Elections and Social Media Cultures: Politics, Women and Visuals in West Bengal, India

Abstract

This qualitative research focuses on the online selves of women politicians in a specific linguistic and cultural context, West Bengal (WB) in India, by concentrating on both photographs and texts on social media. Empirically, it aims to understand party politics and visuals on social media through the lens of gender, during the 2021 Assembly election phase in WB. By using Luc Pauwels’ multi-modal framework, this study identifies how political parties depict women candidates and, in turn, how women themselves present themselves. It queries to what extent and how women candidates feature in the Facebook and Twitter activity of the four major political parties contesting the election in its campaign phase. It also interrogates how the visual political communication of these women candidates transgresses the boundaries between what is political and personal. Foregrounding identity construction through online spaces, it draws on epistemologies grounded in the socio-cultural context of South Asia to draw more attention to women in the field of digital social media studies.