Youth, Politics and Social Media

1. Trending Political Hashtags and their impact

You may have seen certain cities or campaign slogans trend on Facebook and Twitter. Political hashtags make up half of the trending list daily. In the beginning, you don’t realize the impact of these trending hashtags. Browsing through various social media platforms makes one realize how much the climate on social media subliminally affects the way we view politics. There is a fixed template used where the users are asked to use those hashtags to make the political party tweets trend, basically spamming so that it can culminate people.

2. Hit them where it hurts

With more than 65% of the population under the age of 35, India boasts a high number of Millenials and Gen Z who use social media frequently thanks to the easily available internet. The political parties take this number into consideration pretty seriously, there are constant posts across all social media, grabbing the attention of the Youth. When it comes to politics, all bets are off, they use every arsenal in their armory. From roping in Bollywood celebrities to gaining endorsements from various tycoons, they tap into the fanbase of those celebs and gain their vote.

3. Content is King even in Democracy

As the election begins, targeting a specific audience of the given regions increases. One can see multiple posts in a day on the targeted constituencies both in English and Hindi. Using the two languages in different areas is perfect as it allows them to reach and resonate well with the audience. The creative manner in which the PM posted 29 tweets within an hour using pop culture references, calling out influential people to ask the masses to vote is noteworthy as far as content goes.

4. The Political Content Bucket

The term ‘Fake News’ may be popularized in the West but it has been rampant in India across all major social media platforms like WhatsApp, Twitter and Facebook as well. The Political parties have a motto of “Any publicity is good publicity”. Opposition parties put up doxx news articles and videos defaming their opponents. This election cycle has witnessed this in the form of a popular slogan which made waves all over the nation. Memes play an integral part in this endless war between two major political parties. The timely memes are sometimes hilarious but often lead to misleading information sent on private groups on WhatsApp.

Conclusion:

Though there are no Hologram speeches this time around, Indian political parties are making the most of social media platforms. As every coin has two sides, there are pros and cons to it but one thing is clear - it brings results.