World Journal of Social Science Research

ISSN 2375-9747 (Print) ISSN 2332-5534 (Online)

Vol. 7, No. 3, 2020
www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/wjssr

Original Paper

Role of Social Media in Election Campaigning in India with

Special Reference to Assam

Rantu Sarmah1* & Dr. Niranjan Mohapatra2
1
Department of Political Science, Barpather College, Diburgargh University, Assam, India
2
Dept. of Political Science, Assam University, Silchar, (Diphu Campus), Karbi Anglong, Diphu, Assam,
India
*
Rantu Sarmah, Department of Political Science, Barpather College, Diburgargh University, Assam,
India

Received: May 31, 2020 Accepted: June 10, 2020 Online Published: June 19, 2020
doi:10.22158/wjssr.v7n3p1 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/wjssr.v7n3p1

Abstract
This is an attempt to find out the role of social media in election campaigning in India with special
reference to Assam. Democratic countries like United States of America, India the social media has
become an integral part for political communications during election campaigning. This new way of
campaigning during election plays an important role to attract voters. Social media has given a new
platform such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Whatsapp, Youtube etc. to the political parties and the
voters, these are becoming an easy tool for the political leaders to interact with their voters. Social
media allows candidates to share, post, comments, and their views during election and making them
more direct involvement to their voters. These new tools or platforms are appeared as new area for
research. Firstly to find out the term of social media, secondly, general meaning of political
campaigning, thirdly, uses of social media in Indian election campaigning with reference to Assam and
lastly conclusions.
Keywords
social media, election campaigning, political communications, voters, assam

1. Introduction
Elections in India have always been the cornerstone of the political system of the country. Each election,
whether the parliamentary or assembly, stands unique because of the shifting political climate of the
country or the states where the Assembly elections are to be held. Accordingly, the attention,
involvement and choice of the individual voters tend to change. India is a democratic country where

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election Campaigning is an integral part of it and from time to time the Political Parties have been
using different tools for their campaigning. Earlier the Traditional Media has been playing an important
role in election and now the evolution of new technologies and the internet has changed the entire
world and election is not exception to it. The new technology and the internet have changed the
political atmosphere in India. Social media has had a transformative effect on our democracy. This is
mainly because internet and the availability of cheap Smartphone in the market. Earlier there was no
such tools of social media like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Whatsapp, Orkut, Google+ etc. but now
the Political Parties have been using such tools during Election. These tools have break down the gap
between the politician and the voters, voters can easily interact with their leaders of various political
parties. The leaders of the political parties have been using tools of social media to cope up with the
new young voters. Assam is a state which is far from the metropolitan city like Delhi which is the
Capital of India where it has seen that the social media has made an impact in the last Assembly
election of Delhi in December, 2013.Although Narendra Modi had used social media during Gujrat
Assembly elections earlier the atmosphere had remained unchanged. It was the Aam Aadmi Party
during the 2013 Delhi Assembly Elections that demonstrated how social media could affect an
electorate, and influence elections.

2. Method
Data has been collected purely from secondary sources like journals, books, research papers, news
papers, websites etc.
2.1 Objectives
1) To understand the general meaning and the term of social media in Election.
2) To understand the general meaning of political campaign.
3) To understand the role of social media in Elections in India with special reference to Assam.
4) Conclusions.
2.1.1 Meaning of Social Media
Social media is broadly defined, “a variety of websites, services and applications that allow users to
engage in social behaviors online or on a mobile phone”. Social Media is also defined as, “the objective
of online communications channels dedicated to community based input, interaction, content sharing
and collaboration. Websites and applications dedicated to forums, micro blogging, social networking,
social bookmarking, social durations, and wikis are among the different types of social media”. Social
Media, defined as “a group of internet-based applications that build on the ideological and
technological foundations of web 2.0 and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated
content” (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010) and the Oxford Dictionary defines Social Media as “websites and
applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking”. For the

