Interface - July 2015

INTERFACE

interface Half-yearly Research Journal ~ July 2015

Vol. 33 No. 1 ISSN 2231-0274

ELECTIONS & MEDIA

elections & media a special issue

JULY 2015

Department of Communication & Journalism (Centre for Advanced Study) University College of Arts & Social Sciences Osmania University, Hyderabad 500 007 Telangana, INDIA

interface Half-yearly Research Journal Vol 33. No. 1

July 2015

ISSN 2231-0274

Special Issue on Elections and Media

Published by Department of Communication & Journalism (Centre for Advanced Study) University College of Arts & Social Sciences Osmania University Hyderabad 500 007 Telangana, INDIA

Interface Vol. 33, No. 1 ISSN 2231-0274 July 2015 Special Issue on Elections & Media

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Editor Prof. B. Balaswamy Head Department of Communication &!Journalism Osmania University Executive Editor Prof. K. Stevenson Editorial Assistants B. Ramakrishna Sneha Verghese

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FORM IV INTERFACE 1. Place of Publication:!Hyderabad 2. Periodicity of Publication:!Half-yearly 3. Printer"s Name:!Director, University Press & Publications, Osmania University 4. Publisher"s Name & Address:!Prof. B. Balaswamy, Head, Department of Communication & Journalism, Osmania University, Hyderabad 500 007, Telangana.

Whether a citizen of India:!Yes 5. Editor"s Name & Address:!Prof. B. Balaswamy, Head, Department of Communication & Journalism, Osmania University, Hyderabad 500 007, Telangana.

6. Names and Addresses of individuals who own the publication and the partners or shareholders holding more than one per cent of the total capital:!Osmania University, Hyderabad.

I, Prof. B. Balaswamy, hereby declare that the particulars given above are true to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Dated:!July 30, 2015 Sd/- Prof. B. Balaswamy, Editor

CONTENTS Editorial

v

1. Construction of Candidate Modi in an Elite Newspaper B. Ramakrishna

1

2. Methodological Issues in Exit Polls Ramesh Palvai

9

3. Work Environment, Professional and Ethical Dilemmas:!A Study of News Photographers" Perceptions During Elections in Andhra Pradesh Dr. G. Anita & G. Hari Krishna Kumar

19

4. Social Media and Election Campaign:!A Case Study of Delhi Assembly elections 2013 Kaveri Devi Mishra & Dr. Sridhar Krishnaswamy

30

5. Social Media Use by Political Parties in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh Dr. Anitha Kaluvoya

35

6. Presence of Regional Political Parties in Social Media Dr. J. Madhu Babu & S. Mumtaj

40

7. #Paid News" – Forms, Causes and Solutions Excerpts from the Reports of Press Council of India & Parliamentary Standing Committee

48

8. The Making of a Prime Minister:!A Case Study of Narendra Modi Dr. M. Rabindranath

56

9. Book Review C.K. Sardana

61

Editorial

THE spread of democracy around the world is a significant political feature of our times. Elections are the epitome of the democratic process. Nation states are recognising the importance of mass media in democratic life. India being the largest democracy in the world with multi!party and a wide range of diverse and liberal media system, the role of media during the elections assumes lot of significance.

There is an inseparable relationship between the elections and mass com! munication research. One can recall the contribution of Columbia University to mass communication research through the study of media effects during American Presidential elections in 1940s. While the topic has been re! searched even in India, the recently held 2014 General Elections saw a major shift in campaign strategies and the increasing usage of social media attract! ing the attention of researchers. This was in addition to the various main! stream media widely used by political parties to present their point of view more particularly through certain supporting media.

Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign was viewed as a landmark mo! ment for the use of social media in politics. Since then, world leaders from India’s Narendra Modi to Nigeria’s Muhamaddu Buhari, have harnessed the power of social media to secure electoral success. In the UK, the 2015 general election has been fiercely contested online. From Facebook to Instagram, the leaders of the main political parties seek to impress using social media as a cheap and direct method of communicating with the electorate.

The blitzkrieg of the Bharatiya Janata Party handled by professionals and ad agencies, the Congress campaign banking on the development activities the Government had undertaken, were markedly different from the earlier elections.

The emergence of Aam Aadmi Party as a party of common man or the mid! dle class and the triangular contest in the Delhi Assembly elections became a centre of attraction. The resignation of Arvind Kejriwal as the Delhi Chief Minister and subsequent election generated lot of curiosity in the entire country about Delhi. Media predictions and actual results of Delhi Assembly elections became an interesting matter of discussion. States where regional parties held sway extensively used the social media during the elections.

Interface attempts to capture various dimensions of the subject ‘Elections and Media’. Using discourse analysis, B. Ramakrishna delineates the attrib! utes of Modi as presented in Mint newspaper. Dr. M. Rabindranath’s paper focuses on how Brand Modi was built through a combination of media con! ceived, coordinated and executed by leading advertising professionals and others drawn from specialist fields. Dr. Anitha Kaluvoya examines the use of

social media by political parties in the newly formed states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana’s general elections, 2014. Kaveri Devi Mishra and Dr. Sridhar Krishnaswami analyse the role and impact of social media in the Delhi As! sembly elections 2013. Using an example of Delhi Assembly elections, Palvai Ramesh examines the methodological challenges as the potential source of errors in exit polls. Dr. G. Anita and G. Harikrishna Kumar analyse how news! paper photographers from the Telugu Press had to yield to the pressures of paid news and that of managements in taking and editing photos, while their counterparts in English press were under less pressure. Dr. J. Madhu Babu and S. Mumtaj examine the presence of four regional political parties on Face! book and Twitter.

We hope, atleast in a small way, this volume contributes to widen knowl! edge on ‘Elections and Media’.

Prof. B. Balaswamy

Editor

Construction of Candidate Modi in an Elite Newspaper B. RAMAKRISHNA

Abstract The performance of the media in the run!up to the general election of 2014 is generally considered to have been favourable to the Bharatiya Janata Party. Qualitatively, there was a change in the way the party’s prime ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi, was presented, with some aspects underplayed and some others highlighted. Using discourse analysis, this paper sought to delineate the attributes of Modi as presented in Mint newspaper. It has been found that the newspaper used ‘description’ almost exclusively to promote a positive image of Modi, while its ‘background information’ and ‘expert quotes’ have occasionally shed some critical light on him. This paper reveals how certain devices in journalistic writing can be used to project a particular image of a subject. It also supports Foucault’s point about the key role of language in the creation and continuance of power structures in society.

Keywords: Election, 2014, Modi, Mint, discourse analysis, construction, Foucault

THE general election of 2014 marks a major turn in India’s political history, mainly be! cause of the result it has thrown up, namely, the victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party "BJP# led by Narendra Modi, but also be! cause of the particular ways in which that re! sult has come to be achieved. One noteworthy feature of the BJP campaign is the way the media has been used to turn the election into a plebiscitary one and to re! frame ‘governance’ "Palshikar, 2014#. While political parties naturally make strategic use of the media, it is the latter’s favourable dis! position, qualitatively and quantitatively, to! wards the BJP and Modi that is remarkable.

For instance, CMS Media Lab has estimated that Modi had received 33 per cent of the

prime time coverage on television during March and April 2014 and that the coverage rose to 40 per cent in May "Rukmini, 2014#.

In qualitative terms, EPW "May 24, 2014# has observed how the mainstream media, by and large, accepted Modi’s statements un! critically and without verification.

In order to better characterise the quali! tative aspects of the media’s performance, this paper attempts to delineate the attrib! utes of Narendra Modi as presented in the media. In general, during the pre!election period, there has been a noticeable shift in the typical referents that are associated with Modi. Particularly, references to the events of 2002 in Gujarat became less frequent or were underplayed while Modi’s ‘decisive Interface | July 2015 | 1

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leadership’ as chief minister became more salient. Philosophically, this cannot be a case of ‘representation’ of an objective reality, but a clear case of ‘construction’ by the media, in the sense that the overall picture pre! sented is determined by the elements con! sciously included in the frame.

Assuming the ‘construction’ takes place primarily at the level of language, this study is designed as a discourse analysis. While the published news stories are the ‘text’ to be analysed, the period from September 2013, when Modi was declared the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate, to May 2014, when the polling took place in several phases, is considered as the discursive event. The newspaper chosen for the study is Mint, which fits the description of an ‘elite news! paper’ because of its highly selective, in! formed and in!depth coverage of national issues. In terms of readership, it is similar in position to ‘The Economist’ magazine, which is considered to be influential among decision!makers despite its lack of a mass circulation.

Theoretical Framework Theorists since Foucault have considered language to be closely involved in the cre! ation and perpetuation of power structures in society "Foucault, 1974; Fairclough, 1995a 1995b; Hodge and Kress, 1993#. Foucauldian view of discourse, in particular, claims that language is intrinsically linked with ques! tions of power by giving expression to the meanings and values of institutions and so! cial practices. As a narrative of the times, journalism also carries with it a certain so! cial character reflecting both the current and the historical ways of seeing.

One consequence of considering journal! ism as a discourse in this sense is that it de! naturalises journalistic practices and opens 2 | Interface | July 2015

them to question. Another is that it enables us to view news production and dissemina! tion as creating new forms of power. In other words, journalism would be seen not simply as contesting political power that lies outside its own sphere of influence but as deeply involved in the creation of power structures "Conboy, 2010#.

Critical Discourse Analysis Fairclough's model of Critical Discourse Analysis consists of three inter!related processes tied to three inter!related dimen! sions of discourse. The three dimensions are: "i# the object of analysis "verbal, visual, or verbal!and!visual texts#; "ii# the processes by means of which the object is produced and received "writing / speaking / designing; and reading / listening / viewing# by human subjects; and "iii# the socio!historical condi! tions which govern these processes. Accord! ing to Fairclough, each of these dimensions requires a different kind of analysis: "i# text analysis "description#; "ii# processing analysis "interpretation#; and "iii# social analysis "ex! planation#.

One approach to text analysis distin! guishes between ‘engaged’ and ‘estranged’ reading positions, depending on whether the text is read with or read against, respec! tively. A range of factors, both textual and non!textual, structure the reader's engaged! estranged location in relation to any partic! ular text. On its own, each is a form of entrapment. Engagement without estrange! ment is a form of submission to the power of the text regardless of the reader’s own po! sitions. Estrangement without engagement is a refusal to leave the confines of one's own subjectivity.

In reading the text, the analyst starts by identifying with the ‘preferred readings’ constructed by the text and then moves de!

Construction of Candidate Modi in an Elite Newspaper

liberately to resist the text’s apparent natu! ralness. The analysis requires this deliberate move to reading against the text to counter! balance reading with the text. Reading with a critical eye involves revisiting the text at different levels, raising questions about it, imagining how it could have been con! structed differently, and mentally comparing it to related texts.

Huckin "1997# recommends first identify! ing the perspective being presented in the story $ angle, slant, point of view $ by paying attention to the selection and placement of photographs, headlines and keywords that are given textual prominence, things left out of the story, use of words that take certain ideas for granted, and other embellishments.

To take the analysis one level deeper, the re! searcher pays attention to topicalisation "what information is put in the topic posi! tion#, power relations "who is depicted as having power over whom#, nominalisation "converting a verb into a noun to omit infor! mation about agents of power#, presupposi! tion "persuasive rhetoric to convey the impression that what the agent of power says is more important#, insinuations "sug! gestive statements#, connotations "meanings assigned on the basis of the shared cultural knowledge#, modality "tone of the text con! veying the degree of authority and certainty# and register "do the words ring true?#.

News reports on Modi – A Textual Analysis Although Discourse Analysis studies aspects of display along with the text of the story, given this researcher’s lack of access to the print edition, this study considers only the text of the story from the paper's website "www.livemint.com#. The stories have been selected with Google search criteria ‘Naren! dra Modi livemint’, and with the time period

set from September 13, 2013 to May 12, 2014.

The search resulted in 43 stories, including opinion pieces and stories from agencies.

The study considered only news reports written by Mint's staff, as indicated by their bylines. Within the news stories, the re! searcher focused attention on the the attrib! utes of Modi than on the substance of his statements. This was because leading Eng! lish dailies in general, and Mint in particular, do a fairly good job in reporting the sub! stance of statements, and also because each paper's outlook is visible more in its con! struction "descriptions, background infor! mation and other support statements# rather than in the information being reported.

Story 1. 'Narendra Modi is BJP’s PM candidate,' September 13, 2013.

The story describes Modi as “the Gujarat strongman”, and as having the “backing of RSS, the BJP's ideological mentor” over ri! vals in the party, including senior leader L.K. Advani. It also quotes a Congress spokesper! son describing Modi as a “dividing force.”

Overall, the report offers a projection of Modi's strength and presents him as a front runner in the party.

Story 2. 'Narendra Modi makes case for a nationalist government in Delhi,' September 15, 2013.

The report starts with a statement of Modi's ideology, linking “security” to the re! quirement of a “nationalist government in Delhi”, thereby associating the quality of strength and power with the speaker. This gets reinforced when it describes how a lion's roar was played at Modi's meeting in Haryana and reproduces a Hindi slogan chanted by the audience: “Dekho, dekho kaun aaya, Bharat Mata ka sher aaya” "Look who has come, it is the lion of India#. It Interface | July 2015 | 3

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quotes a member of the audience voicing support for Modi irrespective of who the candidates are in the respective con! stituency. Overall, the report projects and re! inforces Modi's strength, and also adds a layer about public support for him.

Story 3. 'Narendra Modi says Congress unable to meet people’s aspirations,' September 29, 2013.

The report starts by articulating a national goal set by Modi. It adds a detailed descrip! tion to his statement that ‘Government has only one religion and that is India first, na! tion first,’ calling it a “veiled response to his critics, especially those who often question his secular credentials”. The story presents a picture of Modi answering the questions fac! ing him while also giving an indication of criticism against him.

Story 4. 'Narendra Modi outlines his alternative development agenda,' October 02, 2013.

The story starts by stating that Modi “set out an alternative development strategy that would include reordering the rural economy and major changes in the public distribution system”. It says the venue was ‘Manthan’, “billed as a youth movement aimed at setting the agenda for the 2014 general elections,” and adds that “the audience kept chanting his name at the event.” It also reports that “Modi hit back at the Prime Minister for questioning his secular credentials.” This re! port adds three strands to the Modi image: policy ideas, support for him among youth and answering critics.

Story 5. 'Narendra Modi stresses on democracy at US forum,' October 14, 2013.

The story conveys significance of a speech given by Modi to a global markets forum by reporting it in detail and by describing it as 4 | Interface | July 2015

“outlining his concept of governance and democracy and stressing the need for partic! ipative politics”. It extensively quotes Modi touching upon ‘good governance’, ‘participa! tory democracy’, ‘technology’, ‘policy!mak! ing’, and ‘emerging markets.’ While these serve to create a ‘high profile’ for Modi, the report also offers a reading of the event, say! ing Modi was “trying to project a persona that is at variance with the picture his critics have tried to paint of him $ of a polarising politician with a divisive agenda based on the concept of Hindutva.” This description presupposes that any negative opinion about Modi is only that of his critics, precluding the possibility of neutral people being criti! cal of him. The report includes an expert quote offering a similar reading of Modi’s strategy but adding that the views expressed appeal to that particular audience. It de! scribes Modi as one “who led the BJP to vic! tory to three successive terms in office in Gujarat”. Overall, the report serves to widen the appeal of Modi by foregrounding his pol! icy ideas and by confining his criticism as emanating from critics / opponents.

Story 6. ‘Narendra Modi hits out at Congress for India’s power crisis’, October 19, 2013.

The paper quotes Modi as saying: “There is no fuel because coal is not being mined.

This is because there is no will to mine coal.

Why? Because files have been lost.” By not providing background to the then prevailing shortage in power, as is the paper's practice, the report implicitly tilts the argument in favour of Modi.

Story 7. ‘India needs Sardar Patel’s secularism, not vote-bank secularism: Narendra Modi’, October 31, 2014.

The newspaper highlights Modi’s ideolog! ical position on secularism in the headline.

Construction of Candidate Modi in an Elite Newspaper

In the story, it describes Modi as “picking a fight with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh” on Patel, thereby indicating that Modi is at the same level as Singh. The report’s exten! sive background to Modi’s complaint about the pending approval to Sardar Sarovar dam also serves to strengthen his argument.

Story 8. ‘Even Rahul Gandhi has lost faith in Rajasthan govt: Narendra Modi’, October 26, 2013.

The report contains an expert quote that puts Modi’s statements as an “attempt to give a communal tone to the election cam! paign.” This explicit characterisation adds a new, slightly negative layer to the paper’s construction of Modi. The report also in! cludes background that supports one of the key statements made by Modi about riots in Rajasthan, effectively strengthening him.

Story 9. ‘Narendra Modi, Manmohan Singh spar over Sardar Patel’, October 29, 2014.

The report describes Modi as “the man bidding to oust him”, in relation to Manmo! han Singh, after first describing the former as the “opposition Bharatiya Janata Party’s prime ministerial candidate”. This creates an image of Modi as an aggressive challenger of Manmohan Singh. As part of background, it says Sardar Patel “belonged to the Congress, but is a hero to the BJP, which contrasts his iron man qualities with the perceived weak! nesses of Jawaharlal Nehru.” Here, the re! port presents BJP as the more aggressive and stronger party. In adding that Modi is called “chhote Sardar” by his supporters, the report attempts to make Modi appear as having Sardar Patel’s qualities.

Story 10. ‘Narendra Modi sends out a message in Patna,’ October 27, 2014.

The report adds to the popular image of Modi by stating his “formidable ability to pull crowds”, and describing his “magnetic appeal” as “evident”. It also describes his speech as “crafty”, a description that is not really a criticism for a politician.

Story 11. ‘Narendra Modi attacks UPA; Rahul Gandhi praises Delhi govt’, November 17, 2013.

The report describes BJP as “Hindu fun! damentalist party”, and adds that banning of cow slaughter and anti!terrorism law POTA are Modi’s “favourite issues”. This descrip! tion serves to narrow his appeal.

Story 12. ‘Narendra Modi takes on Rahul Gandhi over Lokpal’, December 22, 2013.

The paper reports Modi challenging the Congress Party on bringing back “unac! counted money stashed abroad” and asking public to vote on “13 issues”. It quotes BJP leaders as saying the rally in Mumbai was at! tended by half!a!million people, followed by official figures of 250,000 $ 300,000. It re! ports that Modi emphasised on his “plank of good governance based on his record as the chief minister of Gujarat”. The report also cites unnamed “analysts” as saying the “Con! gress needs to prepare better to take on Modi”. Together, these serve to convey the strength of Modi in a state that is relatively outside the BJP’s stronghold.

Story 13. ‘Narendra Modi says voters, not political parties, will fight 2014 elections’, December 20, 2013.

This story, in its lead, highlights Modi’s promise of “bright future” to the youth, giv! ing prominence to his associating with a val! ued demographic. The report quotes unnamed analysts interpreting it as “wooing the youth”. The report also includes a state!

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ment in which Modi refers to himself as a “tea vendor”.

Story 14. ‘Narendra Modi breaks his silence on 2002 Gujarat riots,’ December 27, 2014.

The report says Modi “expressed his an! guish” over 2002 riots, a day after “a lower court in Gujarat cleared him of a complicit role.” It quotes unnamed analysts as describ! ing the statement as a “surprise” and as an “attempt to seek closure” of a matter that is a “political liability”. The report adds that the statement would make it easier for Modi to “reach out to sceptics”, and quotes exten! sively from his blog. It also gives background on the allegations against Modi, not on the incidents involved in the allegations. It in! cludes an expert quote that refers to Modi’s “self!constructed image” and as saying the statement was “not an apology” but a “re! gret” and as something that would help BJP find alliance partners. Overall, the report conveys the impression that Modi’s state! ment was calcuated with regard to timing and effect, and that it falls short in terms of genuineness.

