Political Communication on Social Media Platforms

Abstract

Prime Minister Narendra Modi claimed a landslide victory in the 2019 national election, with his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) winning 303 seats, comfortably beyond the 272-seat required for a majority in the Indian Lok Sabha (lower house of parliament). As has been the recent trend, the 2019 Indian election campaign was fought on social media apps and platforms. After the 2014 national election was named the ‘first social media election’ in India, it was predicted that WhatsApp, a messaging app owned by Facebook, would play a significant role in the 2019 election campaign (Rodrigues 2018). During the state elections in 2018–2019, WhatsApp was increasingly being used by BJP and various opposition parties to keep in touch with their constituents. In fact, a number of political parties set up data analytics departments to analyse voter data at district and booth levels to tailor their election campaigns, and almost all regional and national leaders were using FacebookLive to connect with voters. Although traditional factors such as caste- and religion-based candidate selection and voting patterns, and more contemporary issues of unemployment and farmers’ unrest were significant issues in the 2019 election campaign, it was the use of social media platforms as a communication tool for political campaigning that gained further ground for parties in India.