Social Media Use by Political Parties in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh

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1 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, 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

2 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 However, Prime Minister, Naren! dramodi sparty had an accountwith about 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. 36 Interface July 2015

3 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 million as of Dec 31, Among all the Indian states, Maharashtra had the largest Internet subscribers at million, followed by few other states like Uttar Pradesh and so on. The united Andhra Pradesh had 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

4 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. Political party Conclusions Like on official party pages TDP 6,70,773 YSRCP 4,55,341 Loksatta 2,10,721 CPI M 37,620 TRS 25,612! Table:1 Political parties and number of likes on their official pages 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. 38 Interface July 2015

5 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: /General/A _19.pdf Indexoncensorship.org parties!use!social!media!garner!vote ia/socialmedia/socialmediahistory.htmlm Media multiples project for Mamekam by Government of AP stats!july!2014/ /internet!subscribers!india!govt! parliament!trai/1/ html State government project by Media multipliers Source: media!stats!july!2014/ standard.com/article/technology/mobile!an d!social!media!drive!regional!language! content! _1.html About the author Dr Anitha Kaluvoya is Head, Dept. of Communication & Journalism, St. Francis College for Women, Hyderabad, Telangana. Interface July