Story 15. ‘Narendra Modi outlines India development model’, January 19, 2014.

The story deals with Modi’s “develop! ment and economic vision for India”, fol! lowing it up with unnamed analysts dubbing it as a “development!plus model” that tries to expand on “Modi’s reputation for devel! opment in Gujarat”. The references to the so!called Gujarat model along with the de! tailed report on the announcements serve to personally credit Modi with a policy vision.

Story 16. ‘Narendra Modi woos corporate India, outlines roadmap for growth’, January 15, 2014.

This story contains detailed reporting of 6 | Interface | July 2015

Modi’s speech, and is more interesting for its listing of the views of corporate represen! tatives. One industrialist is quoted as saying “Modi completely understands the ground situation” and that his views were in “in sync with the industry”. This, along with the point conveyed in the headline, indicate that Modi has no serious differences with the corporate sector and has the latter’s sup! port.

Story 17. ‘Narendra Modi hits back at PM, says ‘better times ahead’’, January 9, 2014.

The story presents Modi as a rival to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the way it describes him as “taking a dig” at the lat! ter in response to Singh’s comment that it would be “disastrous” if he became Prime Minister. The report also indicates his pop! ularity saying he was “mobbed by many rep! resentatives of the diaspora” and presents him as a visionary leader when it says he “shared his vision” with them and quotes him as saying “I am speaking from experi! ence”.

Story 18. ‘Narendra Modi promises relook at taxation if elected PM’, January 5, 2014.

The story indicates a close association of Modi with yoga teacher Ramdev, reporting that he concurred with Ramdev on tax re! form at an event organised by the latter.

Ramdev has a following in the conservative Hindu community, which is also the main constituency of the BJP. Story 19. ‘Narendra Modi says IT sector can become face of India’, February 14, 2014.

The story presents Modi as tech savvy, saying he addressed technology executives at Nasscom through a video conference, that he “tweets a lot”, “has about 3.38 million

Construction of Candidate Modi in an Elite Newspaper

followers and had posted 3,910 tweets.” This background information reinforces the tech!savvy image that is created by his speech.

Story 20. ‘Narendra Modi bats for a new federal compact,’ February 28, 2014.

The report presents Modi as a visionary leader, describing his speech as “ushering in a new federal compact”, describing him as “efficient administrator of Gujarat since 2001”, making repeated references to his “broad vision”, and quoting his self!refer! ence as “the perfect candidate to the lead the vision” and as a “trustee”. It includes an expert quote that describes as “interesting” Modi’s “focus on moral deficit”. Another an! alyst is quoted as saying that Modi “tried to please all sections.” These serve to widen the appeal of Modi.

Story 21. 'Narendra Modi to contest from Varanasi for Lok Sabha elections', March 16, 2014.

The story starts with the words, “Rein! forcing the growing political influence of %Modi&”, and ends it with, “overlooking protests from incumbent MP Murli Manohar Joshi”. This explicitly describes the power Modi wields within the BJP, adding to his image of a powerful leader.

Story 22. 'Narendra Modi says he shares a common goal with Baba Ramdev,' March 23, 2014.

The story says Ramdev and Modi "came together to ask people to vote for change", quotes Modi extensively and details Ramdev's other activities in support of Modi as background information. Overall, the story conveys a strong association be! tween the two and a common outlook, and

serves to consolidate Modi's position on the right of political!ideological spectrum.

Story 23. 'Narendra Modi reaches out to OBCs; promises employment, empowerment', March 3, 2014.

The story topicalises BJP, saying “the BJP reached out to the main support base of Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh … with its leader Narendra Modi promising …”. It in! cluded an expert quote, saying the BJP has an advantage in the election.

Results From the above analysis, the following themes have emerged: 1. Words that serve to project Modi's strength within the party and outside 2. Description and structuring of the sen! tences that foreground his policy ideas and limit his critics 3. Selective provision of background in a manner that strengthens Modi's argument 4. Expert quote offering critical views on Modi 5. Descriptions that project Modi as an aggressive challenger and as having qualities of an ‘iron man’ 6. Descriptions that highlight his popu! larity and appeal among people 7. Background descriptions about the BJP's ideological position that serve to nar! row its appeal 8. Descriptions and quotes conveying a critical image 9. Descriptions and analyst views project! ing him as a policy visionary 10. Quotes conveying support for him among corporate leaders 11. Repeated references to his vision 12. Association with people who have in! fluence in conservative sections of society Interface | July 2015 | 7

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13. Background information creating a tech!savvy image 14. Quotes and description giving an image of a visionary To summarise, the newspaper used de! scription almost entirely to project a ‘strong’, ‘aggressive’, ‘popular’, ‘corporate!friendly’, ‘tech savvy’, and ‘policy!visionary’ aspects of Narendra Modi. Its background information served mainly to support Modi’s arguments and his positive image, but not exclusively so. There was one instance where it put Modi under critical light. The expert quotes offered both shades of opinion about Modi.

As important as what the paper said is what it refrained from saying. In its background information, descriptions or analyst quotes, the paper did not touch upon any questions about the state of development in Gujarat, the policy priorities, or about the cases re! lated to 2002 riots, except when the last was the topic of the news being reported.

In Huckin's terms, ‘Narendra Modi’ was the ‘topic’ of the story throughout the se! lected stories, with the exception of Story 23.

In terms of ‘power relations’ also, Modi is presented as the more powerful in all the stories. There was no case of ‘nominalisa! tion’, as Modi was explicitly presented as an agent of power; there was ‘presupposition’ in relation to his policy ideas; and there was no ‘insinuation’. The larger ‘connotation’ that emerges from the stories is the multi!dimen! sional strengths of Modi "as elaborated in the above paragraph#, while the tone of the text had a high degree of authority and cer! tainty. In terms of register, Mint’s general credibility applied to these stories also, mak! ing them ‘ring true’.

As detailed above, the newspaper’s use of description to project a powerful image of Modi serves as evidence to support Fou! cault's idea about the key role played by lan!

8 | Interface | July 2015

guage in the creation and perpetuation of power structures in society. It also confirms Conboy's point that media are not outsiders contesting political power, but are deeply in! volved in the creation of power structures.

Because of its selective inclusion of stories, this study is not a general characterisation of Mint’s coverage, while still justifying the title.

References Conboy, M. "2010#. The Language of Newspapers: Socio!historical Perspectives.

London: Continuum.

Editorial. "2014, May 24#. Fourth Estate That Vanished. Economic & Political Weekly.

Fairclough, N. "1995#. Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of Language.

London: Longman.

Fairclough, N. "1995#. Media Discourse.

London: E. Arnold.

Foucault, M. "1989#. The Archeology of Knowledge. London: Routledge.

Huckin, T. "2002#. Critical Discourse Analysis and the Discourse of Condescension. In E. Barton & G. Stygall "Eds.#, Discourse Studies in Composition. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton.

Palshikar, S. "2014, April 1#. Modi, Media and the Middle Class. Seminar.

Rukmini, S. "2014, May 8#. ‘Modi got most prime!time coverage: Study’ Retrieved May 8, 2014, from http://www.thehindu.com/elections/loksab ha2014/modi!got!most!primetime! coverage!study/article5986740.ece

About the author B. Ramakrishna is Assistant Professor "C#, Department of Communication & Journal! ism, Osmania University, Hyderabad.

Methodological Issues in Exit Polls RAMESH PALVAI

Abstract The very purpose of exit polls is to predict the election results. They also indirectly perform a function of legitimacy of an election and it results in a less stabilized democracy, if the of! ficial results differ from exit poll. Further, the exit polls ought to predict the poll results with a reasonable margin of error. In recent years in India, however, some prominent erratic predictions have undermined public confidence in the accuracy of both exit polls and Survey methods. Like any other Survey, obtaining good results from an exit poll requires a survey design that reduces systematic biases, successful execution and proper interpretation of the results. A case in point is the elections to the Delhi Assembly in 2015 . Pollsters commis! sioned by the media outlets failed to predict vote share and seat projections for AAP which defied all the predictions and bagged 67 of the 70 seats. This paper will examine the method! ological challenges as the potential source of errors in exit polls, mainly using an example of Delhi Assembly elections.

Keywords: Election forecasts; Exit polling; Popular media surveys; Survey sampling; coverage error; Delhi Assembly Elections; Nonrespondent bias THE idea of exit polls to predict the out! come of elections was born in the US. As early as the 1940s, an exit poll took place in Denver, Colorado, where voters were inter! viewed outside polling stations "Frankovic, 1992#. The first exit poll in the form we know today, i.e. on a large scale and at the request of media, took place in 1967 and was con! ducted for CBS "Levy, 1983#. The creation and development of survey methodology is ascribed to Warren Mitofsky "Moore, 2003#.

In 1967, Warren Mitofsky and his colleague George Fine, inspired by his experience in movie industry, introduced the exit poll into the Kentucky governor’s race "Morin, 2006#.

This was seen as the initiation of exit polls.

In recent years, the exit polls have come under scrutiny with allegations that it is used as a communication tool by a conglomerate of political parties, media organizations and business houses with vested interests to in! fluence voters. A great majority of Indian media houses have now become modern for! tune!tellers using exit poll findings to pre! dict election results before the actual votes are counted. Most of the media houses have been off the mark in their exit poll analysis and have gone beyond margin of error on several occasions.

This could be due to several factors and challenges in measuring behaviour correctly.

The results of these surveys are at variance Interface | July 2015 | 9

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with the actual results indicating a huge mar! gin of error as is the case with Delhi Assem! bly election results.

Popular Media Surveys Exit poll is one of the few sample surveys, the results of which may be confronted with the complete enumeration in a very short period of time. From a statistical point of view, this gives a possibility of the immediate validation of the applied methodology. For media houses, conducting this type of sur! veys is a kind of a challenge because the dis! crepancies in polls may lead to a loss of their reputation and of trust in the polls in gen! eral.

The surge in the number of electronic media outlets in the 1990s made the election surveys and exit polls popular in India, and they started capturing the imagination of people. Pre!election surveys and exit polls have since become a regular feature in the last one and half decades.

In India, Psephology, as a study of elec! tions began as an academic exercise at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies "CSDS#, Delhi in the 1960s. The CSDS en! visaged to study the voting behaviour and at! titudes of the voters in India. Psephology is now equated with prepoll surveys and exit polls undertaken by most media houses in India to predict the winners of elections.

The popular media surveys were started in India by CSDS in 1979!80. In 1980, digital journalist Pranoy Roy conducted opinion polls during elections. The India Today and Market Research Group have been engaged in this exercise for decades Exit polls became very popular in 1996, when Doordarshan, commissioned an all!

India exit poll. The fieldwork and data col! lection for this poll was done by the team at CSDS, and its findings were reported and 10 | Interface | July 2015

discussed in a five!hour programme aired live on Doordarshan. Since then, there has been no election in India where exit poll re! sults have not been televised the day polling gets over.

The track record of exit polls and their seat projections during the last four general elections has been a mixed bag of successes as well as failures. The predictions made by the media houses based on election surveys during the general elections held in 1998 and 1999 were fairly accurate, and that gave an impetus to exit polling in India. However, the predictions based on exit polls during the 2004 elections went completely haywire in most cases.

Almost all the exit polls conducted by the media houses predicted that the National Democratic Alliance "NDA# led by the Bharatiya Janata Party "BJP# would capture power at the Centre in 2004.The only dif! ference between various polls was that while some suggested that the NDA would come back with an increased tally, others predicted a loss of some seats for the NDA alliance.

Among the polling agencies and pundits there was complete unanimity in their pre! dictions that NDA would win the elections.

But the result was contrary to the poll pre! dictions as the United Progressive Alliance "UPA# led by Congress seized the power.

Once again, in 2009 , the poll predictions made by various media houses and poll pun! dits failed to predict the victory of Con! gress!led UPA . Except for the poll conducted by the Congress itself predicted that it will cross the 200 mark, no one pre! dicted the upsurge in favour of the Congress.

Six years down the lane, several surveys had clearly indicated a victory for the Aam Admi Party "AAP# pushing BJP into the sec! ond position in the Delhi Assembly elec! tion, 2015. But none of the surveys predicted that AAP would score more than 53 seats.

After AAP’s debacle in Delhi Lok Sabha

Methodological Issues in Exit Polls

elections and its chief Kejriwal’s defeat in Varanasi, no one imagined such a landslide victory for AAP. Even the AAP’s internal survey prophesied that it would bag 51 seats, BJP 15 seats and Congress 4 seats. Interest! ingly, intelligence reports revealed that AAP may get only 15 seats, even suggested the de! feat of party chief Kejriwal. On the contrary, AAP won 67 of the 70 seats, 95 per cent seats in Delhi Assembly, and got 54 per cent vote share.

Background The Delhi Legislative Assembly was first constituted on 7 March 1952 under the Gov! ernment of Part C States Act, 1951. However, the States Reorganisation Commission set up in 1953, led to the Constitutional amend! ment through States Reorganisation Act, 1956, which came into effect on 1 November 1956. This meant that Delhi was no longer a Part!C State and was made a Union Territory under the direct administration of the Pres! ident of India. Also the Delhi Legislative As! sembly and the Council of Ministers were abolished simultaneously. Subsequently, the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act, 1957 was enacted which led to the formation the Mu! nicipal Corporation.

The Assembly was replaced by the Delhi Metropolitan Council with Delhi Adminis! tration Act, 1966. This set up functioned till 1990.

The 69th amendment to the Constitution in 1991, declared the Union Territory of Delhi to be formally known as National Cap! ital Territory of Delhi and entitled the con! stitutional provisions relating to the Legislative Assembly and the Council of Ministers and other matters. The Legislative Assembly is selected for a period of five years, and presently it is the sixth assembly, which has been selected through the Delhi

Legislative Assembly election, 2015. The As! sembly consists of 70 Members $ all chosen by direct election from as many constituen! cies. At present 13 seats in the Assembly are reserved for Scheduled Castes. The Consti! tution lays down that the strength of the Council of Ministers shall not be more than ten per cent of the total number of members in the Assembly. Thus there are Seven Min! isters in the Delhi Cabinet.

The present Assembly has certainly more powers than the Metropolitan Council and the one Delhi had in 1952 under the Part!C States Act, 1951. Now only 3 subjects are out! side the purview of the Legislative Assembly, whereas as many as nine subjects were out! side the competence of the 1952 Assembly.

The Delhi Assembly electorate comprises 1.33 crore voters, 72 lakh men, 58 lakh women and rest transgenders. It is mainly composed of SC/STs, Punjabis, Muslims, Brahmins, Baniyas, Sikhs, Jats, Gujjars, OBCs and Pur! vanchal migrants. The prominent communi! ties are SC/STs who comprise around 13 per cent of the total voters, Muslims 14 per cent, Jats comprise around 10 per cent while Guj! jars constitute 7 per cent in the Capital.

While Punjabis constitute 9 per cent, Sikh community has a total vote share of 4 per cent and the Baniya community has 8 per cent vote share. The south Indian and Bangladeshi voters constitute 5 per cent, Purvanchals 26 per cent. The youngsters, slum dwellers, middle class and poor to! gether makeup 80 per cent of the Delhi elec! torate.

Exit polls in Delhi have been conducted since 1991 using the methodologies that gen! erally approximated those used by colleagues in developing democracies. Most scholarly articles devoted to differences between exit poll results and election returns do not con! sider the effect of deliberate prejudice, but instead discuss what methodological specifics may cause errors in exit poll results Interface | July 2015 | 11

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"Mitofsky, 2003; Biemer et al., 2003; Linde! man and Brady, 2006#.

Delhi Assembly Election 2015 The AAP chief Aravind Kejriwal necessi! tated elections to elect the Sixth Assembly after he unsuccessfully attempted to table the Delhi Jan Lok Pal bill in the House on February 14, 2014. Though the AAP govern! ment short!lived for 49 days, Kejriwal went all out to satisfy the middle and lower in! come groups in the capital. Following his resignation, the Assembly was kept in sus! pended animation and President’s rule was imposed. The BJP government led by Narendra Modi dissolved the Delhi Assem! bly following the recommendation made by Delhi Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung and the Election Commission of India con! ducted polls on February 7, 2015. It was a tri! angular fight involving AAP, BJP and Congress for 20 days but the fight was mainly between BJP and AAP. While the BJP roped in former IPS officer Kiran Bedi as its chief ministerial candidate by denying the chance to senior local leaders, AAP grossly relied on its volunteers.

On February 7, 2015, polling took place at 12,177 polling stations, a total of 43,235 postal ballots were received in comparison to 41,095 during the 2013 elections A record 67.14 per cent voter turnout was registered on the Election Day. Except for Datamineria, The Week!IMRB and Zee!Talem Research Foundation, a great majority of media houses predicted that AAP would get a clear majority and form the government. However, no exit poll guessed that the AAP would bag 95 per cent of seats. The highest number of 53 seats for AAP was only predicted by India News!Axis poll. There is no enough data pertaining to exit polls as media houses did not disclose 12 | Interface | July 2015

vote!share data and methodologies adopted by them to carry out the surveys. Only two agencies, News Nation and India Today!Ci! cero, disclosed the details of the sample sizes and respondents. While the News Nation exit poll was conducted on February 7 with a sample size of nearly 5000 randomly se! lected respondents across Delhi, the India Today!Cicero exit poll was conducted at 210 locations among 7,668 voters.

Today’s Chanakya, which predicted sev! eral election results with great precision, dis! closed that it used Bayesian interpretation of probability method to conduct error!free exit polls. It predicted that AAP was likely to get 48 seats, a number not even close to the final tally of 67 seats.

Just predicting a result correctly doesn’t Survey Su rvey

AAP

BJP BJP

INC INC

India India T TV-C VCV VVoter o te r

35-43

25-33

0-2

India T India TodayodayCicero Ci cero

38–46

19– 27

3–5

ABP-Nielsen AB P-Nielsen

43

26

1

Today's To day's Chanakya Chanakya

48

22

0

India In d ia N News-Axis ews-Axis

53

17

0-2

News Ne ws Nation Naation

41-45

23-27

1-3

Data Da ata M Mineria in e r ia

31

35

4

NDTV ND TV

38

29

0-2

Table 1: Seat projections by exit polls - 2015 Survey S urvey agency agency

AAP

BJP BJ P

India India T TV-C V -C V Voter o te r

42

40

11

India In d ia T Today-Cicero oday-Cicero

41

37

15

ABP AB P News-Nielsen News ws-Nielsen

41

34

15

News 2 News 24 4T Today's oday's Chanakya Ch anakya

43

37

0

India In d ia N Newsews- A Axis xis

49

34

8

News Ne ws Nation Naation

47

39

11

Table 2: Vote-share projections

INC IN C

Methodological Issues in Exit Polls

Political Political Party Party

Seats Seats Contested Co n tested

Seaats Seats Wonn Wo

AAP BJP SAD INC BSP INLD IN LD Ind. NOTA NO TA Total To tal

70 69 1 70 70 2 NA 70

67 3 0 0 0 0 0 NA Voters Voters

Net Net cha change hange in SSeats eat ats 39 39 28 28 1 8 1 NA -

Percent Percent ooff Seats Sea ts

Votes Vo tes secured sec ecured

Vo Vote te ppercent ercentt

95.7% 95.7% 4.3% 4.3% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% NA Tu Turnout rn o u t

48,79,127 48,79,127 28,91,510 28, 91,510 44, 44,880 880 8, 8,67,027 67,027 1, 17,124 1,17,124 54, 54,464 464 47, 47,623 623 35, 35,924 924

54.

