The Context
W
hile television is believed to have played a major role in moulding public opinion during elections in India for the last two decades and perhaps continues to do so, the surge in internet penetration and the arrival and growth of different kinds of new digital technologies and online social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, YouTube, Instagram etc. has challenged its dominance somewhat. Moreover, the exponential rise in usage of social media (as these various platforms are collectively known) in the last decade has changed the way election campaigns are being run not just in India but across the democratic world, with leaders, parties and candidates going all out in using this rapidly growing medium to gain direct access to voters and influence their opinions. Social media today is no longer just an innocent space to connect with friends and family. Instead, it has metamorphosed into becoming an influential space for political activity and discourse often leading to heated and polarized conversations. In Indian politics, social media was first used as a tool for campaigning five years ago during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, where, by and large, the Narendra Modi led-Bharatiya Janata Party dominated the conversation and aced the social media game. For the elections of 2019, however, the Indian National Congress, along with other parties, also upped their game with Congress President Rahul Gandhi, who was initially slow in joining the medium, building up a huge social media following post 2015. In an attempt to reach out to their potential voters, almost all the major political parties established their own social media teams, or ‘cyber warriors’ or ‘cyber armies’ as the media likes to call them, and massively used the social media and app space to spread their message among voters, especially first-time and young voters who are most likely to be on these spaces. The stakes were so high for both sides that a significant part of this political messaging was actually misinformation and socially divisive propaganda often spread through surreptitious means. As internet penetration deepens, online social networks and messaging apps are becoming accessible to more and more Indians, especially to those on the margins. Although, on the one hand the democratization of the space (read more about it in Section 2 of the report), which could be credited to affordable smartphones and cheap internet data packs, must be appreciated and welcomed, but on the other, this massive growth of social media seems
8 | Social Media & Political Behaviour
