Campaigns, Digital Media, and Mobilization in India

RUDN Journal of Studies in Literature and Journalism , 2020

The role of social media during 16th Lok Sabha elections has led to several insights in the manner in which the youth of today is consuming political news. Several social media platforms have played a significant role in voting behaviour. Social media platform acted as a game changer and a catalyst in wooing young voters and influencing their opinion. While Internet users grew 7% in Urban India reaching 315 million users in 2018, digital adoption is now being propelled by rural India, registering a 35% growth in Internet users over the past year. Also, there have come a general perception that television will play a lesser role in this upcoming election and digital media will play a never before seen influence on voters. This research examines the behaviour of youth in India and examines the level of influence by social media in casting their vote in Lok Sabha elections. Whether social media can be a game-changer or an influencer. These findings will be carried out by this research work

Online social media has become an integral part of the mediated-mass communication process. Hence, a new political communication model is developed by integrating traditional mass media and mass opinion with online social media. Based on the model, a set of hypotheses is generated and tested using empirical data gathered during the 2014 Indian parliamentary elections. In an integrated media environment, high levels of interaction (aggregate political opinion exchange) is observed to exist between mass media (leading English newspapers published from India) and the social media (Twitter and Facebook), augmenting their effect on the masses. Social media was found to mediate the positive effect of the English press on mass political preference. We also find evidence for a reciprocal relationship between the online social media and the masses.

caluniv.ac.in, 2011

The increasing influence of electronic media in India was stimulated by economic liberalization in early 1990s. It gave citizens access to numerous news sources as opposed to the sole government regulated news channel of the pre–liberalization era. In the 21st century the electronic media was reenergized by the internet revolution. As citizens started looking at the internet as an additional source of information, they began voicing their opinion through blogs; opinion polls and social networking websites. This paper uses qualitative analysis for studying the impact of the electronic media on political participation in general and voting behavior in particular. The data for this study is obtained from the Election Commission of India, media coverage, opinion polls, blogs and social networking websites.

Mass Communicator, 2022

Politicians utilize media to urge the populace to vote and support them, particularly during elections. Communication has evolved significantly since the dawn of the Internet era, from social media to chat rooms and instant messaging. Social media has become a vital aspect of political communication during election campaigns during the previous two decades. During India's 2014 general election, all political parties and candidates made substantial use of social media to rally voters. Social media has emerged as a critical campaigning tool in India's electoral system. These new media platforms are expected to play a vital role in attracting voters, particularly the new generation of young adults. As the 2014 Indian Lok Sabha election campaign shows, political players can successfully use social media platforms such as social network sites (SNSs) and microblogging services to broadcast information to voters and connect and discuss with them. Through hand-coded content analysis of tweets, this study aims to obtain insight into the extent of usage of Twitter by both parties (BJP & INC) in the political process and communication techniques during India's 2017 state legislative election campaigns in seven states, also examining how their strategies varied by the state to state. The statistics indicated that BJP candidates were likelier to utilize Twitter than INC candidates, tweeting twice as frequently on average. Additionally, the BJP was more likely to embrace Twitter's multimedia capabilities.

The discourse in public space on media at the time of the 2014 Parliamentary elections to 543 seats in 28 states and 7 union territories with 814.5 million voters was characterized by two seemingly disparate but interconnected issues: first, that mainstream media was partisan and wavering in its loyalties to political parties; and secondly, an intense focus on the social media as the most effective means to reach the 23 million first-time voters in a nation with 16 per cent Internet penetration. This article explores the role of the mainstream media in the elections in the context of the shift in India's economic policy which has led to the prioritization of commercial interests by media while relegating other considerations to the background. As a result of the overriding commercial agenda of mainstream media, it has pushed political actors, activists and voters alike onto the new media space. The employment of new media space during the 2014 Indian elections is, thus, to be read in the context of mainstream media's role rather than in the context of new technologies' potential to impact upon democratic politics. It must be noted that media's disregard of other considerations, including ideology, however, cannot be construed as an argument that media were neutral.

Telematics & Informatics, 2016

Twitter, a popular social media platform, has surfaced as a dominant political communication and campaign tool across Western democracies. However its role in politics, particularly in electoral campaigns, in economically developing democracies with low internet accessibility, is largely unknown. This study conducts an investigation of Twitter’s use as a campaign tool during the 2014 Indian general elections, which was the country’s first experiment with using social media for political campaigning. We present a multi-level manual and computer-aided analysis of 98,363 tweets posted by eleven political parties during the two-month run up to the elections, to present the topical, functional and interaction strategies of their Twitter campaigns. This analysis is complemented by a macro analysis of electoral outcomes’ relationship with first-time voter population and internet accessibility information at the state level. Our findings suggest that the new-and-upcoming parties used Twitter for self-promotion and media validation, while established parties used it to supplement their offline strategies. It is also observed that the winning party’s electoral success is significantly associated with their use of Twitter for engaging voters, the large population of first-time voters and levels of internet accessibility. The implications of these findings and the limitations of the study are discussed.

2017

In the recent year’s internet, particularly social media has changed the means in which politician and citizen network among themselves. Social media has almost eliminated the social and financial barriers that exist in the society. With the growth in the use of social media by politicians, the gap between the politician and citizen has been narrowed down. Social media can be defined as a platform in a network where members can share and discuss the information among them. Social media has become a powerful tool in the political campaigning and almost all political parties are using social media platform to reach out to the public. The study aims to look at the nature and method of new media used by the various national political parties in the 2014 parliamentary elections in India.