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purpose of the study the term social media refers to Web 2.0 media platforms and internet sites and
services and sites such as Facebook, Whatsapp, Twitter, Google+, YouTube etc. The history of social
media is not clear if we are talking about the technologies than the godfather of social media goes to
Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis Who invented the world first usernet systems in 1979. Usernet enabled
users to read and post messages to various categories, known as newsgroups. At a high level, they can
be thought of as a hybrid between email and the web forums of today, and many of the popular group
sites of today, such as Google Groups and Yahoo! Groups. If we are taking about who invented the
term social media the term become a buzz word in the past 5 years. So who invented the term social
media is not 100% clear best information is as follows:
• Darryl Berry who claims he used the term starting in late 1994 while working on Matisse, an
online media environment and for a paper in may 1995 on “Social media spaces”, which predicted the
evolution of the web into a network engaged users.
• Ted Leonsis who in 1997 is cited using the term in the same manner in which it is used today and
claims to have created this term.
• Tina Sharkey who owns the domain SocialMedia.com since 1999 and claims she coined the term
during her days working on ivillage, where she was in charge of community building.
(Source: https:// www.quora.com)
Though the term who invented Social media is not clear yet in general meaning of the social media can
be explained that the social media allow the users to interact with each other by logging into a
particular website and interact with other users through instant messaging. People can share, post,
upload videos, photos, and comments whenever they like. So social media is purely internet based and
it can be used by their cell phone, laptop or computer etc. Social media provides open communications
not like that of traditional media which have more restrictions than social media. In simple we can say
that social media can be considered as the platform where people can find information and inspiration,
connect with likeminded people, communities and collaborate with each other towards pursuing
common interests or issues. Some of the common and popular sites are Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp,
etc.
2.1.2 Meaning of Political Campaigning
A Political campaigning is an organized effort which seeks to influence the decision making progress
within a specific group. In democracies, political campaigns often refer to electoral campaigns, by
which representatives are chosen or referendums are decided. In modern politics, the most high profile
political campaigns are focused on general elections and candidates for head of the state or head of the
government, often a president or prime minister. So, we can say that the period of time immediately
before an election when politicians try to persuade people to vote for them. Election campaigning are
the means by which candidates and political parties prepare and present ideas and positions on issues to

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the voters in the period preceding election day. Candidates are a variety of techniques to reach voters
and deliver their messages, including through traditional and new media, public events, written
materials, or other means.
2.1.3 Social Media and its uses in India and Assam Assembly Elections 2016
The uses of social media in election campaigning is not an isolated event occurring in India, throughout
the world the social media is being used by the political parties during election campaign to attract
voter. The internet has changed the way of life and internet has become an integral part of our political,
economic, and social lives now a day people purchase goods from Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal etc.,
whenever we like to know anything we just put our finger on Google and gets it by our Smartphone or
laptop. That’s why may be the reason the number of internet users have grown from ten million in 1993
to three billions in 2014. People use online social media regularly to stay connected to their family and
friends even with their institutions, organizations where they doing their jobs. So, social media has
made an important affect to all aspects of our lives. Social media is playing a new role in Indian
elections it has created a new atmosphere in election campaigning the political parties have found a
new ways to communicate with their voters and the use of social media has given a new platforms to
the political leaders as well as the voters during election. Though Assam is a state where the use of
internet and the network is not available in all parts of the state yet in the 2016 Assembly Election the
political parties and the voters has used the social media such as Facebook, Whatsapp, Twitter,
Google+, etc.
The use of social media by Indians was first highlighted during the 2008 Mumbai attacks when
information shared through Twitter and Flicker between Indians and the outside. “The second mass use
of social media in India was the May 2009 national elections, when, for the first time, online voter
registration and transparency campaigns started” where first time political parties tried to reach out to
voters through social networking websites. In India the Social Media platforms have been used by the
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and they changed the way of campaigning. Its rightly mention by Idress
Ali in his article for VOA News “The sweeping victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the
recent Indian Elections has been attributed to factors ranging from showing economic growth to high
levels of corruptions. But for the first time in the country’s history, social media played an important
role, according to analysts who are calling the vote India’s first “social media elections”. However, this
is still in progress in Assam in the last Assembly election the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has decided
to make maximum use of social media to reach out to the voters of Assam, as part of the plan, the party
has readied an army of 300 odd volunteers to put across its message to the masses, using different
platforms of social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp and Google+.
There was new trend seen in Assam during election time the political parties mainly the BJP and
Congress indulged in some musical fight on social media through videos. It was rightly said by Ankhi

