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Now, he seeks to explain the need for a horizontal communication model throughout Latin America.
These types of messages are the path of “functional utopias” in tomorrow’s political public relations.
Leonardo Laso was in charge of press and public relations for an entire governmentTherefore, he knows perfectly what are the challenges that professionals face when managing official communication strategies. The author of “Communication to Power”, presented his work during the recent Guadalajara International Book Fair (FIL 2022) and has begun distribution in all sales channels available in Mexico, including electronic commerce, as it seeks to answer a common question in Latin America: what have we done or what are we doing? doing to sustain and consolidate our democracies?
Through three chapters, the learning of political discourse, the containment of crises and the constant impulse of marketing politician made the former official review issues related to the new communication technologies and their relationship with democracy, from the role of the internet and social networks, data mining and innovation ecosystems, to the analysis of cases such as that of Cambridge Analyticaor examples of horizontal communication such as that of the activist Greta Thunberg.
Likewise, this book proposes a general analysis of Latam and its current panorama after the pandemic and with the growing rates of inequality, as well as the need throughout the region for a sustainable development plan that marks the communication guidelines.
All part of an idea that has given rise to wide debates: changing perceptions or changing reality in the hyper-communication scenario; for this, laso carries out a diagnosis of the economic, labor and political panorama of Latin America through reports from the World Bank (WB), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), LatinBarómetro, ECLAC and the United Nations, also marks a proposal to rethink and renew the democracy with tools that build comprehensive agendas for all PR and Press professionals.
MERCA2.0 – How is political discourse and communication undermining democracy in Latin America?
LEONARDO LASO – On the one hand, I see that from a few years ago there has been a change in communication strategies… I would say that since Hugo Chávez (Venezuela), who was the one who installed these ways of conversing with people, later, here in Ecuador Rafael Correa took over and did some Saturdays with some huge programs on the national chain and also did Néstor Kirchner (Argentina) and Lula da Silva (Brazil). This methodology, in principle, is not bad, because with the appearance of social networks there is a problem or a reality in communication, they made communication horizontal, open and we are all senders or receivers and participate in the process. ; So, power lost that capacity it had before, which was vertical, that is, they issued a message and the mass media reproduced its headline: “the president announces such a thing” and the public looked at that and could agree or oppose it, but had no participation or at least was very limited.
This scheme allows the Government to maintain a narrative, to have a common thread… what part of that model do I question? Well, with that they use polarization as a methodology, it is a: “this is my speech, this is my proposal and you are with me or against me, and if you are against me, you are against the country, against the homeland and against the poor ”, it seems to me that they fall into something that, disguised as democracy, is a path to autocracy and authoritarianism.
MERCA2.0 – What is the main challenge as a government communication strategy when disseminating political discourses that can generate controversy and polarization?
LEONARDO LASO – The greatest limitation that I have had as Secretary of Communication of President Guillermo Lasso, and a few years ago as Director of Communication in the presidency of Gustavo Noboa and with various ministries and local governments, is that just like the left or this socialism of the 21st century , has assembled its “white paper”, its “bible”, its “common code” at the continental level, democratic governments do not have a common framework and have a great void because their value proposition is the promise of providing employment or opportunities, things that are not credible, because the Government creates the conditions for the private sector to give you employment, it is not him and the other is that the opportunities are never the same.
Governments, in general, do not understand that this asymmetry of power that had a great force of communication broadcast no longer exists or has no value. For example, I compare Putin and Zelensky in the book: Putin, the world champion of fake news, of troll farms with great machinery, loses the communication battle with the guy who only has his cell phone and power of the word, saying: “here I am defending Ukraine”, that goes viral and bye. This effect wins because his speech is championing a cause.
MERCA2.0 – How are public relations reflected at the Government level today?
LEONARDO LASO – Young people today are judges of the entire communication process. The problem that many governments have in information and dissemination strategies is that they want to continue operating in the old fashioned way; So, they use the networks either as a means of communication, to impose their criteria or, even worse, as a mechanism for trolls or to persecute those who disagree with them.
In general, what is happening is that the rulers have very low approval standards because this process takes away their credibility, they deny, they persecute… that is not the mechanism. Obama, for example, never had a reputation crisis in networks because, regardless of whether we agree with his policies or not, in his communication the man was transparent and had a clear plan, they did not kill him in networks, he respected.
The book “Communication to Power” seeks to help the politician to change and generate a real agenda, accommodated to the urgencies of society through a horizontal, informal, participatory communication without hard loyalties, but subject to results, that is, in collective construction.
Any public relations agency, journalist or representative of public officials, aspirants and parties can find in this x-ray the route to new political marketing strategies that demonstrate extensive learning from people and their interests, even if they are about TikTok banalities and other leading social networks among the new generations.
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