Attack strategies in digital political advertising: High reach, low interaction
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Research on digital political advertising in Mexico is in an exploratory stage, without literature that addresses the consequences of persuasive digital communication, both posted in general and those are expressed on digital platforms, as a consequence of the two-way dialogue between content and users. In international literature it is observed that during political races interactions within digital platforms increase because of emotional and identity content, where negative and attack content usually generate engagement and negative emotional reactions in users. The aim of this research is to delve into the consequences of negative political advertising in terms of its ability to provoke greater interactions and a higher degree of engagement in users. The digital political advertising broadcast during the governmental electoral process of the State of Mexico in 2023 was analyzed, coding it for its negativity and attack tactics. Likewise, user reactions and comments from each spot were recovered to calculate the engagement generated by each of the recovered pieces. Finally, the analyzed negativity variables and the engagement metrics were linked, using Mann-Whitney u for the statistical significance of these relationships. It was found that negative pieces generate greater interactions compared to positive ones, and more views, but a lower level of overall engagement. It is concluded that the negative attack spots are the most viewed and commented on than the positive ones, and that the spots based on direct attacks are more shared, that is, they have greater support from users.
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