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Das of Facebook Public Policy Director for South and Central Asia, “Facebook is the destination for
authentic conversation about politics. It’s a place for citizens to learn about candidates, for friends to
debate political issues, and for candidates to reach voters. Candidates are using facebook to reach
citizens directly and personally. They are having unfiltered conversations about important public policy
issues and getting honest feedback from voters”. In social media there were few theory by the BJP as
“Last Battle of Saraighat”, “Paribarton”, “Ab ki bar Mudi Sarkar” very popular among the voters. This
theory’s has been drafted in such a manner in social media that the people of Assam were discussing
these theories everywhere in regular basis. As per the information, by the writer Prabin Kalita, “north
eastern states lag behind in internet, mobile connectivity. Still there are areas where internet is not
available in Assam. So the impact of social media in election campaigning Assam is not at par with the
other states.

3. Result
After examining the entire elements one can safely asserts that the social media has changed the way of
political campaigning in the entire world and it has hit the existing process of media and influenced all
the democratic political system. The new technologies and the new media have changed the world and
which has affected all aspects of our society. This new way of campaigning by the political parties has
changed the political atmosphere of a country. Social media have triggered changes in the campaign
strategies of political parties, candidates, and political organizations, at the same time it has changed
the people’s participations in election. Through social media people can meet their leaders very easily
and interact very quickly with the help of their cell phone. India is ranked three with regard to use
social networks in the world. So, India is an interesting place where we can examine the role of social
media during election. Assam is state where still most people are living in village and still network is
not available in all parts of Assam so it is an interesting area where we need to study this new trend of
web media use in election campaigning. The last Assembly election is the witness of it as social media
was successful platform where political parties found a new way of campaigning. May be Social media
will prove its impact on political campaigning in India with much more meaningful way in near future
especially in north eastern states.

4. Discussion
In the age of Globalization it is very important to all the political parties to cope up with present
climate of the politics. Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp, Google+ etc are
the platforms where all the leaders and the voters are now putting their time in internet to get the
information or the latest any events took place during election. The political parties and the voters
immediately react with the events. They post, share, or comments, twitted immediately after seeing the

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events in the social media. So the social media is a platform where they can interact easily to their
voters and it’s an easy way to reach voters. Social media has given a platform for politicians to post a
presumptive agenda. Through social media politicians can mobilize public and invites them to
participate in discussion on some issues. In the age of globalization it’s very important to all to
understand social media role in elections and at the same time election commissions should put their
more effort on these sites which has been used by the politicians during elections. Therefore, new effort
and more study are required to focus on this new trend of politics in Assam.

Acknowledgement
I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor Dr. Niranjan Mohapatra for his full support,
comments, remarks, expert guidance, understanding and encouragement throughout my study and
research. His advice on both research as well as on my career have been priceless. I express my
gratitude to the library staff of Assam University Diphu Campus, Dibrugarh University Central Library,
Aligarh Muslim University Central Library, District Library of Golaghat, Sub-Divisional Library of
Sarupathar, Assam, IBN Sina Academy (NISA) Aligarh, for assistance in getting materials for this
research work. Last but not the least I would like to thank to my family for their constant support and
encouragement. Words cannot be express how grateful I am to my father, mother, mother in low and at
the end I would like to express appreciation to my wife Mrs. Smita Das who has extended continuous
support in the moments when there was no one to answer my queries.

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