Social Media in the 2012 Presidential Elections: A Testing Ground

Eric L. Olson and Diana Murray Watts, The Mexico Institute’s Elections Guide, 4/30/2012

The 2012 Mexican presidential election has already broken new ground in a number of ways: it is the first to feature a female candidate from a major party and the first to incorporate the electoral reform law of 2007. A third, and perhaps most important, is the extensive use of social media by all three of the major presidential candidates.  It is too early to tell if the social media will be a determining factor or have a major influence, but there is little doubt that it has become a major new form of campaigning in Mexico.

During the 2006 presidential election, social media was in its infancy. At the time, Facebook was still largely limited to users in educational institutions. YouTube was mostly a hub for short, humorous videos. Twitter had yet to be officially launched.  Since then, however, the entire landscape of media and communications have been dramatically altered by the rise of social media. The 2008 U.S. presidential campaign 2008 saw the first major use of such platforms by candidates, and four years later Mexican campaigns seem to be adapting these experiences to the Mexican political landscape.

The three leading candidates vying for the Mexican presidency have made ample use of social media to boost their campaigns. Each candidate, however, has exhibited a unique style in their use of these platforms, particularly since the official permissible start date of their campaigns on March 30^th, 2012.