Bengaluru: Digital media playing vital role in wooing voters

Bengaluru: Karnataka election is here. Conventions and road shows of political parties are going on in full swing. While party leaders are openly campaigning on screen, party workers and candidate’s followers are campaigning digitally behind the scenes.

This assembly election is likely to change the political image of Karnataka. Digital media was just making its mark during the 2014 Lok Sabha, 2018 Assembly and 2019 Lok Sabha elections. But this time the digital campaign will have a massive impact and it will be known on May 13 who will be swept off.

During the 2014 elections held after Modi was announced as the Prime Ministerial candidate, only Facebook, Twitter and YouTube were popular. While other political parties are questioning whether this works in Indian elections, BJP’s digital team had already successfully used social media to bring down the UPA government.

After the Lok Sabha elections, all the parties formed a digital team. Leaders became active on social media. If you look at it like that, till the 2019 Lok Sabha elections in Karnataka, BJP was ahead in digital media. After the setback in the Lok Sabha elections, Congress, AAP and Janata Dal have given more importance on the use of social media, this time the three parties are campaigning on social media more effectively than ever before. It is special that some leaders of the state have approached companies for their brand promotion.

Digital media explosion

Congress and BJP are ahead in digital media advertising. Effectively advertising on YouTube, Facebook as well as news websites. All these campaigns are seen on screen but behind the scenes parties are campaigning through WhatsApp and Reels.

According to Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) data, 61 out of every 100 people in India are using the Internet, while in Karnataka 74 are using the Internet. According to data released by TRAI on March 31, Karnataka has a total of 6,62,09,245 mobile subscribers. In this, even if 1 crore numbers are taken out as people from outside the state, only one person will use two SIMs, this number will be 5.62 crores. Due to this all the political parties are giving more importance to digital campaigns.

There may be houses in Karnataka not using Facebook and Twitter accounts. But today it is very difficult to show a house without WhatsApp. In the wake of school closures during Covid, even those who don’t have smartphones bought phones for their children, so every home has at least one WhatsApp. Today it is difficult to go door-to-door campaigning. For this reason, political parties are giving more importance to campaigning through digital media especially WhatsApp.

Active social media users

Gone are the days when leaders of political parties and media said they were right, as social media came. Who is right? Who is at fault is revealed in no time and each has an old video as evidence. The digital teams of the parties are making videos combining the new statement with the old statement, which is making more impact on the people. Along with this, if the party leaders lie, the netizens take the evidence and counter that what you are saying is a lie.

For example, since BJP has said that we do not have family politics, this time there were posts about the tickets given to all the families and leaders. In the rest of the states, the guarantee announced before the election has not yet been implemented and they will ask the Congress how you will implement it here. They will retort to JDS that yours is not a secular party, yours is a family party. Jagdish Shettar is given a jibe by referring that Congress is in ICU.

Until the 2019 elections, only the media used to hold the logo and ask people’s opinion during the elections. But this time, it is special that the pages opened on the social network are targeting one field and going to the people and gathering their opinion. If the opinions coming in the media are pro/opposition then the videos of media organizations opened on social media are coming in favour of one party. These videos are getting millions of views within 24 hours. Also, these videos can be streamed through WhatsApp. These videos with people’s opinions are more likely to have an impact on the voters of that constituency than the open campaigning of the leaders and door-to-door campaigning. If it succeeds, there is no doubt that the polls will be turned upside down.

Caste politics continues

In the past, any topic related to politics on social media was trending but it was big news. But now this trend has lost importance. Because they sit in a foreign state, abroad and use that hashtag to make a trend. Along with this, there are more fake accounts. Trending topics are not as important as they used to be because the colors of political parties are revealed there.

Caste is the most debated topic in Karnataka elections so far including this election. If the number of voters of one caste is more, the ticket will be given to the person of that caste. As the influence of digital media increases, these thoughts are slowly decreasing and we can see that people are expressing their opinion that they will vote based on the merit and work of a person and not on the basis of caste. If the senior voters still support the parties considering the caste of the candidate, especially the young voters are saying that they will vote for the development issue.