Comunicación y carisma político: opinión de los estudiantes de la Facultad de Filosofía, Letras y Ciencias de la Educación de la Universidad de Cuenca sobre los rasgos carismáticos del prefecto del Azuay y del alcalde de Cuenca

Abstract

Communication practitioners/consultants might tend to assume the inevitable task of "socially legitimizing," the candidates. This strategy aims to support their mandate in an increasingly romanticized context, which includes image strength within the performance evaluation criteria. Thus, the charismatic image is managing the personality traits of the candidate based on what political consultants think and know the target audiences need/want. This research analyzes the charismatic profile of Pedro Palacios (Mayor of The City of Cuenca, Ecuador), and Yaku Pérez (Azuay's Province Prefect) and draw some considerations about the desired charismatic profile proposed by the students of the Department of Philosophy at University of Cuenca. The political charisma is neither manageable or assumable in preestablished doses of "extraordinary" qualities. On the contrary, constructions appear as calculated characteristics included in the communication strategy of the politician's public image. It can be concluded that charisma is a stimulus that is part of the political image and that is identified by young people and managed by the communication team with the general idea of closeness, although the messages of the politicians are not personalized and therefore, not really close