54.3% 3% 32.

32.2% 2% 0.

0.5% 5% 9.7% 9.

7% 1.

1.3% 3% 0.6% 0.6% 0.5% 0.5% 0.4% 0.4% 67.14 67.14 %

Ch Change ange in in vo vote te pper er cent cent 224.81% 4.81% 00.8% .8% 00.5% .5% 114.85% 4.85% NA

Table 3: Summary of actual result in comparison to 2013 Assembly election

make it statistically accurate. The variances have to be as less as possible as exit polls are intended to measure actual voter behaviour, not voter intent.

What went wrong in the conduct of the exit polls, which were off the mark? The dis! cussion to follow examines the methodolog! ical challenges in the context of India, especially focusing on errors that might have cascading effect on the accuracy of exit polls.

Methodological Issues Selection of sample and coverage Indian exit polls are based on quota sam! pling that is a non!probabilistic version of stratified sampling. As opposed to random sampling, quota sampling requires that rep! resentative individuals are chosen out of a specific subgroup. So the samples may be bi! ased because not everyone gets a chance of selection. Since the socio!cultural diversity of India is vast, it is almost impossible to en! sure that any sample size is completely rep! resentative. Moreover, the variations in voting patterns and behaviours make poll! sters difficult to ascertain their political af! filiations and electoral choices due to inaccurate coverage of the population and

ill!defined universe.

As long as the sample size is unrepresen! tative, seat predictions based on even a large sample size will produce wrong estimates.

On the contrary, a survey based on a small sample but representative will yield accurate results. Bigger surveys only multiply errors 10 times "Nagaraj 2008#. Sampling errors are usually regarded as the main reason which induces the discrepancy between estimates and real results in exit polls.

As far as the number of sampled polling stations is concerned, it is the result of a compromise between budget restrictions and the statistical theory.

Fewer polling stations in a sample and more respondents from one precinct in! crease sampling error, whereas more polling stations in a sample requires more pollsters, which increases the costs. The number of polling stations in a sample in Indian exit polls oscillates usually from three hundred to one thousand.

The samples drawn using quota method may lead to misleading estimates if some segments of the population are not ade! quately covered. Coverage error in exit polls is due to absentee and postal ballot because they do not turn up at the polling place on the election day; as a consequence, they can! not be included in the sample. It is impor!

Interface | July 2015 | 13

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tant to notice that exit poll methodology was conceived within the context where vot! ers were required to cast ballots in person.

However, such a premise can no longer be taken for granted in the India.

Accurate coverage can be attained through careful consideration of the mode of survey administration, by using multiple frame surveys, or by using special methods that have been developed to sample rare populations. Exit polls have limitations as they cannot capture the diverse and nuanced complexities and undercurrents of electoral behaviour and choices in India.

Nonsampling errors Besides sampling errors, the scarce evidence suggests that non! sampling errors may have an important impact on exit polling esti! mates, particularly in close races "Bautista, et al., 2008#. The potential non sampling er! rors including reporting errors, response variance, interviewer and respondent bias, non response, imputation error and errors in processing the data should be carefully con! sidered. This is important in designing the survey in the context of India, in establishing controls over survey operations, and for the information of users of the data when they are published. "OMB, 2006a, p.7#.

The task in sample surveys is the collec! tion of accurate, reliable, valid and precise data. The three elements!!the task, the re! spondent, and interviewer ! make up the major source of non sampling errors. Unlike sampling errors, these errors may increase with errors in sample size and, therefore, be more damaging than sampling error for large samples.

Non response bias One of the major non sampling errors is non response bias. Pollsters use scientific sam!

14 | Interface | July 2015

pling techniques that include some aspect of random selection to prevent any group from being under!represented in the sample.

These techniques, if used correctly, ensure that pollsters contact a sample of voters that is representative of the larger voting pool.

However, those individuals who choose not to respond to a survey will always be under! represented in a survey, no matter how well the sample is designed. The exclusion of the non!respondents' opinions would not im! pact an exit poll's results if non!response was random, i.e., if there were no differences in opinion between respondents and non!re! spondents. However, studies have shown that non!response is not random; certain groups are less likely to respond to surveys than are others.

Systematic non!response is problematic for pollsters unless controlled by advanced statistical methods "Holt & Elliot 1991; Fil! ion 1975!76# because systematic variation in response rates between groups will system! atically bias a poll's results if the character! istics influencing the decision to respond also influence how the individuals vote.

The most common reasons given for re! fusing to respond to surveys are concerns with the cost of participating "concerns with individual privacy, fear that information will not be kept confidential, lack of time, survey length, personal illness or stress# and beliefs that there is no benefit from participating "worries that the survey is actually a market! ing ploy or beliefs that their response is in! consequential# "DeMaio 1980; Goyder 1987; Brehm 1993; Groves, Cialdini & Couper 1992#. Other research has also found that conscientiousness or a sense of civic duty, a willingness to be helpful, and pleasurable as! sociation with the questionnaire's source make people more willing to respond "Pace 1939; Clausen & Ford 1947#. Just as the the! ories predict, non!respondents cite relative costs while respondents cite social benefits

Methodological Issues in Exit Polls

and norms.

Empirical research, much of it conducted in controlled experimental settings, has iso! lated several factors that influence the deci! sion to participate in a survey. These include the survey's methodology, the survey's con! tent, the context in which the survey is ad! ministered "inside or outside, urban or rural area, time of day, survey length, etc.#, and the respondent's socio!economic status. A model of costs and benefits potentially unites these factors into concerns of costs and benefits.

One significant contextual factor for non response bias is whether the person is con! tacted in a rural or urban area. Charlotte Steeh found that the lowest refusal rates were obtained in small towns and the highest in large metropolitan centers "1981, 46#. One reason for why those that live in urban areas are less willing to be interviewed is that they generally are busier and live in areas with higher crime rates "Brehm 1993,35#.

Another contextual factor, emphasized by Groves, et al. "1992#, is the interaction be! tween the respondent and the interviewer.

They theorize that an individual's likelihood of not responding depends more upon the characteristics of the interviewer that ap! proaches him or her than the interviewer's technique. People are more positively dis! posed to people whom they perceive to be like them.

Lack of domain knowledge Lack of background knowledge about elec! torate is likely to produce errors in measur! ing the results of any exit poll. Many of the poll agencies successfully gauged estimates of exit polls after incorporating the domain knowledge into their survey designs. Despite the fact that the Delhi Assembly election was a two!horse race i.e. AAP and BJP, media houses failed to predict the AAP’s spectacu!

lar rise and miscalculated the Congress vote swing towards AAP. In a country as vast, heterogeneous and complex as India, with a huge electorate, the conduct of exit polls designed to elicit voter behaviours and to make forecasts of seats for various contending political parties/forma! tions faces many challenges. The sampling design is critical, and has to be sufficiently sophisticated to take into account the signif! icant heterogeneity across regions, social classes, residence "rural/urban#, sex and other key variables. The sample size has to be large enough for robust predictions, not only at the constituency level but also at the block level.

Getting the sampling design right is only the starting point. The quality of the field! work process is equally important. The de! sign of the questionnaire, ensuring that there is no ambiguity and that there are cross! checks to assess the consistency of re! sponses, is important. Perhaps even more important is the training given to the field workers who will canvass the questionnaire with the respondents. Large!scale surveys of voter behaviour should ideally have adequate numbers of well!trained and highly moti! vated field workers so that accurate informa! tion can be gathered from a large number of respondents in a relatively short period of time. Given the time and budgetary con! straints within which most electoral exit polls work, and the assumed need to meet media deadlines in a highly competitive game, the quality of investigation often suf! fers, and sizeable non!sampling errors lower the reliability of the data.

Besides, even with the best sampling de! sign and quality fieldwork, one can at best arrive at voter preference proportions or percentages. In an electoral system like India, the process of moving from estimates of vote shares to estimates of seat shares is complicated, dependent on a number of fac!

Interface | July 2015 | 15

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tors, such as the degree of polarisation in the contest and the degree of unity among the constituents of each of the coalitions of par! ties or formations contesting the election and necessarily subject to some subjective judgment.

One can, therefore, understand that exit polls seeking to make assessments of voter preferences and, based on such assessments, forecasts of seats of various parties or com! binations of parties with varying levels of co! hesiveness and unity on the ground, are very difficult exercises, with the risk of sizable margins of error. Nevertheless, they are not impossible exercises, and can be made rea! sonably robust by appropriate research de! sign and good quality fieldwork.

Another important component of an elec! tion survey is the training of field investiga! tions. So for every opinion poll or election survey, training is imperative so as to ensure standardisation.

However, except for a few academic in! stitutions, most of the market research or! ganisations do not spend time and invest financial resources on fieldwork training and practices. Instead, they pick one time! trained investigators from their pool. The absence of rigorous training leads to inaccu! racies in data collection that sometimes lead to the failure of surveys and any data analysis based on it becomes fallible and question! able. There is also a chance of missing a last! minute rush of voters if the field investigators leave the booths before polling so as to meet the deadline.

Conclusion Exit polls have limitations as they cannot capture the diverse and nuanced complexi! ties and undercurrents of electoral behaviour and choices in India. Due to the scientific and statistical principles behind them, exit 16 | Interface | July 2015

polls almost inadvertently became a helpful way to gather electoral results even before the last vote was cast. This paper investi! gated the source of errors to shed light on some methodological challenges in the con! text of India. The exit polls are being haunted by challenges including method! ological issues. The lack of information about sampling frames and domain knowl! edge, results from previous elections, insuf! ficient information on nonrespondents, Election Day factors, literacy levels and mul! tiple languages are some examples of critical constraints in exit polling. These problems inherently represent limitations on exit polling data interpretation. Despite the media exposure exit polls frequently receive, the scientific advancements and the technol! ogy around them, exit polls are still not error!free.

So far, there is little documentation of exit polls in terms of methodological problems from Indian perspective; however, the scarce evidence suggests that nonsampling errors may have an important impact on exit polling estimates, particularly in close races.

Exit polls are often judged only by looking at the typical sampling error and how far the exit polling estimate is from the actual re! sults. However, there is still a need for devel! oping better methodology to understand and measure other potential sources of error in exit polls and include them in the reporting.

The methods often employed by media houses seem to be inefficient in predicting the results close to actual results.

Moreover, most pollsters do not provide a clear and transparent statement of the methodology followed in detail and the strengths and weaknesses of the data gath! ering process in the field. Often, the process and method by which vote shares are con! verted into seat shares is also not made clear.

These issues need to be addressed seriously if electoral opinion polls are to acquire any

Methodological Issues in Exit Polls

kind of credibility. This is important, since even exit polls conducted with sound methodology can go wrong for more than one reason, but a transparent statement of the methodology pursued will give the public a clear idea of the reliability of such polls.

Contrary to their foreign counterparts, media exit polls on elections in India have focused more on predicting the number of seats major political parties are going to win or lose in the elections rather than under! standing the key issues facing the electorate.

The pooling of all the surveys conducted by various media organizations may draw ac! curate predictions in developing countries like India. Since the media houses did not disclose the methodologies used for Delhi Assembly election, this paper concludes that selection of sample and its coverage as well as non!sample errors might have affected their poll predictions if it can be assumed that exit polls were conducted scientifically.

References Biemer, Paul, Ralph Folsom, Richard Kulka, Judith Lessler, Babu Shah and Michael Weeks "2003#: “An Evaluation of Procedures and Operations Used by the Voter News Service for the 2000 Presidential Election”, Public Opinion Quarterly, 67: 32!44.

Brehm, John. 1993. The phantom respondents: Opinion surveys and political representation. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Bautista, R., Callegaro, M., Paniotto, V., Kharchenko, N., Scheuren, F., "2008#. Exit polling methodologies across nations: Some constraints and measurement problems, Paper presented at the 3MC conference, Berlin, June 2008.

Clausen, John A, and Robert N. Ford. 1947.

Controlling bias in mail questionnaires.

Journal of the American Statistical Association 42 " December#: 497!511.

DeMaio, Theresa J. 1980. Refusals: Who, Where and Why. Public Opinion Quarterly 44 "Summer#: 223!33.

Filion, F. L. 1975!76. Estimating bias due to nonresponse in Mail Surveys. Public Opinion Quarterly 39 "Winter#: 482!92.

Frankovic, K.A. "1992#. Technology and the Changing Landscape of Media Polls, Media Polls in American Politics, Mann, T.E. and Orren, G.R. "eds.#, Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 32!54.

Goyder, John. 1987. The silent minority: Nonrespondents on sample surveys.

Cambridge: Polity Press.

Groves, Robert M., Robert S. Cialdini, and Mick P. Couper. 1992. Understanding the decision to participate in a survey. Public Opinion Quarterly 56 "Winter#: 475!95.

Holt, D., and Elliot D. 1991. Methods of Weighting for Unit Non!Response.

Statistician 40 Special Issue: Survey Design, Methodology and Analysis "2#: 333!

42.

Kumar, Sanjay and Praveen Rai "2013#: Measuring Voting Behaviour in India "Delhi: Sage Publications#.

Levy, M.R. "1983# The methodology and performance of election day polls. “Public Opinion Quarterly” Vol. 47, No. 1, 54!67.

Lindeman, M., Liddle, E., & Brady, R. "2006#.

Investigating causes of within precinct error in exit polls: Confounds and controversies. In 2005 ASA proceedings.

ASA Biometric Section %CD!ROM& "pp.

282$292#. Alexandria, VA: American Statistical Association.

Mitofsky, W. "2003#. Voter News Service after the Fall. Public Opinion Quarterly, 67, 45!

58.

Moore, D.W. "2003# New Exit Poll Consortium Vindication for Exit Poll Inventor Inside the polls, Gallup, http://www.gallup.com/poll/9472/newexit!

Interface | July 2015 | 17

Palvai poll!consortium!vindication!exit!poll! inventor.aspx "30.09.11#.

Morin, R. "2006#. The Pioneer Pollster Whose Credibility You Could Count On. The Washington Post, September 6, 2006, C01, available on the Internet at: http//www.mitofskyinternational.com/WP !Morin.html.

Nagaraj, Anuradha "2008#: “Psephology Is Not a Science Like Microbiology... It’s Poll Studies. But Everyone Thinks Only of Seat Forecasts”, The Indian Express, 27 January, available at http://archive.indianexpress.com/news/! psephology.

Office of Management and Budget "OMB#.

2006b. Historical tables: Budget of the United States fiscal year 2007. Office of Management and Budget, Washington,

18 | Interface | July 2015

DC. Pace, C. R. 1939. Factors influencing questionnaire returns from former university students. Journal of Applied Psychology 23: 388.

Steeh, Charlotte G. 1981. Trends in nonresponse rates, 1952!1979. Public Opinion Quarterly 45 "Spring#: 40!57.

About the author Ramesh Palvai is Assistant Professor "C#, Department of Communication & Journal! ism, Osmania University ! District Post!

Graduate Centre, Siddipet, Medak district, Telangana.

Work Environment, Professional and Ethical Dilemmas A Study of news photographers’ perceptions during elections in Andhra Pradesh DR. G. ANITA G. HARI KRISHNA KUMAR

Abstract Media play a key role in the political process, especially elections, in a democratic nation.

Attention of people, political parties, journalism professionals that include reporters, edi! torial staff as well as photographers and government machinery is completely drawn towards this mandatory democratic event. There is a quantum leap in the coverage demanding more time from media professionals. News photographers are also forced to work for prolonged shifts, under the high pressure of deadlines without any respite and break. Their personal, professional as well as ethical dilemmas would set in for months together i.e. before the formal announcement of elections is made. The study on news photographers has shown that though the work environment was very demanding and amid deadlines, photographers of English newspapers were under less pressure. On ethical practices, Telugu newspaper photographers had to yield to the pressures of paid news and that of managements in taking and editing photos.

Keywords: Paid news, ethics, deadlines, dilemmas, news photographers, work environment

THE print media has been in the hands of the private enterprise before and after inde! pendence while the broadcast media man! aged by government "Thussu, 1999# were found to be working on social issues. Jour! nalists in general were socialized into prior! itizing social issues. Along with the English print and broadcast outlets, vernacular media expanded across the country and gained importance. The expansion resulted in an overhaul of newspaper organizational

policies thereby bringing in a change in newsroom operations and the demands on the employees. For news room managers; or! ganizational change was a losing proposition, leading to change in perceptions of staff members and discontentment with their jobs. Newsroom employees were not posi! tive about the changes that hindered their ability to provide high quality journalism, and the changed management efforts had only limited impact on job satisfaction and Interface | July 2015 | 19

Anita / Kumar

commitment.

Newsmen were no exception to this phe! nomenon. The role of photojournalists is in! fluenced by a number of factors and their professional and ethical dilemmas multiply during the time of elections as they have to interact with their subjects directly in the field. Often they confront ethical obligations in taking photographs. Their professional obligations reflect the problems and satisfac! tion they draw from the job.

Newton "2001# said photojournalists dis! tinguish their images from others in part by intention: the purpose of making and dis! tributing the images is to show the truth, to the extent any human can discern and com! municate, of stories significant to people's lives. But on many occasions they have to yield to the pressures from managements, especially if it helps them in strengthening financially like in case of paid news.

Becker "1995# explained that photo jour! nalists will find the direction for what they do in the particular circumstances of its doing, in the combination of organizations, audiences, and peers that surround them as they do the work. Along with misleading ma! terial other issues that have been challenging the visual news work include threats to press freedom, copyright violations, limited access to public spaces and meetings, and increas! ing refusal to pay serious photojournalists a living wage. Many researchers concluded that "in the era of 24!hour news, un! abashedly biased news stations that choose their narratives and their visual media ac! cordingly might also alter our memories.

Where do Indian journalists stand?

The Indian press has come of age and it has successfully indigenized western technolo! gies, ideas, and professionalism, providing a glocal scenario "Sonwalker, 2002# along with 20 | Interface | July 2015

the values.

This had been the case with the vernacu! lar press like Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam as well as Tamil language news papers. In this process, values and ethics of media and es! pecially of journalists definitely suffered. Ac! cording to Wasserman and Rao "2008#, in the push and pull of the global versus the local, journalism ethics also have become a mix of the global and the local. Thus, the use of hidden cameras' feeds into the image!dri! ven journalism rendered by globalization but also allows Indian media to address local concerns by unearthing corruption.

Elgar "2002# noted that press photogra! phers saw themselves as news professionals rather than artists, which reinforces their de! sire for a strong journalistic base for their work.

In his 2004 study of recent US war pho! tojournalism, Michael Griffin concluded that "revealing human suffering, opening the viewer's eyes to the conditions of the down! trodden, and provoking movements for so! cial reform" is a myth far removed from "the routine workings of the picture press" In this process, many of them suffered and move away from this profession. Many ex! cellent and sensitive photographers have left the profession because of job!related stress.

In a News Photographer article, Jerry Gay, a 1975 Pulitzer Prize award winner said that there is a need for balance in a photogra! pher's life. A photographer concerned only for the next award!winning picture becomes, according to Gay, "insensitive to other peo! ple and their feelings, especially at home.

'They stop being people and start being as mechanical as their winder'"Hertzberg, 1979, p. 12#.

Though many codes of ethics are in vogue journalists are not conscious of professional ethics as they were hardly trained in those lines and not often discussed in Indian news! rooms "Rao & Johal, 2006; Rao & Lee,

Work Enviroment, Professional and Ethical Dilemmas

2005#. Ethics are specific to places because codes of ethics are rooted in the socio!cul! tural milieu of a society. This is evident in the codes of ethics for journalists in India, which include clauses for promoting harmony and dispatching social ills "Bertrand, 1997#. Even these locally derived codes are neither well! known nor often practiced in India "Rao & Johal, 2006#. While some consonance in val! ues is taking place, agreement on a universal code of ethics is distant "Jyotika et al, 2012#.