International Journal of Law, Government and Communication

Today, new media especially social media became an important tool in human life from providing information, communication; discuss an issue to mobilize people. People can do whatever they want just by using social media every time for 24 hours and everywhere regardless of time or place. Moreover, new media either Facebook, Twitter or Youtube use by everyone including politicians these days to share their agenda, besides other methods. In India, the use of new media mainly Twitter seen play an important in Delhi General Election 2014. For example, most of the election participant such as Narendra Modi or and their parties, Bharatiya Janata Party (BPJ) seen using new media extensively in their online campaign to attract the voter. Thus, the purpose of this research is to understand the roles of new media on politic in India and how politician uses Facebook, Twitter or Youtube in their online campaign and spread out agenda. For this purpose, an in-depth interview (qualitative) was used...

isara solutions, 2022

Social media usage has evolved into a new tactic for political parties during election campaign. The social media has a big part to play in how people view politics, politicians, and ways to get involved in politics. The introduction of inexpensive smart phones and data plans has increased people's ability to express their opinions on social and political concerns. Political parties and their leaders are adopting social media, where they have accounts on all major platforms, as a new forum for mobilizing people. Since the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, social media has taken an active position in predicting which party will prevail. While this has accelerated the spread of information and news, it has also exposed the general public to 'hate speech' and made them susceptible to fake news. On the one hand, social media is expanding India's democratic space and enabling citizens to voice their opinions. On the other hand, by spreading misinformation and false information, it is also causing a gap between various populations. Therefore, using it should be subject to some limitations. A democracy may become chaotic and unstable as a result of the overuse. Due to the widespread use of social media platforms, research into the potential effects on public opinion and voting behavior is important. The goal of the current study is to determine how social media is used in India's electoral politics.

Humanities and Social Sciences Reviews, 2019

Purpose of the study: The advent of digital media along with the recent boom of smartphones has changed the atlas of communication. The ubiquity of Social media has led to its increased use in all aspects of communication as against conventional media. Politics is not an exception. The role of social media in political discourses, engagement, and mobilization is widely realized and practiced and has become an important mode of political communication in India. In this paper, we explore the current academic corpus on political communication in the context of social media.

Telematics and Informatics

In this study, it is theorized that the communicative affordances offered by social media platforms will enable politically under-resourced candidates to contest the marginalization they face in traditional media. Multivariate analyses were conducted of the tweets of 205 political candidates of the 2014 Indian general election. Findings reveal that fringe party candidates received the least media attention and tended to use Twitter more frequently than major party candidates, especially for interaction and mobilization. Minor party candidates also received less media attention, albeit their Twitter usage patterns were not significantly different than major party candidates. The results illustrate that social media platforms can help overcome resource inequality in politics. The larger implications of this study are discussed.

AMITESH PUBLISHER & COMPANY, 2024

The evolution of social media has explicitly transformed the perspective of Indian politics, creating both opportunities and challenges that somehow reshaped political communication, engagement, and mobilization. Social media has democratized information dissemination, allowing political actors to bypass traditional media and directly engage with the electorate. It has also facilitated grassroots mobilization, enabled real-time feedback, and fostered new forms of political participation, particularly among the youth. The paper examines these issues within the context of Indian elections, focusing on case studies that illustrate both the pros and cons effects of social media on democratic procedures. Moreover, it discusses the implications of social media for political transparency, accountability, and the future of electoral politics in India. The study concludes by offering policy recommendations to mitigate the risks associated with social media while maximizing its potential to enhance democratic governance in India.

Over the last ten years social media has gained the reputation of being a popular choice of communication among people. Not only in advanced countries like US and UK, but developing countries like India has become one of the largest users of social media. Today, India has overtaken US (which ranks 2 nd to India) in terms of Facebook users in the world followed by Brazil and Indonesia. Everyday there are millions of people who are joining these social media sites and are sharing opinions on issues of social, political and economic importance. These discussions sometime take the face of activism, sometimes social protest, in some cases, change in laws of the country and sometimes have even lead to the uprootment of the ruling government. If we look at the impact social media had over the political decision making of a country, we will find that every major country around the world to some extent or the other have been effected by it. For example, the 2008 US Presidential Election, when Barack Obama became the President for the first time (second time was in 2012), had been termed by many critics as a win by social media. It is now a known fact that Barack Obama used social media to its full potential. In fact, the 2008 US Presidential Election was the first example of how social media can be used to garner popular votes and instigate popular sentiments. After the hugely successful social media campaigns of the 2008 Election, came Arab Spring in 2011. Social Media played a central role in shaping political debates in the Arab Spring. India being one of the largest countries in the world and having a large young population, millions of whom are present in social media platforms, permeates ideas and thoughts among themselves. The youth of India is hooked into social media. Not only the youth, but the average Indian too is now connected through social media and these number of users are growing with each passing day. Thus to reach this population and to connect with people, political parties in India too are taking the social media route. Politicial Communication in India is fast changing due to the advent of social media. In 2014, the BJP garnered popular sentiments not only through its social media campaigns but also its candidate for Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi himself was very active in social media. His tweets and selfies became very popular among the youth. This paper tries to study this trend in political communication especially in the context of election campaigns in India. It also tries to understand how social media sets the agenda for election campaigns and evokes popular emotions and sentiments among people.