital content on public platforms and social networks corresponding to a contextualized selection of profiles of national, provincial and local public governments on a corpus made up of a selection of information during the year 2020 - in particular those related to the data mining, infodemic and fake news - in order to observe the surveillance of communication and technology laws and rights. The first findings show: a) the government risk communication strategy assumes a federal structure with vertical coordination between different levels: national, provincial and local, including articulations with different actors, such as public universities; b) the implementation of a federal strategy for transparency, data security and access to verifiable and reliable information by the convergence of devices - such as a platform managed by the public news agency - and the agreement with municipalities and provinces for the construction and dissemination of public information. This project corresponds to research programs on digital communication carried out with the objective of creating an Observatory of Digital Communication at university, as a contribution to the development of data and indicators for the public policy on socio-digital political communication for federal and local levels.