The use of social media JOYOJEET PAL, AZHAGU MEENA, DRUPA DINNIE CHARLES and ANMOL PANDA

MUCH has been said about politi- course of disinformation in the US and cians and what they have talked about elsewhere in the world, WhatsApp on social media. Cambridge Analytica came to symbolize deception and poli- made election manipulation an inter- tical skullduggery, often served with national sport, while Donald Trump passionate tenor. The risks of stirring elevated ‘Fake News’ to verboten sta- frenzies through social media messag- tus in the mainstream media, the very ing became fatally apparent when target of his attacks. The correspond- misinformation about child kidnap- ing promotion of social media to the pings led to a series of lynchings preferred line of output for political throughout India. More importantly, actors has highlighted one significant politicians had essentially shifted the change in political communications in space of discourse on political issues this generation – politicians want to – social media became the inaugural carefully manage the discourse in location for many debates, which were terms of what they talk about, when, shaped or given outcome by crowds and how. Narendra Modi mastered than commentators. this style of output in the run up to the While the mainstream media 2014 election when he more or less was rife with concerns about social stopped all interaction with professio- media and its ability to enable an angry, nal journalists and moved exclusively misinformed, polarized public, parties to communicating on social media. and individual politicians alike amped In the aftermath of Modi’s up their presence online, many hiring extremely successful 2014 campaign, professional social media managers to much post-mortem analysis was done set up ‘war rooms’ for their online cam- on the style of social media discourse paigns. By the 2019 elections, in 455 – brand management, consistency of of 543 constituencies, at least one of outreach, and politicization of online the top two candidates were on Twit- publics have all been topics of extensive ter, and in 191 constituencies, both the 75 scholarly and journalistic research. By winner and the runner-up candidate mid-2017, riding on the dominant dis- had active Twitter accounts.

SEMINAR 720 – August 2019 Facebook, and even apps with a smaller to the social media commentary to A look at Figure 1 below gives us an political footprint like Instagram, compose their arguments sometimes idea of the extent to which the top lead- ShareChat and TikTok invested in since it is inexpensive, at other times ership across parties took to Twitter. professionals to liaise with the govern- because it is the only means of com- Narendra Modi, boasting the largest ment and parties in Delhi. municating with a political actor. bubble (following), consistently gets As Narendra Modi showed in among the highest rates of retweets, 2014, if anyone – whether citizen or but also tweets frequently compared The 2019 report on social media journalist – wants to know what he has to his political colleagues. Rahul Gan- and the elections by CSDS presented to say about a topic, they need to go dhi, on the other hand, tweeted a lot statistics on the use of social media check his Twitter feed. Many other less, but got much more throughput in by the voting public, and found that leading politicians have since followed terms of retweets to his messages. the vast majority of voters did not use suit. Indeed, as some studies have Others like M.K. Stalin and Akhilesh social media, and furthermore that already shown, this style of communi- Yadav, also consistently scored high on Twitter, the widely discussed ‘pre- cation does not diminish a politician’s retweet rates despite their relatively ferred medium’ of politicians, was the online footprint – both television and modest following. The vast majority of least used among citizens, and the only print news relay what politicians say the leading politicians tweeted over medium that was declining in use. online, even when they do not commu- five times daily in the campaign period While concerns about the extent of nicate directly with professional jour- between January and May 2019. social media impact in the actual vote nalists. The use of social media in the A cottage industry of tech savvies process are important, such thinking 2019 election by politicians has to be now offers services to politicians and underestimates the second-order seen as part of this changed media parties, expanded to professional sta- impacts of social media outreach. ecology in which social media is fun- tus with consulting fees in the lakhs It does not matter, a priori, damentally indistinguishable from for very short consultations, to longer- whether citizens are getting their poli- mainstream media in terms of the net term annual contracts that allow a tical information on social media, or effect. long-term strategy and execution. Par- believing what they see online en ties across the ideological spectrum masse. What matters is that the main- and both at state and national levels stream media operates on social The second argument frequently invested in social media plans, and in media. Every major journalist is on posed against the relevance of social many cases, in dedicated apps, follow- social media – many media houses media is the linguistic diversity of India. ing the lead of Narendra Modi’s 2014 use journalists’ online following as a A look at Figure 2, from the tweets of campaign ‘NaMo App’. Social media metric to understand their value to the 2914 sampled politicians, shows that companies themselves increased their organization. At the same time, jour- politicians are rapidly moving away attention to India, Twitter, YouTube and nalists writing stories frequently turn from using English to local languages. FIGURE 1 This is especially true for regional par- ties, several of which already prima- rily tweet in the local tongue. Social media such as Share Chat are now pri- marily oriented towards local Indic- language material, and have several hundred verified political accounts. Major national politicians ope- rate largely on Twitter, and the BJP has played a leading role in pushing this adoption especially following Prime Minister Modi’s call for all MP candi- dates to show significant following online. A large number of national poli- 76 ticians are also on Facebook, where the Twitter messages are essentially mirrored. In contrast, WhatsApp has

