El Efecto Movilizador de las Emociones sobre la Participación Política Online en la Segunda Vuelta de las Elecciones Presidenciales en Ecuador 2017

The recent presidential elections in Ecuador during the campaign of the candidates Lenín Moreno and Guillermo Lasso, led to an increasing use of social networks. The objective of this study is to analyze how emotions towards the two candidates promote political participation in social networks and online, in a sample of 1136 participants in the city of Quito. The results show that emotions, whether positive or negative, play a mobilizing role on citizens in terms of political activism via the Internet. Likewise, candidate Moreno generates emotional stimuli with a mobilizing effect on the electorate, an effect that is not verified in the case of candidate Lasso. The implications of these results are discussed in the context of a growing debate in Ecuador on the need to establish mechanisms to control its use.