Role Of Social Media In 2019 Indian Elections
India is the world’s largest democracy where people elect their leaders to formulate legislation and govern the nation. Here people cast their vote to select their leaders for local, state, and national assembly (parliament). Till now various political parties and their supported candidates used mass media and conventional media platform like newspaper and television for election campaign. However with the recent development in mobile connectivity and social media expansion in our daily life they are looking forward to use social media for their election campaign.
After recent development with 4g technology, Internet connectivity and usage has massively increased among Indian population. Rapidly India has turned into a digital society and of these users is within age grouping of 18 to 45 years old. They are quite technology savvy and frequently use social media to obtain news/information about their friend, relative, and various issues. Various political parties are taking advantage of social media to propagate their idea to common people.
From past couple of year various political parties are spreading their social messages through Facebook, Whatsapp, Twitter, Youtube and other social media platform. Most political parties spend millions of dollar for the ad campaign on social media. They are propagating their messages via carry catcher, Meme, viral video etc. They are also using social influencers and celebrities for their campaign. They also appoint their digital marketing manager, analyst and digital marketing associates for their campaigns and spend a hefty amount of money on them.
Unlike other mass media like News paper, Television, or Radio; social media gives opportunity to interact with potential voters. It helps these political parties to understand the mood and opinion of public. In few cases few digital marketing firm like “Cambridge Analytica” misused this platform and use usurer’s data to sway people’s opinion in election. They use Strategic Communications techniques to morph public’s opinion and deliver huge blow to the opposition party in election.
Even though social media is a great tool for political campaign but it also has another dark side, where few political parties use this media to spread hate speech and fake news in public. According to some whistle-blower the parent company of “Cambridge Analytica� may have worked with some Indian political parties in previous election. After observing both good and bad side of social media The Election Commission of India have decided to monitor social media campaign of the candidates closely; and take appropriate action if necessary.
Most political party understand the power of social media and they trying to use it to full swing in 2019 India election. For this reason 2019 Indian election has brought a huge opportunity for the digital marketing companies and people associated with them. They help various parties to propagate political narratives and discourse to the public. The social media is helping candidates to remain connected with the people of their constituency.
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