SEMINAR 720 – August 2019 emerged as the last line of communi- 2014 campaign caught steam, and ported to be directly from an individual, cation at the level of citizens and booth while it may have seemed odd at first is a murkier space. On WhatsApp, workers. While the vast majority of that a politician would be on a profes- content is often not linked back to an elected MPs and candidates for Lok sional services forum, we find that the individual, and research shows that Sabha from the national political par- image Modi projects there is one of a encrypted formats contain higher lev- ties use Twitter, only a small fraction technocrat who stands on his creden- els of malicious content. Similarly for- of MLAs and state legislature hope- tials, arguably much like young Indians mats that capture a style of informality fuls do. This number falls further at the presenting themselves on social such as ShareChat (which boasts the level of local elections. media. By 2014, Modi was an ‘influ- largest spread of Indian-language encer’ on LinkedIn, offering manage- options) or TikTok (which builds on ment and administration advice. short video format output) lag main- The differentiation between what stream channels, so fewer politicians media is used for what purpose is get on them directly, though these partly dictated by the affordability of On YouTube, Modi mirrored his very channels are useful in satirizing the medium. Twitter, which is fully pub- nationwide radio missives by setting content that is aimed at political rivals. lic, serves as an ‘official spokesper- up a channel for ‘Mann ki Baat’, along In the 2019 election, these were sites son’ for the politicians. Instagram with over 100 playlists, including of aggressive attacks on various key and YouTube serve the same purpose beneficiary testimonies of his schemes, figures including Rahul Gandhi and for official accounts for social media videos of his global visits, and even the Gandhi family, Mamata Banerjee, teams that have multimedia sophisti- suggested yoga poses for various phy- as well as Narendra Modi.1 cation, while WhatsApp serves mainly sical problems. Modi uses Instagram as a means of last-mile communication with a variety of celebratory gif images that comes from election workers of himself, but also as a place to high- The physical landscape of a political rather than the leaders themselves. light his interactions with everyday election includes posters, painted walls, Modi himself serves as a good citizens, where the images serve to and stages for elections. Posters are archetype for the differentiated use of humanize him and reward the citi- expensive to design and print and are social media channels. Starting with zens who interact with him. No other often accompanied by a range of poli- Orkut and Google Plus, Modi’s team Indian, or arguably global leader, com- tical concerns around who gets to be has invested in a presence in practi- pares to Modi on this level of platform featured on a poster from among the cally every mainstream social media differentiation. However, his example local political establishment of a channel, and done so effectively using has led to other politicians following his region. These remain important con- the specific affordability of that media. lead on one or another format. cerns because getting one’s face on a For instance, Modi invested in a Outside of leadership, the means poster that is publicly displayed is LinkedIn presence well before his of political outreach that is not pur- important for local politicians even in FIGURE 2 a Lok Sabha election. It helps them get noticed, indicates their closeness to the parliamentary candidate or even the party leadership with whom they appear on a poster. The local politicians who appear on these post- ers may even be the ones who pay for them, especially if it impacts their political futures. 1. The choice of social media can also depend on the perception of linkages between the cor- poration that owns the platform and the gov- ernment. We found, for instance, that some of the smaller parties engaged during our research felt that Facebook was a difficult platform to break into due to the ruling 77 party’s relationship with the company, and consequently they needed to focus on other social media.

