VAAs have surged as a new alternative to conventional information prepared for elections: not necessarily created by traditional media or informers, they offer citizens another way of consuming complex political information. What is, however, the relationship between VAAs and traditional media? Can the VAAs live without them - even be known by a general audience? Is it true that Internet content is effectively taking over other media in relation to electoral information or is it just another option? Does it get to general users or only to the ones with a natural inclination towards political information? Elecciones.es is a NGO that, following the system used by Stemwijzer (NDL), has established for the first time VAAs in Spain (Catalan elections of 2010 and General Elections of 2011) and Mexico (Estado de Mexico election - 2011). During the launch, without any media budget, even though strongly supported by social media, the tool in both countries showed a strong surge in usage after – or even during – a media event or appearance. This behavior was already observed with the launch of the Wahl-o-Mat in Germany – whose numbers grew from the mention at a night show. This paper will be through analysis on how media appearances impacted the numbers of use in both the Spanish and the Mexican VAAs and how they did it – taking into account both the kind of program, the time of the day and the habits of the audience. The objective is to make a general analysis of media usage in order to get to a differenced strategy that could be used in both countries for the following editions of the VAAs. The paper means to show how VAAs are another part of a complex informational eco-system, still highly dependent on traditional media (as radio and TV) to get to a larger audiences.
