How does social media matter?

JAY JOSHI  

As election season in India rolls on, political parties are using innovative ways to get their message across to the voters. Recently, a Goan politician announced a selfie contest on his page. People were urged to click and send their selfies, and the winner would get a chance to have a dinner and one-to-one discussion with the politician.   

While ‘traditional’ ways of campaigning such as vehicle-mounted megaphones are decreasing in number, social media has provided a new avenue to reach out to the voters. This time around there have been a number of reports suggesting that social media is going to have a deep impact on elections. Statistics provided by the World bank and others in 2016 suggest that only 29-33% of Indian population have access to Internet, and an even lesser percentage of Indians speak English. In the light of this, how deeply will social media impact our elections? TG Life asked this question to social media marketing experts as well as ordinary citizens and found some interesting answers.   

“I was previously a social media user, but in 2015, I left all social media platforms because I feel that a lot of information shared on these platforms is useless. Also, I became far more productive after leaving the virtual world.” says Saee Shaligram from Valpoi. “You cannot really make an opinion based on social media posts, because then it is an acquired opinion. The flood of information, real and fake kind of interferes with the process of forming your original opinion.” she states, adding, “I read a host of newspapers to take in various viewpoints and then decide my opinion.”   

Adit Chouhan, founder of an online marketing firm in Pune offers a different view. “That the digital media has an impact on politics is true in case of countries such as US, but in india the case may be slightly different. Internet penetration is around 40% with smartphone penetration being about 30%. However, mainstream print and audiovisual media does talks about what leaders and celebrities tweeted. So indirectly, what happens on social media does reach those who aren’t connected to the digital realm.”   

Priol-based homemaker Dwaraka Desai who is now in her 80s, toes a more grounded line of thought. “I do not use social media. I do hear people around talking about what political leaders tweeted or which videos went viral, but I would rather form my opinion based on the ground reality-what work is being done in my village, what benefits are reaching me-these are the factors I consider rather than lofty speeches and rumours coming from faraway places and social media.”   

Experts do highlight that elections are not won or lost solely over social media, but it does more than just get the message of political parties across to people. Posts and trends on social media, combined with data generated by web portals provide the politicians with real-time analysis of voter sentiments, so they know what resonates with the public and what does not. Secondly, reports suggest that an individual needs to hear a message about three to five times a day before they believe it is true. While vehicle-mounted megaphones did the job in quite an entertaining manner in the past, increasing smartphone penetration is now helping bombard the electorate with such messages.   

All things said and done, one cannot really comment whether the impact of social media will be positive or negative, says online marketing professional Faizan Ansari. “Due to fake information in many cases, it is difficult for the voters to get the actual picture as people from different political camps flood the networks trying to push their own views. Social media is having an impact, but there is a lot of misleading information out there, which is not exactly helping democracy. Ultimately, voters need to verify what they see on social media before making a decision”