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With almost 50 million voters being in the college-going age of 18 to 23 and more and more voters logging on to the internet, the upcoming general elections are likely to see social media affect the outcome in at least 160 Lok Sabha seats
Sonali Sharda, studying for a bachelor's degree in business administration at Amity University in Delhi's suburb of Noida, is eagerly waiting for her first vote. Her sense of anticipation surges every time she comes across messages in newspapers and on television asking people to make their vote count.
"I know the power of my vote and rest assured that I will make it count," is all Sonali admits to about her political initiation. By and large, she has been indifferent to politics. "We never discussed politics before. But recently, I noticed a change. She insisted she should have a voter identity card before the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. She and her Facebook friends are determined to do their bit as citizens of this country," explains Sonali's father, Rakesh Sharda, whose real estate company is building a four-star hotel in Ghaziabad. (CONSTITUENCIES WHERE ‘LIKES’ MIGHT MEAN VOTES*)
Sonali is among India's 22 million teenagers who will vote for the first time in the coming elections. But not everyone shares Sonali's enthusiasm. For Anam Khan, a student of Mumbai's KC College, politics only meant showing solidarity with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). "After the AAP's spectacular show in the assembly elections, most of my friends decided to become members. That was the only time we became passionate about politics. Now that the euphoria is gone, we have lost interest," says Anam.
In all, 48 million voters are in college-going ages of 18 to 23. Each Lok Sabha constituency will likely have an average of 90,000 such new voters. Most of them are exposed to cyber media in one form or the other. "Most of my friends get to form their opinion on the basis of what is trending on the Net. Social media is our primary guide for news and views," says Akash Tyagi, a student from Hapur in Uttar Pradesh, who is preparing for the IIT entrance examination.
This group of college students dominates the digital space in the country and according to the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) estimates, they account for nearly 29 per cent of internet users in the country, the biggest chunk. The second largest group is of young men (26 per cent), followed by working women (10 per cent). Of the about 800-million electorate, approximately 170 million are exposed to the Net, making the 2014 polls the first cyber election in the country. Election-related searches have surged and a Google India spokesperson says there has been "800 per cent growth in the query volume already". A quarter of these queries are from mobile phones.
So, do parties and candidates with 'likes' and 'followers' on Facebook and Twitter have a meaningful advantage among voters grappling with starkly real social and economic issues? Two reports offer some pointers to what lies ahead.
An IAMAI study conducted by Iris Knowledge Foundation, Social Media and Lok Sabha Elections, suggests there are as many as 160 Lok Sabha seats where social media is likely to influence the election outcome in 2014. "It is not the number of fans or the number of likes and tweets that is going to determine the probability of winning of a certain candidate but the ability of the candidate to engage with the electorate by rising above the media clutter and by trying to get his or her message across to the voter directly," the report concludes.
These 160 high-impact constituencies are crucial for both the ruling Congress and the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The Congress won 75 such seats in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections and came second in 43 others. The BJP managed only 44 wins and is now determined to gain a foothold in these 160 constituencies. The party has enlisted the support of a million volunteers to achieve this.
An October 2013 Google survey offers more clues about possible voting patterns in Lok Sabha constituencies heavily populated by internet users. The survey covered 108 urban Lok Sabha seats and found 37 per cent were already online and accessed the internet regularly. An overwhelming 94 per cent of the respondents said they would vote this time. Political parties can draw some comfort from the response of 42 per cent who said they were yet to decide on whom to vote for.
When it comes to casting votes, urban Indians give almost an equal weight to candidates as they do to political parties. According to the Google survey, 35 per cent said their decision would be based on the party and 36 per cent said local candidates mattered. Interestingly, 11 per cent said the prime ministerial candidate of the political party would play an important role in their final voting decision. In the West, the preference for a local candidate is the highest at 45 per cent and lowest in the East at 27 per cent.
The study deals with a large percentage of the urban electorate referred to as "floating" voters, who are online and are likely to be wooed by parties through social media. But political commentators find the claims of social media impacting elections a bit of an exaggeration. "It is true a large proportion of social media users are young, but what must be remembered is this large proportion is a very small proportion of the total population," argues Jagdeep Chhokar, former director of IIM-Ahmedabad and one of the founders of the Association for Democratic Rights.
Experts also point out that the social media community is not a homogeneous group and has had its share of divisions based on caste, religion, gender and region. In that sense, cyber enthusiasts will vote very much like others, they argue. "Social media in India is still not social. It is divided social," observes Anand Pradhan, a faculty member at the New Delhi-based Indian Institute of Mass Communication. Scepticism apart, some recent events have shown that social media can set the national agenda and become an effective vehicle for mass mobilisation. The movement for an effective Lok Pal by Gandhian Anna Hazare drew its sustenance from social media. And social media brought people to the streets to protest against the horrific rape in the capital in end-2012.
India's community of social media users is nudging 100 million, with 93 million people on Facebook alone. This community is not confined to the big cities. According to the IAMAI study, a third of social media users are residents of cities with populations under 500,000; a quarter live in towns of less than 200,000 people.
That is the reason the Congress, BJP and AAP have dedicated teams to take care of online communication needs. After all, US President Barack Obama won back-to-back polls on hugely successful social media campaigns. Back home, they might not ensure an outright victory for a party or a coalition but are definitely going to be a significant factor in the coming Lok Sabha polls.
