Efeitos da mudança do Código Eleitoral nas estratégias de marketing político: um estudo junto a deputados estaduais de Minas Gerais

Abstract

The purpose of this paper was to describe the effects of changing the electoral code on the political marketing strategies adopted by state deputy candidates in the 2014 and 2018 elections. Established by Law No. 13.165, of September 29, 2015 and the edition of Law No. 13,487 of October 6, 2017, in order to eliminate the loopholes and unethical practices of the process, the electoral reformulation in Brazil determined the veto on private financing and imposed the spending limit that impacted the campaign budget of the candidates. As benefits, the new rule gave candidates new opportunities, such as a shorter time for electoral constituency and the boosting of publications by digital media, which became the main means of communication used by candidates. To achieve the objective of this research, were selected the deputies of the Legislative Assembly of Minas Gerais (ALMG) that were reelected and participated in the last two electoral disputes, that is, those who were affected by the reformulations of the law (2015 and 2017). Through qualitative and exploratory-descriptive analysis, it was chosen netnography for data collection. Therefore, two of its methods were used: (1) the online interview with the application of a questionnaire using the Google form and (2) a study of social network posts (Facebook) of the interviewed deputies. The results obtained reveal that the deputies interviewed suffered, even minimally, the effects of electoral reformulation in their campaigns, notably due to the lack of resources and the lack of professionals with knowledge of the legislation. This has helped them change their campaign and government strategies from 2015. These strategy changes show that there is a transition from campaigning platform, from offline media such as newspapers, TV, campaign materials etc to digital media. and the boost paid on social networks. In addition to the deputies, it is observed in this study that citizens also began to use more digital media for communication. According to deputies, this increased use of digital media by citizens while generating social and political empowerment, qualifying the process, it can be detrimental due to harmful attacks by social networks, especially the use of fake news.