My research area in my PhD has been the digital media strategies in contemporary political campaigning in an Indian perspective.
Digital media strategies especially internet has been transforming the information and communication environment of the political campaigning and political landscape. Key political parties and political candidates have been utilizing Internet to reach party workers and voters for political support. Internet has shrunk the world. It has removed the barriers of time and space. It has reshaped the ways of communication. It offers opportunities to transform political campaigning and representative democracy.
The Internet is an affordable, effective and excellent medium for political parties and political candidates to reach out to their voters, address their concerns, present their party positions, develop their identity and brand themselves. The Internet enables political parties and political candidates to engage voters, party followers and workers and provide them a platform for information and communication. The Internet provides an arena of informing, involving, mobilizing and connecting activity among the political parties, political candidates, party workers and followers and voters.
Around 54 per cent of India’s population is below 25 years and this segment is increasingly using the Internet. More than half of them are from the major metro cities. Key political parties and party candidates have started realising the advantages of connecting with their party workers and voters online and are using digital media strategies and taking their campaigns to the Internet.
Digital media strategies have been an important element of contemporary political campaigns. Key political parties and political candidates have been utilizing Internet to reach party workers and voters for political support. Internet has shrunk the world. It has removed the barriers of time and space. It has reshaped the ways of communication. It offers opportunities to transform political campaigning and representative democracy.
The Internet is an affordable, effective and excellent medium for political parties and political candidates to reach out to their voters, address their concerns, present their party positions, develop their identity and brand themselves. The Internet enables political parties and political candidates to engage voters, party followers and workers and provide them a platform information and communication. The Internet provides an arena of informing, involving, mobilizing and connecting activity among the political parties, political candidates, party workers and followers and voters.
Traditionally individual politicians communicated directly with their constituents, but the arrival of the mass media, especially television, eroded the role of direct communication. The development of new Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) is now re-opening the use of direct communication as part of post-modern campaigning.
New digital media has made it easier to get in touch, keep in touch with the party workers, prospective supporters and voters. It has made easier to do research and campaigning. It has become far easier for political parties and electoral candidates to bring issues to the peoples’ attention and vice versa. The internet has become a vehicle through which the opinion of common people can be expressed on matters normally reserved for political leaders. The speed with which digital media communication is being adopted by political parties, representatives and electoral candidates varies according to social, cultural, economic and democratic context.
As voters get increasingly online savvy, digital media strategies will play an ever increasing role in contemporary and future Indian political campaigns. Political leaders can use database and the internet technologies to raise funds, organize volunteers, gather intelligence on voters, reach out to voters, and establish personal bonding with the voters and also to figure out the strategy and tactics of their opposition parties.
Compared to other forms of reaching out, online advertising is still relatively cheaper and far more focused. The lower cost of an online campaign makes it a compelling proposition. By spending Rs.3-4 lakhs, one can get around four million impressions, which is far cheaper than channels like television or outdoor.
The digital media strategies especially internet has been transforming the information and communication environment of the political campaigning and political landscape. This phenomenon is observed mainly in advanced countries where internet penetration is high and voters have developed an information and communications technology (ICT) culture. Internet politics applied in election campaigns could develop significantly in at least three directions in the not too distant future.
A campaign medium in its own right, not necessarily displacing but supplementing more traditional ones.It could become an important vehicle of interest group solidification and mobilization within and across national boundaries. It could diversify the exposure to political communication of those regular users who enjoy exploring the access to a wider range of views and perspectives that the Internet affords.
The Internet enables both politicians and citizens to communicate and serve democratic activities, such as election campaigns. The internet is increasingly becoming an alternative “information environment” for politicians and their constituents. Many studies have analyzed the Internet’s ability to increase political participation, generate voter interest, and successfully win votes.
Internet has become a leading source of campaign news for young people and the role of social networking sites is a notable part of the story. The main goal of providing information is to transmit a message to the voter.
The function of information provision is clearly improved by the web compared to traditional channels of communication:
- greater space for information and more individual control means that party messages can be specialized or targeted much more;
- enhancing the speed of data transmission what allows continuous updating of information and rapid rebuttals of opponents’ attacks; and
- low-cost–high-reach properties