Journalists from different countries still dif! fer on what they consider acceptable prac! tices of news gathering and reporting, such as paying a source for information, imper! sonation, and source harassment "Weaver, 1998#. The Norms of Journalistic conduct discusses macro level issues such as defama! tion "including right to comment on public officials#, privacy, truth, obscenity and vul! garity, national interest, and prior restraint.

The code also covers the basic principles of journalism such as accuracy, fairness, and verification, advocates corrections and right of reply, prohibits plagiarism and unautho! rized lifting of news, as well as guilt by asso! ciation and the passing of conjecture as fact, and endorses source confidentiality These Indian codes of ethics contrast somewhat with the Code of Ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists in the United States, which is more specific to the tasks of newsgathering such as seeking truth, acting independently, and being accountable "Society of Professional Journalists, 2008#.

According to Rao and Lee "2005#, ‘Often journalists will argue that media ethicists do not refer to the experiential and practical el! ements of the journalistic profession in their day!to!day ethical decision making. They tend to address general social roles the news media should play in national leadership and in relationship to government institutions, and focus less on specific behaviors of work! ing journalists such as paying sources for in!

formation or engaging in personal and pro! fessional relationships that represent a con! flict of interest. the press was seen and, as evident in these codes, continues to be seen today, as a partner in addressing social issues.

For example, the codes do not discuss attri! bution, impersonation, and not paying for content, issues of particular relevance in the age of adoption of digital technology in India.

Rao "2009# describes the adoption of new technology in Indian newsrooms as enthusi! astic. ‘Journalists confirm that the cheap and easy availability of cell phones, modems and computers had led to radical changes in the way news is gathered and disseminated, and the kinds of news that gets covered . . . ’ "p.

6#. Journalists in India have used hidden cameras to expose corruption and exploita! tion "Wasserman & Rao, 2008#. According to Rao and Johal "2006#, as cited in Rao, 2009#, such newsgathering methods are now widely and vocally debated. Thus, discussion of ethical journalism practice in Indian newsrooms may be a post!new!technology phenomenon, and ethics codes might have to catch up.

Indian scenario A recent study on acceptability of certain practices among Indian journalists focused on five factors: breaking trust/masquerading; accepting gifts; disclosing harmful facts; staging/altering photographs; and paying/in! venting sources "Colaco, 2006#. Indian jour! nalists rated these practices as unacceptable.

The least acceptable practice was disclosing harmful facts. The less acceptable practice was to these journalists from the ethical per! spective, the less these journalists were likely to engage in it. Interestingly, it was the ques! tionable newsgathering practices that they found less unacceptable, indicating that get!

Interface | July 2015 | 21

Anita / Kumar

ting the story was important enough that some ethical breaches were not frowned upon. Inadequate knowledge and practice of codes of journalism ethics make it impera! tive for analysis of Indian media. In case of manipulation, truth of the photographs, get! ting benefits have been discussed at length.

Especially news photographers had been subjected to too much criticism for their moral responsibilities and ethical principles.

Unethical newsgathering practices are more likely to be employed in scenarios where these trends of exponential growth, commercialization, and tabloidization are present; in fact, Sawant "2009# argues for a media accountability system particularly in this age of globalization. Growth has led to a shortage of qualified media professionals "Rao, 2009#, possibly resulting in the em! ployment of freelancers and others who may not have had even a modicum of training in journalism or its ethics. As new computer! based and network!centered technologies were adopted by news organizations around the world, numerous ethical concerns and is! sues emerged. Among many concerns was manipulation of images by photograpers.

Questions about the rapid speed of acquisi! tion of information, decreasing content gate keeping or filtering, the decline of fact! checking, and even the re!distribution of the information without permission have also arisen "Arant, 2000; Brill, 1999; Lumby & Probyn, 2004; Wasserman, 2008#. Possibility of invasion of privacy, publication or abuse of personal information also became issues for discussion and concerns for journalists also. Often the question of credibility is also raised in the case of news photographers.

Barthes "1982:194# pointed out, the mean! ings of photographs may change when they are used in different publications, and Lester "1995# also emphasizes this point: “Credibil! ity is not an inherent quality of a particular picture, but a concept based on tradition, 22 | Interface | July 2015

story choices, design considerations and reader perception of the company or indi! vidual that produces the image.

However, having a code can always help the journalist make a defensible decision. As Klaidman and Beauchamp "1987: 20# warn: “No system of ethics can provide full, ready! made solutions to all the perplexing moral problems that confront us, in life or in jour! nalism. A reasoned and systematic approach to these issues is all that can be asked.�

Method For this exploratory study, a purposive sam! ple of 25 photographers was selected, mostly from Hyderabad, Vijayawada and Visakhap! atnam. Respondents represented seven major Telugu and three English newspapers and they differed in terms of experience as lensmen, circulation, political affiliation, etc.

There were 18 lensmen from Telugu newspa! pers, while seven were from English newspa! pers. All the respondents were male and there were no female photographers as they were not assigned election duties. The age of the respondents ranged from 21 to 50 years.

Work experience as a media professional ranged from three months to 20 years. Six respondents worked for local language news! papers.

The respondents were interviewed about the professional activities during the 2014 general election to the Lok Sabha and As! sembly election of Andhra Pradesh on the type of environment outside and inside the organisations and how the work environ! ment helped them in meeting the demand for high!quality photographs.

Data was collected through a structured interview schedule. In!depth interviews have high value as exploratory qualitative social research and may serve as the main tool of the inquiry "Hocking, Stacks, & McDer!

Work Enviroment, Professional and Ethical Dilemmas

mott, 2003; Kerlinger, 1973#. This schedule contained open!ended questions dealing with access to various subjects and issues re! lated to elections in the daily practice of journalism; changes in newsroom practices; culture; challenges posed by demand for bet! ter and more and more photographs; tech! nology; working across platforms and convergence in the newsroom; and ethical is! sues involving new media such as not paying for photographs, lack of attribution for in! formation, plagiarism, and obtaining per! sonal information without permission, etc.

The authors utilised McCracken’s ap! proach for interview analysis, which includes observation of a useful utterance, develop! ment of expanded observation, examination of interconnection of observed comments, collective scrutiny of observations for pat! terns, and analysis of themes for develop! ment of these.

All the 25 interviews were conducted in the month of May 2014 in the sample cities.

The average duration of the interviews was 21 minutes and the responses were recorded by means of a schedule developed for this purpose with the help of scales that measure the kind of work environment. Items used to guide the in!depth interviews had been field tested in earlier research.

To enable the authors to see patterns more easily and to provide overall findings with confidence from the patterns, the qual! itative data was recreated in tabular form from the transcripts. In these working ta! bles, the descriptive data was self!evident.

For the other data and particularly beliefs, the tables allowed the authors to more easily find patterns, see interconnections, and thus make conclusions. As the researchers had worked in the media for long periods in the above said organizations and studied some cases closely, they incorporated the related observations and also studied them in detail.

Data analysis For photographers of English newspapers, the elections were mostly routine affairs and not much had been forced upon them. For many of them election coverage was a very routine and hassle free affair. Quality!wise and volume!wise also, the work load was not significant and demanding. If at all they had to do an extra assignment, all necessary arrangements such as transport and food were made.

According to Table 1 during elections ma! jority of the respondents had an average fa! cility of weekly off where 44 per cent got it ‘to some extent’ and 24 per cent enjoyed it ‘rarely’. Especially news photographers of telugu newspapers couldn’t get the opportu! nity and respondents of English news papers had facility to a maximum extent. Same is the case with leaves also.

Around 44 per cent got it rarely and Eng! lish respondents had the facility. Flexibility of shifts, multiple shifts and extra hours of work also range from ‘to some extent’ to ‘un! decided’. It indicates that the work was nei! ther too hard nor too liberal. Extra payments and extra conveyance were also marginal 16 per cent getting it ‘to some extent’ and 16 per cent got the conveyance ‘to a greater ex! tent’. Compensatory leave, compensatory off were also rare with 68 per cent and 48 per cent respectively. ‘To some extent’ transport "40 per cent# and food "36 per cent# were provided "Table 1#.

As per Table 2, visits to parents, friends and in!laws were marginal, and a majority "56 per cent# had only a rare opportunity to go to movies, entertainment or to attend to family functions. Almost all of them failed to help family members in shopping. ‘To some extent’ and ‘undecided’ component constituted 50 per cent and 41.6 per cent in case of attending to children’s needs.

Interface | July 2015 | 23

Anita / Kumar

!

S No

Facilities during elections

To a greater extent

To some extent

Undecided

Rarely

Very rarely

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Weekly off Leave Flexible timings Multiple shifts Extra hours of work Extra payments for the work Extra conveyance for election coverage Compensatory leave Compensatory off Transport Food supply Others

4 16 4 4

44 24 32 32 40 416 24 8 12 40 36 -

20 8 36 48 20 28 32 16 28 32 36 -

24 8 28 16 36 36 24 68 48 16 12 -

8 44

16 4 4 8 3 -

4 20 4 4 8 4 4 -

! 1: Percentage distribution of respondents as per the perception of availability of facilities during Table the! elections. !

!

S No 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Personal activities during elections Visit parents Visit friends and in laws Movies or other entertainment Attend to family functions Help in shopping Attend to children’s needs (n=24) Others

To a extent 8 4 4

greater

To some extent

Undecided

Rarely

Very rarely

24 20 8

20 20 28

40 4 4

8 42 56

4 4 4.2

16 4 50

20 32 41.6

8 28 4.2

52 32

-

-

-

-

-

!

! 2: Percentage distribution of respondents as per the perception of availability of time for Table activities related to family during the elections.

!

S No 1 2 3 4 5 6

!!

7

Facilities during elections Extra camera Extra lenses and memory cards Extra conveyance/ transport Provision of Camera Assistants Assistants at processing Assistance from other non media organizations like DPRO, party functionaries Others

To a greater extent 12 12 8 4 4.2 12

To some extent 72 36 52 84

Not at all 16 52 40 96 96.8 4

-

-

-

!

Table 3. Percentage distribution of respondents as per the availability of provision of professional facilities during elections.

24 | Interface | July 2015

Work Enviroment, Professional and Ethical Dilemmas

S No

Facilities during elections

To a greater extent

To some extent

Undecided

Rarely

Very rarely

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Weekly off Leave Flexible timings Multiple shifts Extra hours of work Extra payments for the work Extra conveyance for election coverage Compensatory leave Compensatory off Transport Food supply Others

4 16 4 4

44 24 32 32 40 416 24 8 12 40 36 -

20 8 36 48 20 28 32 16 28 32 36 -

24 8 28 16 36 36 24 68 48 16 12 -

8 44

16 4 4 8 3 -

4 20 4 4 8 4 4 -

!

Table 4: Percentage distribution of respondents as per the perception of work load during the ! elections.

!

S No

Pressure during elections

From political parties 1 Pressure from parties 2 Pressure from candidates 3 Paid news photos 4 Offers as Gifts 5 Offered Money 6 Offers in other forms 7 Election code violation 8 Indecent photos 9!

Complaints to managements 10 Others From managements of organizations 1 Deadlines 2 Deputation to other places 3 Additional beats 4 Demand other duties like editing 5 Demand for more photos 6 Demand for creativity 7 Surveillance by managements 8 Ranking and awards 9 Photos in violation of election code !

10 Others

!

To a greater extent

To some extent

Undecided

Rarely

Very rarely

84 80

8 8 4 12 12 8

36 36 36

4 4 28 36 36 32

4 8 68 16 16 20 100

8 8

32 44

44 32

16 8

28 44 52 16

4 16 20 28

12 12

20 20 12 88

12 32 72 4

36 28 8

20 8 8 8 100

-

-

-

-

-

8 60 40 16

8 12 24

32

Table. 5 Percentage distribution of respondents as per the perception of obligations during elections (N=25)

Interface | July 2015 | 25

Anita / Kumar

According to Table3, extra camera, extra lenses with memory cards and extra con! veyance/ transport were provided to the re! spondents ‘to some extent’ 72 per cent, 36 per cent and 52 per cent respectively. Almost all of them did ‘not at all’ have the provision of camera assistants as well as assistants at processing. ‘To some extent’ "84 per cent# re! spondents received assistance from other non media organizations like DPRO, party functionaries.

As per the Table.4 in majority of the cases extra amount of work "44 per cent# rarely, in! crease in quality of work "52 per cent# unde! cided and quantity of work "56 per cent# was ‘ to some extent’. Among the respondents with regard to more off the routine work 36 per cent felt it was ‘to some extent’ and an! other 36 per cent were undecided. Regarding extra payments 44 per cent were undecided and demand for more creative inputs 40 ' were ‘undecided’. For 40 per cent produc! tion oriented work demand was ‘to some extent’ and another 40 per cent had to con! tribute to page makeup ‘rarely’. Next day preparation meetings and regular follow!up meetings were ‘to some extent’ common to the order of 80 per cent and 56 per cent re! spectively.

On lensmen, pressure from political par! ties "84 per cent# and candidates "80 per cent# was faced ‘to a greater extent’. But de! mand for paid news photos was ‘very rare’ "68 per cent# among both the media. Among all the 25 respondents, 36 per cent each were ‘undecided’ and ‘rarely’ in case of offers as gifts and money. Almost same is the opinion with regard to offers in other forms. In 100 per cent cases election code violation was ‘very rare’ and indecent photos were 32 per cent and 44 per cent ‘undecided’ and ‘rarely’ and complaints to managements were 44 per cent ‘undecided’ and 32 per cent ‘rarely’.

With regard to professional obligations during elections 60 per cent had the feel of 26 | Interface | July 2015

deadlines ‘to a greater extent’ and deputation to other places was 36 per cent ‘to a greater extent’ and 44 per cent ‘to some extent’ and 40 per cent to a greater extent. Additional beats were ‘to greater extent’ "52 per cent# al! located and demand for production such as editing was marginal. Demand for more pho! tos and creativity was marginal ranging from 36 per cent ‘rarely’ and 32 per cent ‘unde! cided’. Surveillance by managements was ‘undecided’ by 72 per cent shows that though it was rampant, respondents were not willing to disclose. Ranking and awards were ‘to some extent’ in 88 per cent followed by pho! tos in violation of election code was ‘very ! rare’ with the respondents.

Work environment during elections

%

To a great extent encouraging To some extent encouraging Not at all encouraging

88 8 4

!

Table. 6 Percentage distributions of respondents as per the perception of office work environment during elections

Regarding work environment in office during elections for 88 per cent it was ‘to a great extent encouraging’ and 8 per cent ‘to some extent encouraging’ and 4 per cent ‘not at all encouraging’. Some photographers in! terviewed revealed that the paid news syn! drome still haunts them. A photographer from one of the leading English dailies said that by mistake on two occasions photos of politicians with folded hands were published in the news papers which were treated as paid news photos and the newspaper was forced to issue rejoinder and had to give an explanation. He revealed that the monitor! ing committees at district level have worked very effectively.

Another photographer of a leading daily said though he was not forced by organisa! tions, the candidates themselves engaged photographers and got the required photos

Work Enviroment, Professional and Ethical Dilemmas

shot and sent them to publications. This was quite in contrast to the 2009 elections in which the organizations made full use of ‘paid news’. As far as balance is concerned, every day they used to file photographs of three parties and would not bother beyond that.

Conclusions Though the working conditions of news photographers are always demanding and subjected to questions of integrity and ac! countability with regard to ethics and pro! fessional obligations, elections are tougher to handle. Knowingly or unknowingly they would face problems from government, po! litical parties, candidates as well as manage! ments.

The study was conducted to find out what are the facilities provided to them in this prolonged phase of election assignments, what are the professional facilities available, what type of special assignments were given to them and the type of professional as well as ethical dilemmas they would face in the course of elections. Interviews conducted by the researchers have shown that though the situation requires fulfillment of tougher vo! luminous tasks like working for long hours, going to other places, lack of routine facili! ties like leave, weekly off, not being able to spend time with family members, friends and unable to attend to shopping and family functions they have the burden of keeping themselves away from inducements like gifts, money and obligation of paid news photos etc. Professionally, some of the had to work for long hours and contribute to other departments like production and par! ticipate in page make up with a touch of cre! ativity.

The inducements and obligations were found more in case of photographers of tel!

ugu news paper photographers than their English counterparts. This is found to be more due to the lack of reasonable salaries and more and more work load compared to English newspapers. Though they do not de! mand too much from photographers, they would be suitably paid for whatever extra work is taken up by them. The same could be done in the case of telugu newspaper pho! tographers also.

As per the extra work put in by them they should be given the extra money, leave, and reduced work load. If the work load exceeds beyond a range they should be provided with assistants and reduce the burden of other duties like assisting in the planning and pro! duction. It is evident that however qualified a professional is, one can raise the levels of quantity as well as quality.

Fair distribution of work among all the professionals will help them cope up the sit! uation lest they would look for undue bene! fits from political parties, candidates and others. This often happens in case of elec! tions where political parties hire vehicles, arrange for food and take good care of other necessities of journalists and photographers as it is necessary for them to get good cov! erage.

The managements also vie to get rid of the burden of extra facilities as the political parties would be more than willing to carry the burden. But to sustain good practices and uphold the ethics it is imperative on part of managements to meet the extra cost of coverage on special occasions like elections.

References Arant, D. "2000, August#. Online media ethics: A survey of US daily newspaper editors. Paper presented at the meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, Interface | July 2015 | 27

Anita / Kumar Phoenix, Arizona.

Barthes, Roland. 1982. The Photographic Message. In Sontag, S. "ed.#, A Barthes Reader. London, Jonathan Cape, 194!210.

Becker , Howard S. "1995#. "Visual Sociology, Documentary Photography, and Photojournalism: it's "almost# all a matter of context”, Visual Sociology 10"1/2#, pp. 5 !

14, http://home.earthlink.net/ hsbecker/visual.html, accessed 9 July 2007.

Bertrand, C.!J. "1997#. Quality control: Media ethics and accountability systems. Paris: Presses Universities de France.

Brill, A. "1999, August#. New media, old values: What online journalists say is important to them. Paper presented at the meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, New Orleans, Louisiana.

Colaco, B. "2006#. What is the news O Narada? News people in a new India "Unpublished doctoral dissertation#.

Carbondale: Southern Illinois University.

Elgar, K. "2002#. Truth & the photojournalist: the ethical issues at the heart of the debate on digital images "Doctoral dissertation, University of Queensland#. Retrieved from http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:24 0688 Griffin, Michael 2004 "Picturing America's 'War on Terrorism' in Afghanistan and Iraq: photographic motifs as news frames”, Journalism 5 "4#, pp. 381 ! 402. %CrossRef& Hertzberg, M. "1979, February#. Stress. News Photographer, p. 12.

Hocking, J.E., Stacks, D.W., & McDermott, S.T. "2003#. Communication research "3rd ed.#. Boston, MA: Pearson.

Jyotika R., Yu Liu & Bruce G."2012#. Ethical use of new technologies: where do Indian journalists stand? Asian Journal of Communication, Published online: 25 Jan 2012.

Kerlinger, F. "1973#. Foundations of behavioral 28 | Interface | July 2015

research. New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

Klaidman, S & Beauchamp, T. 1987. The Virtuous Journalist. New York, OxfordUniversity Press Lumby, C., & Probyn, E. "2004#. Remote control: New media, new ethics.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Lester, Paul Martin. 1995. Photojournalism Ethics Timeless Issues. http://www5.fuller! ton.edu/les/photoethics.html Newton , J. H. "2001# The Burden of Visual Truth: the role of photojournalism in mediating reality , Mahwah, NJ : Erlbaum.

