Monday, 08 April 2024 | Purnima Bisht | DEHRADUN
Social media has become an integral part of political election campaigns as it is a powerful tool for candidates to reach out to voters and connect with them on a virtually individual level. Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and X have a considerable user base that helps political candidates and parties reach a much wider audience than traditional methods of campaigning. It is a cost-effective way and with the ability to share content quickly and easily, social media can help candidates to reach a large number of people in a short time. However, it also has the potential to heavily mislead people with wrong information, especially those who fail to question or verify what they consume via social media platforms, as per politicians.
The two major parties in the State- Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party are also using social media in the Lok Sabha elections to engage directly with voters as part of their poll campaign, especially those living in remote areas. Both parties state that social media forms a large part of their election campaign but it has its pros and cons. The BJP said that social media helps it to engage with people and address disinformation about the candidate or party.
On the other hand, Congress claimed that the BJP uses social media to its full potential to spread disinformation about the opposition, troll their candidates and attempt to influence the public by spreading wrong information or data by declaring them as facts. However, Congress also said that social media has become an integral part of its campaign especially after the authorities recently seized the party’s funds. “We are relying heavily on social media to connect with people due to lack of funds.
Today when a large section of the mainstream media is being controlled by BJP, social media has become a powerful tool for us to communicate with people with facts,” the advisor to Pradesh Congress Committee president Amarjeet Singh said. However, he also expressed concern about those who blindly believe in whatever they watch or read on social media. “People should learn to question leaders if they come across new information and verify it to become a responsible citizen,” he added. The BJP State spokesperson Madhu Bhatt said that social media allows candidates and parties to receive real-time feedback from their followers and supporters regarding their work and other related things. This helps them to work better and act accordingly.
She said that though the political parties continue to conduct mass campaign rallies during elections, those are expensive, time consuming, exhausting and require massive manual labour to execute. However, interaction with people through social media allows communication between political parties and voters at a low cost with minimum resources. “I believe that the role of social media in election campaigning will continue to rise with time,” Bhatt added.