SEMINAR 720 – August 2019 Likewise, walls to paint on, or any sive work of setting up stages and ral- which can easily be purchased through kind of real estate available for politi- lies can be focused on areas of more aggregators. Social media teams using cal outreach may be hotly contested likely vote throughput, with social WhatsApp must also expect to have for control by one party or another. media brought in to reach out to other several social media accounts, some During the core period of campaign- areas. of which will be suspended for break- ing, decisions on where to invest in The shift to social media for ing the terms of use through spamming. physical events is critical – whether some activities has also meant that Likewise, workers must be careful to this involves driving through neigh- aspiring local politicians create new regulate the amount of traffic they bourhoods with loudspeakers or set- ways of building an image among vot- generate online by adding citizens ting up stages for public gatherings. ers, above and beyond showing up on wantonly to WhatsApp groups – over- Each of these are also ticket items that large flex posters alongside senior lead- loading peoples’ personal devices and have traditionally been temporally ers. The campaign period is marked potentially alienating voters. regulated and tracked for expenses by by a great deal of social activity and the Election Commission. interaction with the people. Ward coun- cillors record their public activities on A precondition for election work in phones and post them on their social 2019 has been the unspoken require- While all of these remain critical to media pages, and hope they find viral ment of being a thoughtful and adept the ways in which an election is fought, outreach. These pages also serve as technology user. Outreach by party social media impacted which to spend public relations signalling for both workers is now subject to surveillance on and how. Unlike with the compara- voters and the party machinery for the for the frequency and regularity by tively smaller area spans for coverage current election, also as archives for which they forward messages that in municipal or legislative assembly their future political careers. come from the party machinery. At elections, for parliamentary seats can- the same time, apps that allow citizens didates must choose areas to focus on to interact directly with a candidate and areas to touch lightly. For a good Among the critical and least covered or party – invariably involve the party candidate, coverage is important, since areas in which social media made an workers, who are expected to be even minority voters in the weaker impact in the 2019 elections, was grass- responsive to citizens’ outreach. Some neighbourhoods need to be assured roots worker mobilization. The field apps, for instance, are GPS enabled that their votes are important. Public work, and workers of election cam- and allow citizens to escalate com- meetings are also spaces where can- paigning were widely regulated using plaints directly to the nearest party didates acknowledge local leaders, technology. Off the shelf and custom- worker in their constituency. who are usually the ones who move ized apps were used in the 2019 elec- WhatsApp is used for coordina- votes in the neighbourhoods where tions for keeping track of progress on tion activities by the party, and groups the meetings take place. These are the ground. are maintained in layers by party mem- also events that allow such local lead- First, GPS tracking on mobile bers for strategy discussions. Using ers a platform of their own, by sharing apps allow booth committee managers voter data from the Election Commis- space on a stage or even giving a short to keep track of the outreach squads sion of India app, the party workers address to the crowd prior to the can- working under them – each field also maintain lists of voters from their didate’s speech. worker can be tracked, and through bar- assigned booths, annotating those These are important clientelist coded pamphlets, data on the homes with likely votes for their parties. exchanges that galvanize local leaders visited and literature delivered can be These lists are then used on the day of to work energetically, consequently maintained. Each field worker is in polling to keep track of which voters giving them up would take away some turn on social media (which is often a showed up, and those that did not. Such of the important drivers for election requirement), arranged into groups information can then be communi- work. However, with social media, based on their regional assignments. cated hourly through WhatsApp groups candidates can compensate by creat- The messaging at the household level to update local election workers on ing new means of low-touch interac- is conducted through these social immediate outreach tasks, such as urg- tion with voters in non-strength areas media channels – often using numbers ing a specific voter to show up and vote 78 where physical presence, as seen that are collected through the field within the time remaining to vote. through voter turnout drives, may be visits, or through a range of sources, In the 2019 elections, the INC less worthwhile. In particular, the expen- including outright ‘purchased’ groups, was frequently outperforming the BJP

SEMINAR 720 – August 2019 in terms of the number of trending topics that were in its favour, as well as the median retweet rate of its lead- ership. The INC turned to some of the textbook strategies of the BJP in terms of the style of online outreach – for instance, Rahul Gandhi getting much more aggressive in his online discourse. However, the social media strategy of the BJP went a lot deeper than just the language or retweeting – copying its voice from the 2014 cam- paign was not enough without under- standing the infrastructure that stood behind it. The BJP invested in long- term ideological alignment, online, much as it has organized offline, and listened for the citizen pulse. For instance, till early February 2019, the Congress was doing much better than the BJP on Twitter, cornering attention for Priyanka Vadra’s entry into politics as well as a fairly strong mobilization behind the ‘Chowkidar Chor Hai’ hashtag. Yet, in the days following the Pulwama attacks and the Balakot incident, the tide had turned strongly nationalistic online. Here, the BJP turned to Chowkidar as its brand, turning on its head the very concept that the Congress had been using to attack it. It is here that the scale of invest- ment in social media can be a critical differentiator. While the BJP was suc- cessful in consistently winning the attention game, this success was built on years of careful brand cultivation, and organized, disciplined outreach both from party cadres and the millions of citizens who supported its mission. The BJP understood early that the app- roach to social media is not unlike that to any other tool of election manage- ment. Rather than replace their tradi- tional on-the-ground organization, social media has only augmented it and made it a sharper machine. For parties seeking to emulate its success, 79 social media must be understood as more than a retweet game.

SEMINAR 720 – August 2019