Como eu escolhi o Presidente? a decisão de voto como comportamento de consumo e o papel das redes sociais

Social networks have become responsible for the pluralization of agents that produce and disseminate political content, including the Internet, which has brought people closer together and has led to the insertion of new mechanisms of interaction and participation. The present research sought to describe how the voting decision process of the victorious candidate in the 2018 elections took place, based on the Theory of the Purchase Decision Process. It also sought to analyze the influence of social networks in this campaign. The research had a qualitative nature and descriptive purpose. The research subjects were 09 university students from the Federal Rural University of the Semi-Arid, between 19 and 30 years old. Data collection took place through semi-structured interviews and in person at the University's premises. The data obtained in the interviews were transcribed and classified based on the content analysis. Subsequently, the qualitative analysis software Nvivo® was used. It is inferred that social networks contributed to the voting decision of voters of the winning candidate, thus playing a significant role in actions related to political marketing. It is estimated that the present research contributed to the knowledge of the characteristics of the voters used as the object of this study, as well as the profile of ideal candidate considered by them. As well, it is estimated that there was a collaboration to understand the factors that influence the voters' decision-making process, making use of the five stages of the theory of purchase, as well as the influence of social networks in this process.