Social Networks and political interest Frequency with which unconfirmed information is shared in Quito

Abstract

Social networks have become in recent years, thanks to access of households increased and people to the internet and the increasing use of so-called smart objects, in an extended media that allows interaction between different actors and in the place where multiple themes are discussed, among which politics is included. At the same time, the political actors have seen in the networks a useful space to promote the narratives and messages that justify their actions and decisions, supporting a discourse that takes advantage of the users behavior when spreading information. It is these same users who propagate any type of information, from the most objective to the one that has been distorted, manipulated or that is directly false, taking advantage of the fact that people do not want to hear bad news and that they prefer a lie if it supports their criteria. In particular, the networks users has the possibility of silencing voices contrary to their beliefs, adding, deleting or silencing contacts.

Through a statistical analysis, this study identifies the reasons for this phenomenon and the inherent behavior that promotes it in the Quito city when it finds an important portion of users of social networks that share information without verifying its origin or the emision source reliability, even if they distrust the veracity of this information.