Political candidates in this year’s election campaigns are definitely making an effort in winning the Latino votes and rightly so since Latinos are the fastest-growing minority group in the United States, with an estimated population of 48.4 million. Even Spanish language networks such as Telemundo and Univision are taking a leading role in covering the political campaigns and the candidates.

Even though Latinos make up an estimated 10% of the US electorate and don’t turn out  as much as other voters, their participation can decide the political winner races in states with high Latino demographics such as Florida, Texas, New Mexico, Nevada and California, where many of the Latino voters are located.

In one of my earlier posts, I blogged how organizations are using social media and mobile technology to encourage young Latinos to fill out the 2010 Census.

However, for this blog post the question is how are Latinos interacting with current media technology, especially online media, to help influence their voting decisions? I had a great opportunity to interview Dr. Victoria M. DeFrancesco Sotoabout this particular topic and I found our discussion into political marketing very insightful. Dr. DeFrancesco Soto is an Assistant Professor of Political Science and African American Studies at Northwestern University and a Faculty Fellow at Northwestern’s Institute for Policy Research. She also contributes her time and expertise as a political analyst for CNN en Español

I was planning to post the question and answer session on this blog post but Lance Rios of Being Latino reached out to me for a collaboration so I thought it was a great idea because it will reach a greater audience. To read the complete post, please go to Being Latino’s Blog. Also, check out a video interview of Dr. DeFrancesco Soto by NextGenWeb on making web content relevant to Latinos below.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dL6RJ2jDl68

Related articles

• Victoria M. DeFrancesco Soto: The 2010 Negative Ad Rodeo (huffingtonpost.com)
• How Will Latinos Vote on Election Day? (race.change.org)
• Univision Expands Multiplatform “Ya Es Hora, ¡Ve y Vota!” (It’s Time! Go and Vote!) Campaign in Last Push Prior to Midterm Elections; Dedicates October 26th as Official “Ya Es Hora” Day (eon.businesswire.com)
• Telemundo Doubles Its Efforts on “Tu Voto, Tu Futuro” (Your Vote, Your Future) to Reinforce the Importance of Election Day to U.S. Hispanics (eon.businesswire.com)
• Political Ploy or Censorship From Univision? (latino.foxnews.com)
• Rejected by Univision, Hispanic Political Group Turns to the Web (mediabistro.com)