Digital Democracy Social Media in Political Campaigns “The 2014 Lok Sabha Experience in India”

Social Media is the way the world communicates in the 21st century. Today the idea of social media is radically different from that a decade ago. Today Facebook and Twitter are more a way of communication than the word of mouth. India being the largest democracy in the world voted recently for one of the biggest battles of power i.e. the Lok Sabha Elections 2014. The most important distinction of this election is that over 65% of the electorate is between the ages of 18 to 35. This is also considered the age group that uses social media the most. With 205 million internet users and over 85% of web users browsing on Social Networking sites this elections saw all political parties in India attempting to woo its voters through the social media. Indian politicians are amateurs on social media and their presence is unimpressive hence this elections saw a beeline of campaigns and tie ups with agencies. For the first time in the History of Politics in India New Media was used massively for dissemination of Information on candidates, parties, agendas etc. alongside traditional ones. The Political mandate was very clear in every politician’s mind which was reaching out to the maximum number of potential voters and what better way to do it is through “Social Media”. Therefore does Social media campaigns actually woo its voters to ultimately garner more votes is the larger question hencethe significance of the study is to analyze the co relation that exists between social media campaigns and voting behavior of its audience? In this Lok Sabha election did social media play a role in bringing its young voters to vote for its candidates? And also to measure the impact these strategies have had on the youth in the Country. The methodology employed for this study would be the Case study method in order to understand the various social media campaigns and strategies used along with a survey to study the impact it has had on youth in Bangalore city to draw certain Inferences to the study. The survey being restricted to only young voters from the city could be a major limitation to this study.