Neyazi, T.A. "2010#. Cultural imperialism or vernacular modernity? Hindi newspapers in a globalizing India. Media Culture & Society, 32, 907_924.

Rao, S. "2009#. Glocalization of Indian journalism. iFirst Article, 1_15.

Rao, S. "2010#. Teaching journalism ethics, one village at a time. The Center for Journalism Ethics, School of Journalism & Mass Communication, University of Wisconsin!Madison Web. Retrieved from http://www.journalismethics.ca Rao, S., & Lee, S.T. "2005#. Globalizing media ethics? An assessment of universal ethics among International political journalists.

Journal of Mass Media Ethics, 20, 99_120.

Sawant, P.B. "2009#. Accountability in journalism. Journal of Mass Media Ethics, 18"1#, 16_28.

Society of Professional Journalists. "2008#.

Code of ethics. Retrieved from http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp Sonwalker, P. "2002#. ‘Murdochization’ of the Indian press: From by!line to bottom! line. Media, Culture and Society, 24, 821_834.

Thussu, D.K. "1999#. Privatizing the airwaves: The impact of globalization on broadcasting in India. Media, Culture and Society, 21, 125.

Work Enviroment, Professional and Ethical Dilemmas Wasserman, H., & Rao, S. "2008#. The glocalization of journalism ethics.

Journalism, 9, 163_181.

Weaver, D.H. "1998#. The global journalist: News people around the world. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

About the authors Dr. G. Anita is Coordinator & Assistant Pro! fessor and G. Hari Krishna Kumar is a re! search scholar, Dept. of Journalism and Mass Communication, Acharya Nagarjuna Univer! sity, Guntur, A.P.

Interface | July 2015 | 29

Social Media and Election Campaign A Case Study of Delhi Assembly elections 2013 KAVERI DEVI MISHRA DR. SRIDHAR KRISHNASWAMI

Abstract: Social Media has changed the face of communication today. Today, social media is not only a tool and a medium for communication but has also become a global phenomenon. In less than a decade social media has slowly but steadily made inroads into personal lives and has parked itself as a valuable and effective platform to voice opinions, share thoughts, react, interact and express explicitly on varied issues and topics across. Election, being an integral part of a democratic process, has been influenced by social media. The widespread use of social media technology has led to a new campaign style as witnessed during the recent elec! tions campaign in New Delhi, capital of India. In effect, Social media has changed the nature of politics as also the way a politician connects with the masses. This paper analyzes the role and impact of social media in the Delhi Assembly elections 2013.

Key Words: Social Media, Democracy, Elections, Campaign.

SOCIAL Media termed as the digital uni! verse on earth with abundant information of people and places connecting people politi! cally, socially, culturally with technology is rapidly making inroads in our lives. Social media that was initially used as a personal communication medium and tool to interact with friends and family has today become an integral part of our lives. Today people con! nect to each other and maintain relation! ships on social media and this widespread use has led to innovative style of communi! cation and interactions be it socially, politi! cally, economically, culturally or technologically.

Social Media has exploded as an online discourse centre in a democratic country and has become a platform and place of dis! course and a public sphere to share ideas, goals, accomplishments, footage on mile! stones and engaging users, adding a human 30 | Interface | July 2015

touch to campaigns that has encouraged and impressed politicians and leaders to build and establish relationship with their voters.

Thus Social Media has altered and trans! formed political systems across the world and also revolutionized the mass media in the democratic environment.

With rising Internet penetration in India, especially due to adoption through mobile phones, social media was seen to have the potential to influence a sizeable number of Indian voters in some way or the other. In! ternet users would in turn persuade other non!Internet users to align themselves to a particular political ideology. Therefore, the expected impact was seen to be wide in terms of reach.

Realizing the power of the medium, polit! ical parties consider social media to serve multiple objectives. The first and foremost objective is connecting directly with the In!

Social Media and Election Campaign

dian voter, in an interactive framework and secondly it is considered the easiest and most cost effective manner that a party can propagate its message. Essentially, if the message strikes a chord with the individual, he or she is likely to share that message with his family, friends, and colleagues and so on.

A domino effect can be created with this medium, Digital media strategists are bank! ing on such aspects to make an overall dif! ference in terms of seats won or lost opines Nilotpal.

Creating a Social Media strategy has be! come a norm and mandatory for political parties and leaders across the world, since popularity means everything in politics. This medium is used effectively during political campaigns. With social media sites often getting more traffic than an official cam! paign website, political parties and leaders create content, particularly with reference to Facebook and Twitter, a user’s followers, page likes and friends often determine the popularity of the user. Information, news, views, opinions and ideas are shared through this network at an extraordinary rate. Thus Social media has proved to be a efficient and effective medium and technology for the po! litical system because it creates awareness, bridges the gap between politicians and peo! ple and helps a leader connect with young IT savvy and first time voters. Besides social media generates a tremendous amount of data and information about political parties and leaders that help the parties to gauge voter sentiment.

“The use of social media in today’s cam! paign is not only important ( it is critical,” says Hubert “Sonny” Massey, a Business in! structor and advisor at South University, Sa! vannah. “From now on, social media will have a huge impact on elections with the speed of communications and the numbers of people involved, the impact has to be sig! nificant. Millions of people are involved in

using social networks daily. It is the oppor! tunity to be in touch with large numbers of voters quickly, constantly and at a low cost” affirms Massey.

Social Media in India Though the use of Social Media in politics is a relatively new trend in India, a lot of ‘buzz’ has been created about it by technology ex! perts, mainstream media and the young tech savvy population. As a result, social media has slowly but steadily made its ways into the political system in India. Within a short span of five years, it has been perceived as a game changer in the near future for the political system in India.

Currently, Social Media has become an in! tegral part of campaign kit similar to adver! tisements. As part of their social media strategy political parties and leaders create Face book pages, active twitter account, dy! namic website and blogs, in addition to tools like internet video, social networking out! reach, online advertising, to try and engage voters and followers through official web! sites. Blogs and twitter accounts are recog! nized as an increasingly important element in the media strategy of political parties. It provides and proves to be a centralized forum for campaign information that is commonly indexed by search engines and seen as a key gateway for a variety of users!! voters, party supporters, Social activists, po! tential supporters, Election Commission and media.

Political parties and leaders have digital campaign managers and IT cells that push social media and engage the youth voters during elections. Despite the challenges of social media, the most important advantage is that it provides political campaigners di! rect access to the electorate via technology.

Interface | July 2015 | 31

Mishra / Krishnaswami

Delhi Elections – December 4, 2013 Delhi, the capital of India is the largest and world’s second populous city with a popula! tion of 22 million in 2013. It is the only state! city of India, with the political administration of a state, its own legislature, high court and an executive council of min! isters headed by a Chief Minister. Delhi is jointly administered by the federal govern! ment of India and the local government of Delhi.

Recognizing its reach, potential, and im! pact political parties and leaders actively em! braced the social media to woo and impress the voters marking a shift in the political campaign. The Delhi Legislative Assembly elections were held on December 4, 2013 and for the first time in the history of Indian elections, and social media played a vital role. All the big, small and independent po! litical parties and leaders became tech savvy, realizing this is the only way to reach out to the articulate young.

Triangular Contest The elections witnessed a triangular contest among the three major parties ! Aam Adami Party "AAP# !! translated as Common Man party, the Bhartiya Janata Party "BJP# and the Congress. Of the three , AAP and the BJP exploited the potential of social media to its fullest advantage.

The AAP relied on social media to send messages and connect to young voters on Facebook, Twitter, Google hangouts, You tube and so on, it had an interactive web site with a provision for online donations. Being a newly formed party with tremendous So! cial media presence and interaction it made headlines across mainstream media. Its party chief Arvind Kejriwal who had 900,000 fol!

32 | Interface | July 2015

lowers on Twitter believes that Social media is one of the most important tool in election campaign .

Throughout the campaign trail, the AAP members used social media, text messaging, voice, and mobile internet to mobilize vot! ers. The success was visible in the number of likes and shares each page of the party and its candidates got in Facebook in addition to a new concept of robo calling to contact vot! ers. The campaign also saw videos of candi! dates’ open forum going viral through YouTube and other social media platforms.

Mobile Internet, broadband, smartphone and social media played a major role in the victory of AAP. AAP’s aggressive campaign and people! friendly approach ensured they were ahead of all the political parties in wooing the young voters and ensuring their participa! tion in the elections.

Political cartoonist Sudhir Tailang says “Right from its inception, AAP used social media smartly they were active before the elections and it outsmarted its competitors.”

Marketing, brand and digital specialists from the national capital region attribute the success of Arvind Kejriwal and his Aam Aadmi Party "AAP# to a well!orchestrated media campaign. “For a party to come in from nowhere and secure around 30 percent votes hare in around one year is phenome! nal,” said Lloyd Mathias, senior marketer and Director, GreenBean Ventures . Accord! ing to Professor Niranjan Vanhalli, Mass Communication and Journalism Depart! ment, University of Mysore, the game changer has been the social media and the full use by Aam Admi Party "AAP# which pitched itself and won the elections by pro! jecting itself as a political party of the com! mon man. For the first time in India a party with no previous track record and experi! ence in politics won over the young elec! torate with an agenda of change and clean

Social Media and Election Campaign

Figure 1 Political Parties presence on Facebook

Figure 2 Political parties presence on Twitter

politics through social media.

The AAP’s success in Delhi can be attrib! uted to the kind of buzz that was created and enjoyed in the online world and social media. For instance, the Delhi election re! sult week was the most popular week for the party on Facebook. AAP's Facebook page had 535,264 likes till 3 December.

People could donate to the party online, and follow its leaders on Twitter. What’s more, in a clear and concise website, AAP lists out its manifesto, explanations about its constitution and decisions and even an inter! nal complaints committee. It has a video link, a blog, and even an events page so that people can join in.

Pandey, a full!time political activist opines that to make your presence felt in politics, social media has proved to be a vital tool and today it has become mandatory hence his party recognized its potential at a nascent

stage and made full use of it to campaign spread the message and win the elections.

AAP’s online coordinators talked of reaching 3.5 million people just before voting day with an app called Thunderclap, which sits on the Facebook page and tells you to go vote, thus creating a pressure.

According to Rajesh Lalwani, Founder and Principal, Blogworks, while the party may have started out with social networks like Twitter and Facebook, the sentiment could be seen on the ground. “Clearly, Arvind Ke! jriwal would not have been able to achieve it without social media, but he truly energized the vote,” he said. Within few days of cam! paigning it was evident that elections in India are starting to be fought on social net! working websites.

The BJP made it big on the social media.

It had its own social media management team. The Congress was slow to respond, and relied more on traditional media.

According to Nilotpal Chakravarti, Asso! ciate Vice President of Internet and Mobile Association of India, the Delhi assembly elections is a case in point, where urban vot! ers were seen engaged in discussions and in! fluenced by campaigns on social media a good sign towards strengthening democracy.

Social media reflects the mindset of the young electorate they are forthcoming and willing to positively participate in the elec! toral process.

Conclusion Delhi Assembly polls is a proof that the power of the social media cannot be under! estimated in India, it helped in shaping the agenda in Delhi. The result that was an! nounced on Delhi 8, 2013 clearly illustrated the popularity of the AAP party since it ac! tively involved voters in the political process through social media.

Interface | July 2015 | 33

Mishra / Krishnaswami

The apathy of the young Indians towards elections, leading political parties playing vote!bank, divisive politics and becoming smug and self serving on assuming power is a thing of past. Today, the young educated Indians backed up by technology are highly ambitious, optimistic and wish to participate in the electoral process.

The Social media triggered a new revolu! tion in the political campaign and electoral process in addition to bringing participation, transparency and accountability through de! bate and discussion.

References “Social Media & Regime Change” http://www.csa.com/discoveryguides/discov eryguides!main.php Released March 2012 Amin, Ramtin. "The Empire Strikes Back: Social Media Uprisings and the Future of Cyber Activism." Kennedy School Review 10.15350215 "2009#: 64!6. ProQuest. Web. 21 Feb. 2012.

Randi Zuckerberg is CEO of Zuckerberg Media, author of Dot Complicated,%2013&

34 | Interface | July 2015

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com /2013!12!06/interviews/44809319_1_randi! zuckerberg!facebook!india!facebook!found er!mark!zuckerberg.

Carafano, James. "Successful Revolution Takes More than Social Media." The Examiner: n/a. ProQuest. Feb 22 2011.

Web. 22 Feb. main.php Released March 2012 12 Castells, Manuel. The Information Age: Economy, Society, and Culture. Vol. 2, Tthe Power of Identity. Oford: Blackwell, 1997. Print.

Etling, Bruce, Robert Faris, and John Palfrey.

“Political Change in the Digital Age: The Fragility and Promise of Online Organizing” SAIS Review 30.2 "2010#: 37!

49. ProQuest. Web. 16 Feb. 2012.

About the authors Kaveri Devi Mishra is a research scholar and Dr. Sridhar Krishnaswami is Head, Depart! ment of Journalism & Mass Communica! tion, SRM University, Kattankulathur Campus, Chennai.

Email: kaveri5050@gmail.com

Social Media Use by Political Parties in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh DR. ANITHA KALUVOYA

Abstract Social Media is being increasingly used by political parties during elections. National and international experience of the political leader indicates that online activities become more intensive during elections. Regional political parties and politicians in India have not lagged behind. In this context, this paper examines the use of social media by political parties in the newly formed states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana’s general elections, 2014. The qualitative approach was adopted for the study and secondary data was collected from online websites, news articles and political parties’ official websites. The study found that the reach and influence of social media at national level is more when compared with regional level.

Social networking sites have been given lesser importance in both the states.

Key Words: General Elections, Andhra Pradesh,Telangana, Political Parties, Social Media,Voter Behaviour

THE mass media which act as a bridge be! tween the government and the people, play a vital role during elections in any demo! cratic country. Media becomes the most im! portant tool to connect the rulers with their public. The rapid growth of technology and the increasing awareness levels among peo! ple have made it inevitable for media organ! izations to reach its public as quickly as possible. The public are also aware of the fact that most of the contemporary print and television media organizations are asso! ciated with some political parties and that their stories are biased towards; as a result the credibility of some of these media organ! izations are always in question.

With the communication revolution, the na! ture of political communication has com!

pletely changed. Increased access to infor! mation and increased level of awareness among people have in recent days thrown the ball into the public’s court. No doubt electronic and print media are powerful in moulding the public opinion, but the in! creasing demand for social media among people is making political communication an increasingly complex business.

The role of social media as a tool of commu! nication and has created new ways of mobi! lizing public opinion and encouraging participation in political and civic activities $ ranging from joining social groups, posting short messages on Twitter, expressing sup! port for social movements like Anna Haz! are’s Jan Lokpal Bill to blogs and uploading videos.

Interface | July 2015 | 35

Kaluvoya

Social Media Impact on Political Communication Creative use of social media for political campaigning is growing day by day; most of the parties at the national level and regional level now use a full range of tools to woo vot! ers. Parties and candidates have their own websites, some of them managed and run by fans and followers of political parties and few are political parties’ official websites.

Why should political parties maintain web! pages, Facebook, Twitter and other online accounts; is it because of their growing im! portance among youth and their increasing reach?

A study carried out by the independent IRIS Knowledge Foundation suggests that social media usage is now sufficiently wide! spread to influence the elections and conse! quently government formation1.

Survey findings reveal that 213 million people use internet in India which is less when compared with the population that do not use the internet "1.2 billion#. The reach and usage of internet and social media are limited at the regional level in India. Hence, computer and mobile phone manufacturers are now concentrating on regional popula! tions and are making the mobile conversa! tions available in local languages to attract more customers.

Presently , 33 million internet users have Twitter accounts and Facebook has hit the 100 million!user mark. India’s newest Prime Minister, NarendraModi has 4.2 million fol! lowers on Twitter. The congress party which did not win enough seats to actually assume the seat as leader of the opposition in parlia! ment,wasn’t on Twitter at all, not even by the time when elections were held in March 2014. However, Prime Minister, Naren! draModi’sparty had an accountwith about 36 | Interface | July 2015

1,81,000 followers. There are other political stars on social media, including individual members of various parties, and notably, members of the newly formed AamAadmi Party.

Traditional campaigning through mass ral! lies and door!to!door approach to grab the vote bank are now slowly getting replaced by Twitter “town hall” meetings, Google Hang! outs and Facebook debates. Few political parties’ conscious efforts to use social media platforms in the run up to the elections to woo voters have given the expected result at national level politics. Parties like BJP, par! ticularly Prime Minister,NarendraModi who is quite active on the social media platform has a large following among youth on Twit! ter. This clever tactic of holding the six mil! lion Facebook users and one million twitter users has given BJP, an unexpected huge suc! cess.

The Institute for Security Studies "ISS# ar! gued that it could prove rewarding for polit! ical parties to engage in this medium. The ISS cited the effectiveness of social media campaigns in the 2008 US presidential Cam! paign as well as the 2013 Kenyan electoral campaign.

In the recent elections in the States of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana some of the smart political leaders have followed the footsteps of US President Barak Obama in making effective use of social media to get connected with their target group and to woo voters.

Aim This paper attempts to analyse the use of so! cial media and mobile telephony by political parties in the 2014 elections in recent elec! tions in two newly formed states, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

Social Media Use by Political Parties in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh

Research questions How did political parties in AP and Telan! gana use social media in the recent general elections held in 2014 in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana?

What is the status of the internet market in rural areas, particularly through mobile phones made available in regional languages as a powerful means of communication for political leaders?

Methodology The qualitative approach was considered ap! propriate for this study. Secondary data was collected from online websites, newspaper reports, journal articles and related social networking sites.

Internet in Rural Areas As per the census 2011, 9.4' of households have internet. According to TRAI data, India’s total Internet subscribers stood at 238.71 million as of Dec 31, 2013. Among all the Indian states, Maharashtra had the largest Internet subscribers at 38.78 million, followed by few other states like Uttar Pradesh and so on.

The united Andhra Pradesh had 17.07 Mil! lion subscriptions before elections. TRAI also made a point that the Internet subscrip! tion in India would keep growing, and re! ported that seven out of eight are accessing the Internet from their mobile phones.

The major sources for accessing internet in the rural areas are community service cen! tres and cyber cafes; these are the primary points to access due to the availability of in! frastructure. In rural areas, internet is mostly accessed through mobile phones. As per the study the access is growing day by day. Low

prices of handsets, better battery life, cheaper data charges and improved network infrastructure in the rural areas have tremendously increased mobile penetration.

Most of the new internet users have started their journey on mobile phones. ‘What is rural India searching for online’ is a question that can come to our minds. The main pur! pose behind using the internet is entertain! ment "download music, videos and photos etc.#; almost 90' of population uses it for this reason. Whereas only 28' use the in! terenet for rural needs, says the report of IMRB. Since the mobile penetration is more when compared with internet access, that means all those who have access to internet through their mobile phones are not access! ing the internet, the reasons for this being, language barrier. Most of the content avail! able online is in English. As most receive ed! ucation in vernacular languages in rural India, language is one of the key barriers; since entertainment is one of the few con! tents which is available in vernacular lan! guages, it is one of the most popular activities online. As more and more content is available in vernacular languages and more information and news regarding local areas is made available, other services on the in! ternet will become popular. With improve! ment in infrastructure and affordability especially through mobile penetration, inter! net use will increase rapidly in the near fu! ture.

Social Media Use Political parties in power and opposition de! pended on the other media sources other than social media, which is cheap and a quick means of communication.

