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Social Media and Political Campaigning in India

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Social Media and Political Campaigning in India 12/18/2017 Social Media and Political Campaigning in India RICHA YADAV UNIVERSITY OF SALFORD Acknowledgement This is a special occasion for me to be able to submit my thesis for the degree of MPhil. This has been a result of a lot of hard work over the last few years. Nevertheless, I would like to express my special thanks of gratitude to the people who helped me through this journey. First off, I would like to thank my supervisor Dr Stephen Ward for providing all the help and encouragement that I needed throughout my studies. Additionally, my parents and my brother for being there through ups and downs that I encountered. A special thanks is also due to my spiritual guide ‘Sadhguru’ to survive the emotional journey called life. Special thanks to my dear friends, Sally, Mary, Sara, Bai Bing and Rishikesh. 2 Abstract The concept of personalisation in politics has been well researched, where the candidate as an individual becomes more important to the electorate than the political party or affiliated policies. Personalisation as a concept has always existed in politics but, what is new is the mediation of newer communication technology. Henceforth, the candidate connects directly to the electorate through the new communication and networking technologies. The electorate was unsatisfied in the past with unidirectional communication through traditional media (TV, newspaper) that did not allow them to ask questions or to share their own opinion. The online social media allowed this interaction, and therefore the political candidates used this available popular space for self- promotion. This research looks at the ways in which online social media has affected the phenomenon of personalisation by studying the 2014 general elections in India. The data was collected through, semi- structured personal interviews with political leaders and their social media strategy team, while also studying their Twitter account feed over a period before the elections in 2014. The results show that for the first time in the history of Indian general election, political leaders used social media channels such as Twitter successfully towards ‘personalisation’ in the political campaign. Although, the proportion of active social media users among the voting population was relatively small, this group of voters had significant influence over the opinions of those who were not online, just by the power of information and connectivity. The results of this study will increase the understanding of the effect of social media in political campaigning, and also help new studies in understanding social media as a space, and the strategies that can be used especially by individuals and organisations to reach their target audience. 3 Table of Contents Acknowledgement ........................................................................................................... 1 Abstract .......................................................................................................................... 3 List of Figures .................................................................................................................. 7 List of Tables ................................................................................................................... 8 Chapter 1: Introduction .............................................................................................. 9 Chapter 2: The Personalisation of Politics ........................................................................13 2.1 The concept of personalisation ................................................................................... 13 2.2 Privatisation, celebritisation and individualisation ...................................................... 14 2.3 Personalisation in Politics: New or Old? ...................................................................... 19 2.4 Social media and personalisation in politics ................................................................ 22 2.5 Political leaders and Social Media strategy ................................................................. 27 2.6 The power of image ................................................................................................... 28 2.7 Power to Voters ......................................................................................................... 31 2.8 More Control to Politicians and Safety from Journalistic Criticism ............................... 32 Conclusions ........................................................................................................................... 33 Chapter 3: Leadership and Personalised Politics in the Indian Context .............................34 3.1 Role and Influence of political leaders in Indian Politics .............................................. 35 3.2 Politics and democracy in India .................................................................................. 36 3.3 Congress’s sole stronghold over Indian Politics ........................................................... 41 3.4 Leaders of influence ................................................................................................... 44 3.5 Regional and dynasty politics in India ......................................................................... 45 4 3.6 Personalised Campaigning in Indian Politics ................................................................ 50 3.7 Personalisation and the Growth of Social media in India ............................................. 54 3.8 The growth of internet and social media in India ........................................................ 59 3.8.1 Society Online .......................................................................................................... 60 3.9 India general elections 2014 ....................................................................................... 64 Conclusions ........................................................................................................................... 69 Chapter 4: Methodology............................................................................................70 4.1 Rationale for research approach ................................................................................. 70 4.2 Research strategy ...................................................................................................... 72 4.3 Why Twitter? ............................................................................................................. 73 4.4 Details of research sample ......................................................................................... 74 4.5 Research Method ....................................................................................................... 85 4.6 Limitations of the qualitative method ......................................................................... 87 4.7 Data collection method and tools ............................................................................... 88 4.8 Twitter data collection method .................................................................................. 92 4.9 Data analysis ............................................................................................................. 92 4.10 Ethical considerations ................................................................................................ 93 4.11 Research Limitations .................................................................................................. 95 Chapter. 5 Social Media, Personalisation & Campaign Logic in Indian Politics: The 2015 Elections .........................................................................................................................98 5.1 The growth and importance of social media in campaigning ........................................ 99 5.1.1 Content creation ........................................................................................................... 102 5.1.2 Content consumption ................................................................................................... 112 5.2 Strategy ................................................................................................................... 116 5.2.1 Individualisation ............................................................................................................ 117 5 5.2.2 Privatisation .................................................................................................................. 125 5.2.3 Amplification ................................................................................................................. 140 5.2.4 Immunity from mainstream media............................................................................... 141 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 143 Chapter 6: Conclusions ............................................................................................ 145 6.1 Summary of results .................................................................................................. 145 6.2 Research Implications .............................................................................................. 150 Appendix ...................................................................................................................... 153 References ................................................................................................................... 160 6 List of Figures Figure
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