The campaign strategy of all the political parties at local level in these two states were mostly restricted to and dependent on elec!

Interface | July 2015 | 37

Kaluvoya

tronic, print and traditional mediums, than the new media which is comparatively cheaper and faster than the others. Congress did not have any regional online account until March 2014 to interact with educated, youth and employees of these two states, though it was in power for such a long time.

Opposition parties like TDP, YSRCP, CPI M, Loksatta and TRS had opened their ac! counts before the elections. But the TDP under the leadership of tech!savvy Chandra Babu Naidu was quite active on social media.

Only the TDP is quite active in online activities. In contrast, both Congress and BJP did not have regional official websites, nor Facebook or Twitter accounts. Some parties such as YSRCP, CPI "M#, added their official web pages a little later than TDP. In! terestingly, party like Loksatta was very ac! tive online, connecting with the youth and most of these parties’ followers were very ac! tive in grabbing the attention of youth with their latest updates. Now almost all the po! litical parties, except Congress and BJP have their official web pages running very actively in these two states. Not many political lead! ers at the local level had a Twitter account to be connected with the voters. This indicates lack of realisation among the parties to make an effective use of social media.

‘Likes’ on official pages of political parties The number of “likes” on Facebook pages of the regional parties indicates the number of people interested in these parties, their de! cisions and stand on various public issues.

Apart from Congress and BJP who don’t have any local accounts, other major parties like TDP which led with nearly 6,70,773 ‘like’, followed by YSRCP with 4,55,341 likes, and Loksatta party 2,10,721 likes, interest! ingly CPIM with 37,620 likes is ahead ofTRS, which is just with 25,612 likes.

38 | Interface | July 2015

Political party

‘Like’ on official party pages

TDP YSRCP Loksatta CPI M TRS

6,70,773 4,55,341 2,10,721 37,620 25,612

!

Table:1 Political parties and number of likes on their official pages

Conclusions Despite the low level of internet penetration in India, social media has been able to reach beyond its core audience. All the political parties now have their presence on social media through their party websites(updat! ing the activities and programs of their par! ties. Social media literacy is becoming a sign of ‘forward!looking and development ori! ented leaders, ready to take up the new chal! lenges’ in a globalized India.

The presence in social media has become imperative for candidates and political par! ties because of the changing expectation of the voters towards their elected representa! tives and increasing number of voters during every election.

Mobile phone penetration, improving in! frastructure, local language access through internet at rural areas is going to make social media even more powerful in coming days.

No doubt the educated population who uses internet for online activities in India are less compared with the uneducated population,but due to the increasing tech! nology and the smart phone culture spread! ing in rural areas, theycan bring revolution through social media if utilised properly. The parties who are in power should make use of this media to get in to public even more ef! fectively and opposition parties can make use of this weapon to put a check on govern! ment when required, by taking public stand.

Social Media Use by Political Parties in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh

Making one’s presence felt in social media has become important for both political par! ties as well as for oppositional politics in order to ensure a wider validation for their cause. The oppositional politics, which often gets marginalized in the mainstream media, has been immensely benefitted with the coming of social media. It is not surprising that some of the most popular politicians on social media are from opposition including Narendra Modi, Mamata Banerjee, Akhilesh Yadav and Nitish Kumar. The incorporation of politics into social networking sites has made it impossible for political parties to ig! nore social media. Furthermore, given the changing expectation of the voters towards their elected representatives, social media might play a role disproportionate to its ac! tual presence. Social media certainly has the power to influence the outcome of the next general election.

References IRIS 2013:www.esocialsciences.org /General/A2013412184534_19.pdf Indexoncensorship.org 2014. http://www.pa.org.za/blog/how!political! parties!use!social!media!garner!vote

http://www2.uncp.edu/home/acurtis/NewMed ia/SocialMedia/SocialMediaHistory.htmlm Media multiples project for Mamekam by Government of AP www.bbcnews.com http://socialmediaslant.com/social!media! stats!july!2014/ http://businesstoday.intoday.in/story /internet!subscribers!india!govt! parliament!trai/1/203492.html https://www.facebook.com/TDP.Official https://www.facebook.com/ysrcpofficial https://www.facebook.com/trspartyonline https://www.facebook.com/loksatta https://www.facebook.com/cpimcc State government project by Media multipliers Source: http://socialmediaslant.com/social! media!stats!july!2014/ http://www.business! standard.com/article/technology/mobile!an d!social!media!drive!regional!language! content!114060900934_1.html

About the author Dr Anitha Kaluvoya is Head, Dept. of Communication & Journalism, St. Francis College for Women, Hyderabad, Telangana.

Interface | July 2015 | 39

Presence of Regional Political Parties in Social Media DR. J. MADHU BABU S. MUMTAJ

Abstract: Social media are playing an important new role in Indian democracy. A social campaign by the Election Commission drew record levels of voters’ registration and turnout in elections held in four Indian states, including the capital. Social media may undermine serious delib! eration, encourage populist rhetoric and celebrity politics, and erode responsible collective action. There are signs of increasing political activism on the Internet and social media.

This paper examines the presence of four select regional political parties on Facebook and Twitter.

Key words: General Elections, Andhra Pradesh,Telangana, Political Parties, Social Media, Facebook, Twitter

INDIA’S 16th general election held during April / May 2014 witnessed a surge in the use of social media by political parties. Politi! cians took part in Google+ Hangouts, tele! vised interviews organized by Facebook and used the Facebook!owned smart phone mes! saging APP !What’s App to connect with millions of tech!savvy urban voters. Accord! ing to a report published in April 2013 by the Internet and Mobile Association of India "IAMAI# and the Mumbai!based Iris Knowledge Foundation, Facebook users would “wield a tremendous influence” over the results of the polls in 160 of India's 543 constituencies.

During the 2009 general election, social media usage in India was marginal which in! creased manifold. With 93 million Facebook users and 33 million Twitter accounts BJP's prime ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi, was among the first Indian politicians to set up a website and is on Twitter, Facebook and 40 | Interface | July 2015

Google+. Rahul Gandhi, of the Congress did not have a website and did not use any of the three major social networks. Anti!corrup! tion campaigner!turned!politician Arvind Kejriwal amassed 1.5 million followers on Twitter since joining in November 2011.

Minister Shashi Tharoor said, “Now no seri! ous politician is seen as being able to avoid social media altogether.”

Social media are playing an important new role in Indian democracy. A social campaign by the Election Commission drew record levels of voters’ registration and turnout in elections held in four Indian states, including the capital. There were 790 million eligible Indian voters, of which 160 million were first time voters between the age of 18 and 24 years. Political parties embraced social media to reach voters, including cell phone messaging while they are also being misused.

Some politicians have been accused of boosting their apparent popularity on social

Presence of Regional Political Parties in Social Media

media with legion of followers who don’t exist and of using social media to smear their opponents. Social media have been used to fan violence against religious and ethnic groups; the dissemination of fraudulent video may have helped spark deadly clashes between Hindus and Muslims in the city of Muzaffaranagar in September. The Indian government has used the Information Tech! nology Act!2008 to increase monitoring and censorship of social media. In 2012, two women were arrested after posting a com! ment on Facebook that angered politicians in Mumbai.

Journalists have had their twitter accounts and cartoonists whose works poke fun at of! ficials have had their social media accounts disabled. The Government rolled out a cen! tral monitoring system with vast powers to monitor citizen’s communication. Human Right Watch called the system chilling in its scope. According to Freedom House, India had the steepest decline in internet freedom of any country in the year ending in April 2013.The Election Commission has directed social media providers to monitor sites for fraud during the election period.

Review of literature Political use of social media in the last two United States presidential elections has at! tracted much attention, a report published in advance of the 2012 election estimated that between 5 and 10 per cent of a campaign budget is spent is on internet!based media "Trent 2011#.

However, social media are also changing politics and election campaigning in Europe.

Researchers have studied the effect of social media in elections in Ireland, Germany, Aus! tria, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Poland and the UK as well as in the 2009 elections for the European election campaigns. Analysis

considers that voters did not turn out during European parliamentary elections because the European Parliament’s work rarely makes the news "Lodge 2010#.

The mainstream media, such as the press, television and radio, pay relatively little at! tention to most EU issues or EU election.

However, the internet and social media be! came important alternative sources of polit! ical and campaign information. More than half of the European Internet users now think SNS are a good way of keeping up to date on or having a say in, political affairs.

Though not as high a figure as in the US "where the internet became a regular source of campaign in formation for 25 per cent of voters in 2012#, as early as the 2009 German federal elections, 15' of voters read cam! paign material on social media at least once a week "Kersting 2012#.

The most important aspect of social media is the ‘network’ effect produced when someone who has seen a video, visited a page or read a tweet passes on the same message or a reference to all of their friends or fol! lowers these ‘second degree’ net works "i.e., followers of followers# Social media allow candidates to commu! nicate directly with citizens, keeping control of the content, distribution and timing of their messages, as well as reducing their de! pendence on traditional intermediaries such as journalists. New or less established parties in particular may find social media an easier path to getting their voice heard. "Moa 2013#.

Similarly, various studies have shown that candidates who are not incumbents, or who are lower down their party list are particu! larly active is in social media. "Carlson 2013, Skgard 2011, Graham 2013#.

User! generated content supporting a party or candidate is another way to bypass traditional mass media. Campaigns can en! courage supporters to upload their own video and photo material about the candi!

Interface | July 2015 | 41

Babu / Mumtaj

dates on SNS. Social media can also serve as a direct in! fluence on the stories that mass media pres! ent. In order to compete in a fast!moving media environment, journalists increasingly rely on political blogs, Twitter conversations and user video and photo content as sources for their stories.

By using social media to raise issues, react to a story or give a response, a politician may be able to spark a new story in the press or broadcast media or at least may influence how journalists frame the news. Their mes! sage can reach many more potential voters as the story is broadcast on television. Social media also provide a way for politicians to monitor what is happening in the public sphere during an election campaign.

Social media can be used as a means of di! recting political messages to certain target groups. Whilst social media cannot be a re! placement for face!to!face contact with youth, they can be a useful additional tool to deliberately target young people who are more likely to use social media, especially SNS. Social media can also assist with much more refined targeting of voter groups.

Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign made successful use of social media including blogs, tweets, text messaging, emails and search!engine advertising. However, experts consider that the critical edge came in the way voter data were used to “micro!target” messages to particular groups of users during the campaign. Also, a candidate can send a message about an upcoming event, and en! courage supporters to spread the message so that others will attend.

Tweets or Facebook updates keep follow! ers and friends informed about what the can! didate is currently doing as part of the campaign, photographs or videos of the can! didate at events or speaking to constituents are posted on social media later to give a more personal and humanized view of him 42 | Interface | July 2015

or her.

Personalisation is associated with a higher level of emotional appeal. Such aspects can make messages more likely to be shared with others: tweets that have that have more emotional content and that contain ap! praisals of candidates and parties are more likely to be retweeted.

Effectiveness of social media 1. Social media may undermine serious de! liberation, encourage populist rhetoric and celebrity politics, and erode responsible col! lective action.

2. There are signs of increasing political activism on the Internet and social media "Kruikmaier 2013#.

The most active political users of social media are those who are already committed to political causes. The influence of social media use in elections may be different in countries with different size populations and with different political electoral systems.

Nevertheless even motivating a small per! centage of the population can make a con! siderable difference to the result of party or an individual candidate.

Research Design Aim: To examine the presence of four select re! gional political parties on Facebook and Twitter Objectives • To ascertain the frequency of citation of political parties on Facebook and Twitter • To study the number of positive / nega! tive comments in social media on political parties • To find out the distribution of ‘shares’

Presence of Regional Political Parties in Social Media

and ‘retweets’ of each party • To list the number of ‘comments’ and ‘replies’ • To examine the distribution of positive / negative ‘comments’ and ‘replies’ Content Analysis The Content analysis design used for this study. Content analysis is regarded a formal system which is systematic and objective for extracting all forms of communication con! tents. According to Berelson,B "1952#, “con! tent analysis is a research technique of communication”, similarly, Kerlinger "2000# defines “content analysis as a method of studying and analyzing communication in a systematic, objective and quantitative man! ner for the purpose of measuring variables” cited by Wimmer and Dominick "2003#.

Therefore, content analysis was used in this study as a tool to extract data from the con! tent of the selected social media. This was done by analyzing the frequency and promi! nence "wordage# or importance as well as di! rection / slant of news on uses as content categories.

Social networks selected The study included Facebook and Twitter, the most popular social media networks in political campaign.

Time Frame The study was undertaken between 13 February 2014 and 23 February 2014.

Sample Purposive sampling: This study was based on the complete census during the 11days time span!. Facebook $ 97, Twitter $ 347

Content categories • Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party "YSRCP# • Telugu Desam Party "TDP# • Lok Satta Party "LSP# • Aam Aadmi Party "AAP# YSR Congress Party YSR Congress Party is a regional political party in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India.

It was founded by Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy the son of former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y. S. Raja Shekara Reddy "popularly known as YSR# in 2011.

Telugu Desam Party Telugu Desam Party, abbreviated as TDP, is a regional political party in the south India state of Andhra Pradesh. The party was founded by N. Taraka Rama Rao ""NTR"# on 29 March 1982. N. Chandhrababu Naidu, the incumbent leader of opposition in the Andhra Pradesh State assembly headed the party a the time of elections Lok Satta party Lok Satta, founded by Dr. Jayaprakash Narayan a former IAS officer from Andhra Pradesh. Since 1996, the Lok Satta func! tioned as a non!governmental organization, but on 2 October 2006, the movement was reorganized into a formal political party. The party has adopted the whistle as it official symbol since 2009 elections.

Aam Aadmi party Aam Aadmi "Common Man Party; abbre! viated as AAP# was formally launched on 26 November 2012. The party's first electoral test was in the 2013 Delhi legislative assem! bly election from which it emerged as the Interface | July 2015 | 43

Babu / Mumtaj

second!largest party, winning 28 of the 70 seats. With no party obtaining an overall ma! jority, the AAP formed a minority govern! ment with conditional support from the Congress. The government resigned after 49 days.

Unit of analysis • Posts / Tweets • Likes / Favorites • Shares / Retweets • Comments / Replies • Positive comments / Positive replies • Negative comments / Negative replies

Political Parties YSRcongress congressparty party

Facebook

%

Twitter

%

50229

40.1

41

9.2

Telugu Desam Party

46955

37.5

187

41.6

Lok Satta Party

27184

21.7

84

18.7

Aam Aadmi Party

916 125284

0.7 100.0

137 449

30.5 100.0

Total

congress party

2 Table 1. Distribution of posts / tweets

Political Parties

Facebook

%

Twitter

%

YSR congress party

31

31.9

83

23.9

Telugu Desam Party

22

22.7

77

22.2

Operational definition

Lok Satta Party

30

30.9

102

29.4

Aam Aadmi Party

14

14.5

85

24.5

Posts: Posts are views and ideas shared in social media like Facebook, Twitter.

Likes: When someone’s post on a subject appears good and appeals to our personal opinions at that time we are likely to use “like”.

Share: To re!post someone else’s view / post to ones timeline.

Comments: Comments are the views / re! sponses of friends / connections to a partic! ular post.

Total

94

100.0

347

100.0

Table 2. Distribution of Likes / Favourites Political Parties

Facebook

%

Twitter

%

YSR Congress Party

12804

34.2

66

10.2

Telugu Desam Party

17402

46.6

215

33.2

Lok Satta Party

7094

18.9%

146

22.4

Aam Aadmi Party

146

0.3%

222

34.2

Data coding sheet

Total

374476

100.0

649

100.0

A code sheet was prepared incorporating the subject categories.

Table 3. Distribution of Shares / Retweets

Data analysis The data collected from Facebook and Twitter over 11 days has been presented in the tables below in terms of percentages Findings in frequency • The performances of YSR Congress Party in Facebook posts 31, likes 50229,

Political Parties

Facebook Comments

%

Twitter Replies

%

YSR Congress Party

3064

49.9

08

12.4

Telugu Desam Party

12164

35.3

15

23.1

Lok Satta Party

763

12.4

20

30.7

Aam Aadmi Party

147

2.4

22

33.8

Total

6138

100.0

65

100.0

Table 4. Distribution of Comments / Replies

44 | Interface | July 2015 Congr

Congr

Party

Party

Presence of Regional Political Parties in Social Media

Political Parties

Facebook (+)Comments

%

Twitter (+) Replies

%

YSR Congress Party

2271

50.5

05

10.0

Telugu Desam Party

1854

33.8

10

20.0

Lok Satta Party

740

13.5

16

32.0

Aam Aadmi Party

118

2.2

19

38.0

Total

5483

100.0

50

100.0

Table 5. Distribution of Positive Comments / Positive Replies

shares 12804, and comments 3064.

• YSR Congress Party in Twitter total tweets 83, Retweets 66, favorites 41, replys 08 • Telugu Desam Party in Facebook total posts 22, likes 46955, shares 17402, comments 2196 • Total tweets on twitter 77, Re tweets 215, favorites 187, reply 15 • Lok Satta Party posts 30, likes 2782,comments763,shares 7094 • In twitter total tweets102,favorites 84,retweets 146 ,reply’s 20 • Aam Aadmi party in Facebook it posts only 14 and people likes 916 shares146, comments 147 • In twitter people gives replys22, they tweets 85, favorites 137, Retweets 22.

S. No

Findings in percentage • YSR Congress Party has 31.9 per cent posts on Facebook.

• Lok Satta Party on Twitter mostly 102 tweets. On Facebook also it got 29.4 per cent.

• Telugu Desam Party got 22 per cent on both platforms.

• On Facebook, YSR Congress Party get much likes 40.1 per cent.

• Telugu Desam Party gets many favorites 37.5 per cent on Twitter.

• Aam Aadmi Party in Facebook 0.7 per cent only. But on Twitter, it is 30.5 per cent.

• But on Twitter, Aam Aadmi Party mostly 34.2 per cent of Retweets.

• Lok Satta Party on Facebook, 18.9 per cent and on Twitter it was 22.2 per cent.

• YSR Congress got 49.9 per cent of the total number of comments on Facebook, while on Twitter it was 12.3 per cent.

• People wrote only 2.4 per cent comments on Facebook. But on Twitter, it is 33.8 per cent "Aam Aadmi Party#.

• On Facebook, 50.5 per cent of people posted positive comments on YSR Congress Party. On Twitter, it was 10 per cent.

• Aam Aadmi Party got 38 per cent positive replies on Twitter. On Facebook, 2.1 per cent of the comments were positive.

Political Parties

Facebook (-)Comments

%

Twitter (-)Comments

%

1

YSR Congress Party

31

31.9

83

23.9

2

Telugu Desam Party

22

22.6

77

22.2

3

Lok Satta Party

30

30.9

102

29.4

4

Aam Aadmi Party

14

14.6

85

24.5

5

Total

97

100.0

347

100.0

Table 6. Distribution of Negative Comments / Negative Replies

Interface | July 2015 | 45

Babu / Mumtaj

• Lok Satta Party on Facebook received 13.5 per cent positive comments while on Twitter, it was 32 per cent.

Conclusion Social Media provides a new form of com! munication between politicians and voters, and offers the possibility of increasing citi! zen involvement in political life, especially during elections. Social media allow political actors, particularly from smaller parties or less well!known candidates, to bypass most media filters. The influence of social media use in elections may be different in countries with different population size and with dif! ferent political and electoral systems. Nev! ertheless, even motivating a small percentage of the population can make a considerable difference to the result of a party or an individual candidate. Certainly an upward trend in citizen participation in Andhra Pradesh elections, due to any media, social or otherwise, would be a good sign.

References Berlson "1952# Content Analysis in Communications Research, Glancoe, Free Press Carlson "2013# Finish elections is the rise of

46 | Interface | July 2015

web campaigning in Finland.

Kerlinger F.N. "2000# Foundations of behavioral research "4th ed#. New York: Holt, Rinehart Kersting N "2012# Election democracy P113 Lodge, J "2010# The 2009 elections to the European parliament P.21 Moe.H, Larsson. A "2013# A comparative study of Twitter linking practices during their Scandinavian election campaigns, Information communication and society, V 16 no 5 page 775! 794.

Skovagaard. M, Van Dalen. A "2013# Dodging the gate keepers social media is the campaign mix during the 2011 Danish election. Information and communication and Society V 16 N.5 Trent. J.et al, "2011# Political campaign communication: Principles and practices.p.368 Wimmer and Dominick "2003# Mass Media Research: An Introduction "9th ed#.

Cengage Learning.

About the authors Dr. J. Madhu Babu is Assistant Professor and S. Mumtaj is a research scholar, Dept. of Journalism & Mass Communication, Acharya Nagarjuna University, Guntur, Andhra Pradesh.

Department enters CAS Phase II

The University Grants Commission (UGC) has approved a sum of Rs 1.83 crore and extended the tenure of the Centre for Advanced Study (CAS-II) in the Department of Communication and Journalism, Osmania University, by five years from April 2015.

The thrust of CAS - II would be to establish a Media Credibility Lab (MCL) and a Mass Communication Documentation Centre (MCDC).

The MCL would create a media credibility index in consultation with various stakeholders. Periodic reports would be generated and made available online and in printed form to the industry, academicians, researchers and civil society.

The MCDC would compile indices, and prepare bibliographies, abstracts and monographs. This is aimed at bridging the knowledge gap as there is no organisation at present to document the resources on media and allied subjects. The resources collected through MCDC would be made available in public domain.

The Journalism Department of Osmania University is the only one in the country to be conferred the status of CAS in Journalism by the UGC in 2008. The sanction of CAS - II comes at a special moment when the Department is celebrating its 60th year since inception. This is expected to go a long way in strengthening the training infrastructure in sync with the requirements of the industry.

Prof. Karnam Narender Coordinator, CAS

‘Paid News’ – Forms, Causes and Solutions

EDITED EXCERPTS FROM THE REPORTS OF PRESS COUNCIL OF INDIA & PARLIAMENTARY STANDING COMMITTEE ON INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

"Incorporating edited excerpts from Press Council of India Report on Paid News dated 30 July 2010 and the Department!Related Parliamentary Standing Committee on In! formation Technology’s 47th report on Is! sues Related to Paid News, presented in the Lok Sabha on May 6, 2013.# THE phenomenon of “political paid news” first came to notice during the 2009 general elections, and thereafter, during the elec! tions to the Assemblies of various States.

Many media organisations, irrespective of the volume of their businesses and their profitability, were found “selling” news space after arriving at an “understanding” with politicians and representatives of corporate entities that were advertisers. Space in pub! lications and airtime on television were oc! cupied by advertisements that were disguised as “news”. In some cases, candi! dates who did not go along with such prac! tices have been denied coverage.

Thus, sections of the Indian media have willy!nilly become participants and players 48 | Interface | July 2015

in practices that contribute to the growing use of money power in politics, thereby un! dermining democratic processes and norms, while hypocritically occupying a high moral ground. Several veteran journalists, including the late Prabhash Joshi, Ajit Bhattacharjea, B.G. Verghese and Kuldip Nayar, wanted the Press Council of India to apply its mind on the issue and come up with suggestions on how the phenomenon of ‘paid news’ could be curbed.

Press Council of India defines ‘paid news’ as any news or analysis appearing in any medium "print or electronic# for a price in cash or kind as consideration. ‘Paid news’ is a complex phenomenon and has acquired different forms over the last six decades. It ranges from gifts on various occasions and foreign and domestic junkets to monetary and non!monetary benefits, besides direct payment of money. Another form of ‘paid news’ was brought to the notice of the Press Council of India by the Securities and Ex! change Board of India "SEBI#. This is in the form of “private treaties” between media or! ganisations and corporate entities. A private

‘Paid News’ -- Forms, Causes and Solutions

treaty is a formal agreement between the media company and another non!media company in which the latter transfers some of its shares to the former in lieu of adver! tisement space and favourable coverage.

The election!time ‘paid news’ phenome! non has three dimensions. One, the reader or the viewer does not get a correct picture of the personality or performance of the can! didates in the election. This destroys the very essence of the democracy. Two, the con! testing candidates perhaps do not show the expense on ‘paid news’ in their election ex! pense account, thereby violating the Con! duct of Election Rules, 1961, framed by the Election Commission of India under the Representation of the People Act, 1951.

Third, those newspapers and television channels that received money in cash but do not disclose it in their official statements of accounts will have violated the Companies Act, 1956, as well as the Income Tax Act, 1961, besides other laws.

The payments and receipts for election! time ‘paid news’ is a clandestine operation and has become widespread and organised as advertising agencies, public relations firms, politicians, journalists, managers and owners of some media companies are believed to be involved in it. It, therefore, is not easy to find clinching evidence that pins responsi! bility on individuals, parties or organisations.

However, a number of persons including members of the Sub!Committee setup by the Press Council have collected a large vol! ume of circumstantial evidence, which indi! cates that monetary consideration was exchanged for favourable coverage, report! ing and telecasting.

According to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology, even though there have been reports of nexus between media professionals, corpo! rate lobbyists and politicians, and of ‘paid news’ in the media, the most cited instances

are from the 2009 general elections; Assem! bly elections of Maharashtra, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab and Bihar, the most recent being Assembly elections held in De! cember, 2012. The PCI’s fact!finding team on Gujarat election "2012# found that at least 444 suspected cases of ‘paid news’ were re! ported in Gujarat and that soon after the conclusion of the second phase of polling on 17 December 2012, 126 confirmed cases of ‘paid news’ were identified, with 61 candi! dates in poll fray admitting to have paid for such news in electronic and print media.

However, according to the District!level Media Certification and Monitoring Com! mittees "MCMCs#, as per their submission to the Ministry, 495 suspected cases of ‘paid news’ were reported in Gujarat of which the 414 were confirmed cases.

According to Press Council of India "PCI#, ‘paid news’ has acquired newer forms in addition to the forms known over last six decades. A few stakeholders have cited ex! amples of award ceremonies being spon! sored by some media houses wherein industrialists / professionals / personalities who are the sponsors / regular advertisers for their media houses are awarded and this is a regular phenomenon.

Highlighting another manifestation of this malpractice, former Chief Election Commissioner, T. K. Krishnamurthy, in his memorandum submitted to the Parliamen! tary Standing Committee "PSC#, stated: ‘Paid news’ is only one aspect of the prob! lem. We have had a few cases where the jour! nalists blackmail the contesting candidates stating that if they are not properly re! warded monetarily or otherwise, they would boycott publishing about them or deliber! ately spread news against them. Here, there is no payment as such, but it is vindictive ac! tion for non!payment. It would be very dif! ficult to prove the offence here, unless there is evidence of the blackmail. This seems to Interface | July 2015 | 49

Press Council of India / Parliamentary Standing Committee

be more prevalent in regional papers.”

Another facet of this phenomenon has been cited in the PCI’s Sub!Committee Re! port on Gujarat elections, submitted to the PSC. “Mr. Deepak Rajani of Aajkal daily, an eveninger of Rajkot, was in a denial mode about ‘paid news’ and said his paper was car! rying a lot of items out of personal relation! ship, which is very significant in the Gujarat social set!up. He said his own brother was contesting from Rajkot and asked how he could expect money from his brother.”

When the PSC sought to know whether this instance falls under ‘paid news’, PCI in their written reply stated: “Since the newspaper itself had admitted carrying lot of news items out of personal relationship, this prima facie falls under ‘paid news’.”

Not just an election issue ‘Paid news’ is not just an election!time phe! nomenon, according to veteran journalist P. Sainath. He said in his submission to the PSC: “Non!election transactions include suppression of major scams in sections of the media that have access to the facts $ a prac! tice that entrenches extortion, bribery and blackmail, or even media!corporate!political collusion. These sometimes burst out into the open, as in the CoalGate scam. But non! election ‘paid news’ also involves very large transactions that draw far less attention. The largest English newspaper in the country ran full pages of ‘news’ in multiple editions. The same, identical full pages of ‘news’ and fea! tures also appeared as ‘advertisements’ at an! other time and date in the very same newspaper.”

He continued: “Non!election transactions are obviously more prolific. The launching and marketing of new products happens around the year. ‘Paid news’ in the media often works these into “packages”. For in!

50 | Interface | July 2015

stance, Company X is set to launch a new car. From days in advance “mood pieces” or “colour pieces” on the vehicle begin to ap! pear under the bylines of regular, bonafide journalists and photographers. Around the time of the launch, the car pops up, seem! ingly by coincidence, during the news bul! letins of a channel or on the news pages of a major daily. This is also at its most visible during the launch period of major Bollywood films "whose budgets include buying both media space and favourable reviews#. In one case, the hero and heroine of a film then just hitting the theatres "‘Bunty Aur Bubbly’# ap! peared as anchors reading the news on a par! ticular channel.”

Further, he said: “The journalists and pho! tographers merely do what they’re told, sometimes willingly, often not. The ‘paid news’ scandal of 2009 burst out into the open in part because several journalists working within such media, disgusted at the debasement of their role, acted as whistle! blowers. There are however, also willing par! ticipants amongst some sections of journalists. Often these are very high!profile, high!ranking ones who may not even have paused to consider the nature of the activity they are undertaking. What is astonishing though, is the conspiracy of silence within the media "and their corporate backers# over the cancer of ‘paid news’. Every other sector or institution "including Parliament# has de! bated the issue vigorously. In the media there is silence. Just a handful of publications have ventured into that terrain at all. There are a large number of publications that have not carried a single word on ‘paid news’, a large number of channels that won’t touch the issue. In itself, that is a clear indicator of how compromised the media has been, how widespread the cancer is. It should be men! tioned that there are journalists, usually sen! ior ones at “executive level” positions in their organisations, who have gone along with and

‘Paid News’ -- Forms, Causes and Solutions

are okay with the phenomenon. The Zee! Jindal scandal is not a stray or isolated exam! ple. There are some senior journalists $ who seem to me to be journalists no longer, but corporate executives $ who have played an active role in the spread of this practice.

Some of these do so for personal gain. Some actually believe it is a simple matter of space! selling, necessary for survival and profit. It also means that when Parliament discusses any issue affecting the interests of the cor! porate media $ say a Broadcasting Bill $ the public will be kept in the dark about the real nature of the debate. They will know only what these dominant media allow them to know.”

Revealing another dimension of the non! election transaction of ‘paid news’, the Edi! tors Guild of India, submitted thus: “We have had meetings with the then Chairman of the SEBI which regulates all listed com! panies in the stock exchanges. SEBI wanted to discuss the issue with the editors. SEBI started looking at whether TV anchors are influencing the stock market with their cov! erage. So, there is a move by SEBI to address the financial side of the problem.”

Secretary, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, said: “There is greater empha! sis on the business aspect of the media per! haps vis!à!vis the more public spirited venture that it was considered to be in the past. This certainly seems to be an important aspect of why this phenomenon of ‘paid news’ has become more pronounced of late.”

Citing a non!election instance, the Presi! dent of Akhil Bhartiya Grahak Panchayat "ABGP# submitted as under: “As regards business, you know everybody wants to get his product popularised. But if he gives that in an advertisement, people do not believe it. If it is presented as news, an editorial or as a talk, people start believing it. %Take& the case of Munir Khan. There was an interview going on for so many weeks on a television

channel, where he was selling his products in his talk with a famous actress. He got so popular that he gained in business. He pop! ularised a potion and collected a huge amounts of money. When I filed an RTI, by that time, there were 100 FIRs filed against him but he ran away with all the amount. So, this is what happens in the case of ‘paid news’ when it is presented not as an adver! tisement but as an editorial or a talk.”

Complexities involved in ‘paid news’ On the issue of proving the menace, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting says, “Though there is a well!established pro! cedure to take action for such violations, the problem is to establish the violation per se.

There are so many different ways which can be adopted towards obliging the channels fi! nancially that it is extremely difficult to es! tablish a violation in this regard.”

Another former Chief Election Commis! sioner, N. Gopalaswami, in his memoran! dum submitted to the PSC stated: “Some of the Election Observers also brought to the notice of the Commission that advertise! ments camouflaged as news have been no! ticed in the vernacular press. Though they carried the legend ‘ADVT’ at the end, it was in such a small font that, unless one looked at it carefully, it would not be noticed easily, and was thus intended to mislead the reader to treat the item as “news”. In the case of vi! sual media, things are more complicated and detection will be more difficult. A channel may simply ignore a contesting candidate if he has not “paid” and this is more difficult to pin down as a malpractice by the author! ities. Further, as the visual media coverage is transient in nature, malpractice indulged in by visual media may escape detection. The visual media can resort to campaigning for a candidate by putting the ‘paid news’ as a Interface | July 2015 | 51

Press Council of India / Parliamentary Standing Committee

scrolling text which, being more transient becomes more difficult to pin down the vi! suals.”

He continued: “Further complications could arise because the transactions could well be in cash, leaving little by way of trail / evidence. But as detection is very difficult, unless the candidates leave trails, that provi! sion may prove ineffective in curbing the menace. The candidates and the errant media could resort to more sophisticated methods to throw the scent off any investi! gation by not repeating the mistakes made in the past $ the same text appearing in many newspapers; articles proclaiming the victory of one candidate in the front page and his rival in the last page; writing of the legend ‘ADVT’ even in the smallest of font sizes, etc., and thus making it difficult to catch the wrong doings.”

Commenting on the issue of “circumstan! tial evidence”, Prasar Bharati stated that the practice of paid news could be detected by an analysis of the coverage pattern. If any unusual coverage pattern is noticed, a regu! lating body should immediately institute an inquiry. Explaining it further, the CEO, Prasar Bharati, in his presentation before the PSC, stated: “I can suggest remedy straight away. Only, the problem is capturing and proving. This menace that has been pointed out has to be contained through some method. But it is very slippery. It is very dif! ficult to catch unless there is some sting op! eration. How do you prove that ten days ago something was broadcast?”

He continued: “%Stored television pro! gramming& can be kept for one month. Stor! age is not a problem. With cloud computing, you can send it to the satellite and store im! mense amount. The question is: how do you retrieve it? You need a retrieval mechanism before you put in storage. This is where the difficulty arises. If ‘X’ channel is put into storage, when I want to retrieve it, I can re!

52 | Interface | July 2015

trieve only the data. When I put into stor! age, it has to be done through classification and cataloguing. That is where difficulty comes in and we would submit that an inde! pendent investigation authority in which the Press as it exists, the electronic media as it exists can also have a role. We have also been talking of self!regulation all through. All we are saying is, self!regulation cannot be left open!ended, but has to be fructified within a time. So, we have built up this Advertising Code and we also have the Governing Prin! ciples. The question is, who executes it?

That is where the catch lies. Is there any fear of the law? Who pays the amount? The ac! counts must be open to inspection. That is the first thing.”

On the complexities involved in the men! ace, the PCI Sub!Committee in its Report on Paid News relating to 2009 General Elec! tions said: “The problem is not in defining what ‘paid news’ is but in trying to establish that money has changed hands, that a pay! ment has been made by a candidate who has stood for elections or his political party or his representative or associate to a represen! tative of a media company that has pub! lished or broadcast the so!called ‘news’ in favour of the concerned candidate. Since such payments are invariably made in a clan! destine or illegal manner, in the form of hard cash and not by cheque, and since official records "in the form of receipts or bills / in! voices# are deliberately not kept or recorded in the concerned media company’s balance sheet or statements of account, the only way such transactions can be unearthed if search! and!seizure raids are conducted by the con! cerned law!enforcing authorities, including officials of the Income Tax Department or members of the police force. Though the phenomenon of widespread practice of ‘paid news’ has been verbally confirmed and vin! dicated by politicians and campaign man! agers of political parties, there is no

‘Paid News’ -- Forms, Causes and Solutions

recorded documentation that would firmly establish that there has been exchange of money between media houses/advertisement agents/journalists and politicians/political parties. The problem in establishing the practice of ‘paid news’ is simply one of ob! taining hard proof or conclusive evidence.

With one notable exception "Parcha Ko! danda Rama Rao of the Loksatta Party in Andhra Pradesh#, no complainant has been able to provide the Press Council of India with documents as proof of money having been paid to carry positive news. Even the ‘rate cards’ that had been formulated by media houses and had been passing around during elections were just typed sheets of paper which carried nothing on it to attrib! ute it to a newspaper/television news chan! nel that had put it together nor anything that could be attributed to a journalist/ad! vertisement agent.”

The Committee asked PCI whether a methodology could be developed to prove ‘paid news’ cases. PCI’s reply was: “It is for the Ministry to consider. So far as Press Council is concerned, similar reports by dif! ferent newspapers would lead to circumstan! tial evidence. However, no straitjacket methodology is possible. It can be studied on a case!to!case basis.”

Responding to the same query, the Min! istry endorsed the view of PCI. Asked fur! ther about their views on considering circumstantial evidence as a strong basis for taking action against the guilty, it said: “On receipt of complaints, the question of cir! cumstantial evidence as the basis for action in respect of a particular instance would be looked into by the respective agency, i.e., PCI in respect of complaints of paid news in the print media and Inter!Ministerial Com! mittee "IMC# in respect of content on Satel! lite TV channels.”

Causes of paid news On the factors that lead to ‘paid news’, PCI Sub!Committee Report said: “Proliferation of the ‘paid news’ phenomenon can be re! lated directly to the diminution of the role and the status of editors in media organisa! tions and the erosion of the freedom enjoyed by journalists under the Working Journalists Act. As more and more senior journalists chose to work with their employers under fixed term contracts, they opted out of the protection that was accorded to them under the provisions of the Act. Until the 1970s and the 1980s, many editors would not brook any ‘interference’ from the manage! ment of the company they would be em! ployed by $ the number of such editors started dwindling as more and more senior journalists started acceding to every whim of their managers and employers instead of their editors. With managers playing a more influential role in the selection and presen! tation of news, it was not surprising that the importance of the news started getting de! termined by the revenues that would be gen! erated for the media company.”

In this regard, Y.C. Halan, a former PCI Member, submitted: “The credibility of the editorial is greater than the advertisement.

Therefore, it was realised by the parties that if anything is written in their favour as an ed! itorial item, it would have more credibility and people would believe that. …The insti! tution of editor has collapsed… Unfortu! nately the owners are also editors. Therefore, those who control the newspapers, those who own the newspapers also control the news. Therefore, the agreement between the election candidates and the owners of the newspapers became easier. That is how the paid news phenomenon developed.”

On this issue, senior journalist P. Sainath

Interface | July 2015 | 53

Press Council of India / Parliamentary Standing Committee

said in his memorandum to the Committee: “One point made repeatedly $ and com! pletely kept out of the media $ was this: the rise of Paid News was also made possible by the decline of the independence of the jour! nalist. That decline had strong origins in the destruction of journalists unions on the 1980s and 1990s, and in the imposition of the contract system of employment on jour! nalists now in vogue across most of the media spectrum with a few honourable ex! ceptions. This is a most valid and relevant point. In earlier times, a victimised journalist could fall back on the support and energy of his / her peers and fight it out with the help of his / her union. Legal recourse under the Working Journalists Act was also more com! mon and effective. The active smashing of the unions by managements ! who then im! posed a one!year or 11!month contract sys! tem of employment amputated the independence of the journalist.”

Elaborating the circumstances leading to ‘paid news’, the Prasar Bharati in a written reply submitted: “From the last decade of the 20th century, changes in norms became palpable. Media had begun to be seen more as any other business than a mission. Many owners started doubling as editors!in!chief themselves. While payment and facilities of journalists improved, they soon lost their professional pride and have begun behaving like any other employee with responsibility towards their bosses rather than the public.

In earlier times, field reporters and editorial staff were required to keep their hands off the marketing side and there was clear divid! ing line between the two. Gradually, this di! viding line vanished and journalists soon begun to be indistinguishable from market! ing and sales people.”

PCI, in another Sub!Committee Report titled ‘Election Coverage Monitoring Com! mittee on Paid News related to Gujarat Elec! tion, 2012’, said: “Some of the editors and 54 | Interface | July 2015

journalists admitted that ‘paid news’ con! tract deals are signed at the top level and all they get are time!to!time ‘instructions’ to carry a particular news item or photograph.

However, they claimed that the phenome! non of ‘paid news’ in Gujarat election had come down significantly as compared to the previous elections in the State. They cited two reasons: one, the reluctance of the na! tional!level political parties to indulge in ‘paid news’, and two, the strict vigil of the Election Commission.”

Measures to tackle ‘paid news’ With regard to regulating the menace of ‘paid news’, some experts / stakeholders have advocated state involvement whereas others have recommended self!regulation or multi! tier regulation that includes ombudsman and self!regulation as first tier followed by a body / authority / organisation with legal / statu! tory backing or limited external regulation at second tier.

The Secretary, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, said in his submission to the PSC: “It would be very necessary and very important for the Committee to have discussions with a wide section of the peo! ple, journalists who have written on the sub! ject, representatives of Editors Guild and perhaps the Election Commission of India, the Press Council, and SEBI. It is very nec! essary to build a strong public opinion, which would ultimately be the answer.

Whatever may be the penal provision that we prescribe, if there is a general feeling among the people at large that this is some! thing which is diluting their rights for free flow of information and they are being fed information which is not correct, I think that would perhaps be the best antidote in the long!run.”

On the efficacy of self!regulation, the

‘Paid News’ -- Forms, Causes and Solutions

Chief Executive Officer of Prasar Bharati said: “The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has been working on this for a very long time and, in fact, a Draft Bill has been circulated to the stakeholders, a num! ber of meetings were held by the Minister of Information and Broadcasting but a final po! sition has not yet emerged. The consultation between the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and the Ministry of Law and stakeholders has been going on for at least five years now for forming an independent regulatory authority to regulate all these things and there is always a debate, the media people come and it is a very tricky sit! uation. They say that they have their own Code of Conduct though practically that is not seen in everyday functioning of the pri! vate channels and the fine line between ad! vertisement, paid news and news has become quite blurred and it is becoming more and more blurred every day.”

A written memorandum from the Associ! ation for Democratic Reforms and Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangthan stated that media in India is essentially self!regulated by an indus! try body, the Editors Guild of India and a statutory body, the Press Council of India which is ineffectual because it has no real powers and also because of its constitution.

It inter alia quoted an eminent Chief Edi!

tor’s speech delivered to media professionals as below: “A year ago, in the Editors Guild, we asked editors to take a pledge $ a pledge somewhere that they should be ready, at least in their own individual capacity, to re! sist proprietors who will want ‘paid news’ without norms of disclosure. We got only about 18!20 editors answering and giving that pledge. A majority haven’t done so. It required the Election Commission to inter! vene. We could have a code of conduct, we could devise it but are editors going to be willing to adhere to that code of conduct?”

On the issue of regulation, the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting stated that the media should be self!regulated. Further, it stated: “In the democratic structure of the country, freedom of speech and expression is one of the fundamental rights. The free! dom of press in India flows from this right.

The media, while reporting should not be under any compulsion. In this scenario, media should convey correct and fair infor! mation to the people. The instance that has been brought out in Radia tapes is extremely disturbing. However, the Ministry feels that it is an aberration. The Parliament has passed the Press Council Act, 1978, which provides for regulation of the media by its peers.”

Compiled by B. Ramakrishna

Interface | July 2015 | 55

The Making of a Prime Minister: A Case Study of Narendra Modi DR. M. RABINDRANATH

Abstract: The General elections 2014, saw a major change in the campiagn strategies adopted by all political parties, especially the Bharatiya Janata Party. The party which was in the Opposi! tion made some quick moves to announce Narendra Modi as its Prime Ministerial candi! date. The present article focuses on how Brand Modi was built through a combination of media, conceived, coordinated and executed by leading advertising professionals and others drawn from specialist fields. Digital communication, social media, mainstream media, out! door publicity, innovative hi!tech devised were deployed to woo the electorate,particularly the youth.

Key words: Netizens, Branding, Social Media Campaign, Political Advertising, Framing, Paid News, Promotion, Digital Media, Holographic Technology, Manufacture Consent.

JAMES Reston wrote in The New York Times "July 7, 1957# A health director… re! ported this week that a small mouse, which presumably had been watching television, at! tacked a little girl and her full grown cat ….

Both mouse and cat survived, and the inci! dent is recorded here as a reminder that things seem to be changing.

Marshall McLuhan said the “message of any medium or technology is the change of scale of pace or pattern that it introduces into human affairs”. He rightly said the medium is the message as it is the medium that shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action. As Mc Luhan predicted both the concepts of global village and medium is the message came true during the 2014 Parliamentary elections which saw Narendra Modi winning a massive majority. Never in the history of India, neti! zens experienced such a massive scale of campaign.

56 | Interface | July 2015

Manufactured consent During the run!up to the 2014 elections, the media gave consistent coverage to the Prime Ministerial candidate of BJP. In effect, the media set an agenda for the masses, “ manu! factured consent” discrediting the UPA led government for the series of scandals! 2G, Coalgate, CWG etc. Also, the “ills of the na! tion” were directly attributed to the 60!year rule of the Congress. The period witnessed the anti corruption movement by Anna Hazare, emergence of Arvind Kejriwal and the Aam Aadmi Party.

Journalist Palagummi Sainath wrote in his blog: “Seldom have so few, carried so much puffery, to so many, to benefit so few. Every! one will pay the price for the media’s em! brace of a campaign that fought a US!Presidential style election in a parliamen! tary democracy. Not least, the BJP which has subordinated itself to an individual… That

The Making of a Prime Minister

building of a cult around Narendra Modi was a propaganda triumph. But it worked because we are India’s most media!saturated electorate ever. Vast audiences left un! touched by "senior BJP Leader L.K.# Ad! vani’s rath yatra over 20 years ago, were drowned in the media wave of 2014”.

Professor Zoya Hasan, Professor of Polit! ical Science at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi rued the tone and tenor of Mr. Modi’s campaign in the media: “ the argu! ment that the media is uncritically present! ing is that Modi could steer the country out of the crisis by giving a strong leadership….

I think some media houses have gone along with the argument that the ten years of UPA rule is a wasted decade and further we have been told that nothing has happened in the last 60 years which is why the voters must give Mr. Narendra Modi at least 16 months to transform India. As a social scientist I find this very troubling because in one stroke the whole past has been demolished and what is surprising is that none of this has really been challenged and in fact, the media has lent credence by simply repeating this perversion of our contemporary history”.

Prof Sudha Pai, Professor, JNU, “observed that the media coverage was not done through totalitarian means or censorship.

Highlighting the nexus between the govern! ment, the media and business houses, she wondered if the media had indeed become so powerful as to ‘manufacture consent’ in the manner Noam Chomsky talked about.

She said: … the media permits, indeed it en! courages, spirited debates, criticism, dissent, but these are largely within the system of pre!supposition and principles that consti! tute an elite consensus. So the public is ex! posed to powerful persuasive messages from above… political leaders have also gained enormous power over the political system by using the media to generate support among the people during the elections”.

Brand Modi The BJP, in its efforts to project Narendra Modi, as a decision maker, gave a new spin to promotion. There are different ways to promote a person in different areas of media. For Modi’s campaign programme it was well planned and the road map was sci! entifically designed by professionals. They established channels of communication, gen! erating brand image. Promoters used social media, internet campaigns, special occa! sions, endorsements, newspapers, magazines and television to campaign for Modi. They informed the likely benefits if people voted for him and the change he can usher in.

Further, large group to public meetings, interaction and media interviews, estab! lished connections that add another dimen! sion There was a blitzkrieg of advertisements! outdoor, bill boards, transit points, hoardings, newspapers, magazines, television, radio, mobile and digital in multi languages in every nook and corner of the country.

In his election speeches Modi repeatedly said that he wanted an efficient government.

He read the voters’ minds. The BJP con! cluded that economy and corruption held the key to the elections in 2014. Modi was marketed as a ‘brand’, and the elections were successfully converted into an Ameri! can!style presidential contest, in which per! sonalities mattered more than policies and programmes. He understood the minds of millions of voters carefully and worked care! fully to position himself with modern politi! cian outlook.

Modi built a separate community for him! self and brand loyalty. The slogan was ‘Abki bar Modi Sarkar’ and Modi was the focus. Another slogan was “ache din aane wale hai” "good days lie ahead#.

‘Chai pe charcha’ programmes were held across 24 states in several rounds and, inter!

Interface | July 2015 | 57

Rabindranath

nationally, across five locations in 15 coun! tries involving some 10 lakh people Srinivasan Jain, journalist at NDTV, pointed out “that while Mr Modi used to claim that the mainstream media would shun him and was extremely hostile to him, he went about creating a “parallel” public re! lations blitz "led by international agencies like APCO Worldwide# deploying methods very few contemporary Indian politicians have used to create a perception of his pop! ularity “which ultimately began to influence the mainstream media”.

Sam Balsara of Public Relations firm, Madison World assisted the advertising strategy and said that it was the most in! tense campaigns. Oglivy and Mather, headed by. Piyush Pandy said that every night more than hundred potential print ad! vertising copies were prepared. For televi! sion more than 230 commercial were broadcasted in multi languages. As his image etched among the public, the campaigners tried to make him into a brand image and the approval ratings were higher than the BJP. Then the campaigners decided to make him BRAND MODI. Kamlesh Singh said, “Indian politics will never be the same. There was no other brand as big, as national as Mr. Modi. Modi mes! sage was straight and clear. What you see is what you will get. The goal post has been shifted. We are entering into Presidential system of election while staying in parlia! mentary type of system. He sold himself as Prime Minister. BJP directly put Narendra Modi on the table but Congress did not put Mr. Rahul on the table. ” Adman and author Santosh Desai said “A campaign lends itself to parody when it is pushed to this degree. Advertising normally seeps into the back of your mind and stays there. But when it crosses a certain thresh! old, it begs for a reaction and this is one such instance.”

58 | Interface | July 2015

Digital communication Digital media is a modern way of brand image positioning among the public as it re! leases news, information and advertising from the technological limits of print and broadcast infrastructures.

Hiren Joshi, former OSD to M0di, headed the digital plan, design and commu! nication. Modi chose Musion team for de! sign and manage the holographic address.

Statistics show that Modi could contact around 100 million voters in more than 1500 places by using this technology. A staggering 4000 stage events with 3 D life size holo! gram were projected on stages with 400 satellite dishes; 5,500 metres of trusses, 1,300 lights; 500 audio speakers; 200 sound mixers and power amps; and 14,000 metres of speaker and power cables.

Bhautik Sheth, a management faculty in Surat, on the building of the Modi brand said: “The 2014 election campaign would go down in history as the first one where digital crowd sourcing played a key role in shaping speeches.”

Framing of Modi Modi’s campaigns captured the attention of millions of social media users including the youth He crafted his own narrative, trans! forming from pracharak with no administra! tive experience to a Chief Minister He carefully positioned and framed himself in the minds of the voters.

The Unique Selling Proposition "USP# of the BJP was the the Gujarat Model of De! velopment that is basically pro!business and industry!driven development. He positioned himself that he will stick up to his promises and convinced voters with the Gujarat model of development.

A London based lawyer played a crucial role in managing the things meticulously in

The Making of a Prime Minister

the mainstream media. Piyush Pande and Prasoon Joshi noted advertising profession! als took charge of media planning and scheduling. The positioning and framing task was assigned to Madison a marketing communication agency. Prashant Kishore, a statistics expert and former UN mission chief in Africa worked for Modi for three years before the elections as a communica! tion strategist. He took charge of the statis! tical analysis.

Three senior bureaucrats, operated out of Delhi monitored the coordination and ad! ministration of the campaigns.

abroad tracked political messages in the so! cial media. 13 million people made 75 million interactions regarding Narendra Modi. The Centre for Media Studies, New Delhi, found that Modi’s campaign took up a third of the prime time on television news channels in March and April 2014 , and this proportion crossed the half!way mark in the first ten days of May. Modi got seven times more cov! erage than Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi and three times more than Arvind Kejriwal of the Aam Aadmi Party!and much of the coverage given to the last two men! tioned were negative.

Social Media

References

The social media allowed large amounts of information about Modi campaign pictures, statements and emotional outbursts and the content reached millions. Virtual campaigns and virtual feel of the youth made the differ! ence in the elections for Modi.

According to Facebook figures, 13 million people made 75 million interactions regard! ing Narendra Modi. These interactions in! clude posts, comments, shares, and likes.

During the election, Narendra Modi became the second most liked politician on Face! book behind the US President Barack Obama.

In April 2013, the Internet and Mobile As! sociation of India "IAMAI# and the Mum! bai!based Iris Knowledge Foundation argued that users of Facebook would exert ‘tremen! dous influence’ on the outcome of the elec! tions in 160 out of the 543 Lok Sabha constituencies in the country.

Facebook claims that it has over 93 mil! lion users in India and Twitter claims it has an estimated 33 million accounts in the coun! try. Modi is supposed to have over 5 million followers on Twitter against Mr. Kejriwal’s 2 million.

Several academic researchers in India and

Amy Kazmin," May 2014# Narendra Modi rode wave of money to Indian victory, New Delhi.

Amy Kazmin, "May 2014# BJP leader swept to power on expensive high!tech campaign, New Delhi.

BJP: "11 May, 2014#, Modi travelled over 3 lakh kms during his campaign: Press Trust of India, New Delhi.

Dharmendra Kumar Singh, "May 2014#.Explaining the four quakes, New Delhi.

Gyanesh Kudaisya "23 June, 2014 # Making History in the heartland, India Today.

Jayanata Sarkar, "15 June, 2014# He has invited himself to the big party, now would like to set its menu, Business Economics, Kolkatta.

Jayati Ghosh ," 17 May, 2014# A bullying sort of win, New Delhi.

Kamlesh Singh, "22 May, 2014# Elections 2014: Modi victory is not about brand or marketing, but lack of competition, New Delhi.

Kaveree Bamzai,"23 June, 2014#. Rough cut!

His own best story teller, India Today, New Delhi.

Interface | July 2015 | 59

Rabindranath Marshall Mc Luhan "1964# Understanding Media: The Extension of Man, Routledge Publications, India.

Marshall Mc Luhan "1967# Medium is the Message, Routledge Publications, India.

Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, "30 June, 2014# Mass media and the Modi ‘wave’, New Delhi.

Ramprasad Goswami, "15 June, 2014# Economic thrust to spearhead the political agenda in the BJP’s new game plan, Business Economics, Kolkatta.

S.A. Chunawalla "2011# Foundations of Advertising!Theory and Practice, Himalaya Publishing House, Mumbai.

Sagarika Ghose,"14 May,2014# Citizen Media lost out to star!struck media, Hindustan Times, New Delhi.

Sangeeta Mahapatra,"15 June, 2014# Reform and Revival: The Performing Cabinet, Business Economics, Kolkata.

60 | Interface | July 2015

Surabhi Malik, "16 April, 2014# Narendra Modi interview was 'paid news', alleges Congress complaint, PTI: New Delhi.

Tushar K Mahanti, "15 June, 2014# Wish!list before new the PM, Business Economics, Kolkatta.

William Wells & John Burnett & Sandra Moriarty "2002# Advertising!Principles & Practices, Prentice Hall of India, Private Ltd, New Delhi.

About the author Dr.M.Rabindranath is Associate Professor and Dean, School of Journalism Mass com! munication and New Media Central Univer! sity of Himachal Pradesh, Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh.

Email: mrabindra2002@yahoo.co.in

BOOK REVIEW Reflections on Contemporary India, by Shekhar Dutt, Har-Anand Publications Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi. Pages 163; Rs. 495.

PROF. C.K. SARDANA

World!renowned philosopher!statesman, Chanakya said centuries ago, “We should not fret for what is past nor should we be anx! ious about the future; men of discernment deal only with the present moment.” This quote is aptly applicable to the title of the volume under review.

The book highlights the pluses of Indian youth with matchless potential. Youth’s po! tential together with rich natural and human resources, which the country possesses, au! gurs well with India emerging as a super power soon. The volume stands out from the rest of the literature. It is a must!read for dis! cerning students, teachers, and decision! makers. The book makes for an interesting reading and gives insights into the realities of contemporary India.

Shekhar Dutt, the author, brings in his ac! cumulated knowledge from the Army and the government sector, and deals with a number of developmental issues with an open and creative mind. In the first chapter, he says, “We live in a time of accelerating globalization, mounting information, grow! ing hegemony of science and technology, and clash of civilizations.” Absolutely true. He adds: “Our times call for new ways of learn! ing and thinking in school, business and pro! fessions.” Absolutely true.

He, then, highlights the ‘minds’ sourcing it to the famous book on education titled Five Minds For the Future by Howard Gard! ner. These are: Disciplinary Mind, Synthe! sizing Mind, Creative Mind, Respectful Mind and Ethical Mind. What is required for taking the country forward is under! standing their importance and application by the youth in letter and spirit.

Dutt does an intelligent and in!depth ex! amination of the phenomenon of globaliza! tion and the possible erosion of human values. Essays dwell on the accerating pace of discovery, application of new technologies and an increasingly competitive global envi! ronment which pose challenges for India. He is very candid and optimistic about the fu! ture of the country.

Communication Revolution, Education for Globalization, Management Principles, Agriculture, Performance Management, Ap! plied Mathematics and Humanities, Water and Sustainable Development, Turning Cri! sis into Opportunity, The Role of Gover! nance and Reform, Police Reforms and Current Economic Scenario are some of the issues covered in the book.

Analysing the changing and changed role of Civil Services, Dutt calls for restoring the credibility of the civil servants that has been lost for a variety of reasons and circum! stances. The chapter on agriculture covers Green Revolution, Yellow Revolution, White Revolution and Blue Revolution. This makes for a focused reading.

The sum of all that Shekhar Dutt says in the book is contained in his exhortation to the youth as follows: “All of us are gifted with a lot of creative potential. But it lies deep and in a latent state. Just as the sculptor has to chip away some stone with his chisel to release the statue hidden in a block of stone, we have to chip away some of the conven! tional thinking to release our creative poten! tial... If you continue to do what you have been doing, you will continue to get only that you have been getting. So, always dream big. A big dream mixed with confidence, per! sistence and massive faith can make life the most wonderful adventure you have ever ex! perienced.”

Shekhar Dutt has done a commendable job, nay, service to Mother India through his extremely well!written volume.

The author is Editor, ‘Upkram’ and General Manager (Retd.), BHEL, New Delhi.

Interface | July 2015 | 61

INTERFACE

interface Half-yearly Research Journal ~ July 2015

Vol. 33 No. 1 ISSN 2231-0274

ELECTIONS & MEDIA

elections & media a special issue

JULY 2015

Department of Communication & Journalism (Centre for Advanced Study) University College of Arts & Social Sciences Osmania University, Hyderabad 500 007 Telangana, INDIA