Article

Global Media Journal – Indian Edition/ Summer Issue / June 2011

THE IMPACT OF THE ELECTRONIC MEDIA ON THE MODERN INDIAN

VOTER: A STUDY OF THE POST LIBERALIZATION ERA

Sayantani Satpathi

PhD ScholarDepartment of Political Science

The University of Oklahoma, Norman, USAWebsite: http://www.ou.edu/web.html

&

Oindrila Roy

PhD Scholar Department of Political Science

Kent State University, Kent, Ohio Website: http://www.kent.edu

Abstract : The increasing influence of electronic media in India was stimulated by economic

liberalization in early 1990s. It gave citizens access to numerous news sources as opposed to the sole

government regulated news channel of the pre–liberalization era. In the 21st century the electronic

media was reenergized by the internet revolution. As citizens started looking at the internet as an

additional source of information, they began voicing their opinion through blogs; opinion polls

and social networking websites. This paper uses qualitative analysis for studying the impact

of the electronic media on political participation in general and voting behavior in

particular. The data for this study is obtained from the Election Commission of India, media

coverage, opinion polls, blogs and social networking websites.

Introduction

Media has been the source of shared images and messages relating to political and social

context. In the United States political communication literature has been dominated by

voting preference and agenda‐setting studies for the last four decades (Cohen, 1963;

McCombs, 2004; McCombs & Shaw, 1972; McLeod et. al., 2002, p. 229, 234; Strate et.

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al.,

1989; Wolfinger & Rosenstone, 1980). In the Indian context, research on the cognitive and

behavioral effects of media on political participation has been largely neglected. In this

paper we focus on the post‐liberalization era in India and study the impact of the electronic

media on political participation in general and voting behavior in particular.

India is a multilingual, multiethnic and multi‐religious country with a plethora of factors

shaping the contours of political behavior. After receiving her independence from Britain in

1947, India continues to remain a Parliamentary democracy. However, it also has close

similarities with the American model of federalism. In 2009, the size of the Indian electorate

was 714 million, making it the world’s largest democracy (more than that of European

Union and the United States combined) (Times of India, 2009). But like the United

States India has also witnessed declining levels of political participation and voter turnout.

In the American case, the declining levels of political participation can be attributed

to Robert Putnam’s thesis (1993, 2000) in Bowling Alone. Putnam (2000) argues that the

declining levels of civic and political participation can be directly linked to the role played by

television. As citizens start spending more time watching television, they tend to alienate

themselves from civic engagement. This in turn contributes to a decline in social capital

(Putnam, 2000, p.283‐284). As social capital declines, political disengagement starts to

increase and this is something that can explain the growing political apathy among young

people, between the age group of 18 and 29 (Putnam, 2000).

A closer examination of the Indian voting behavior indicates an overall decline, but not by a

substantial margin. During first general election held in 1952, 61.16 percent of the voting

population cast their ballots. In the 2009 general elections, voter turnout had dropped

to 59.07 percent. The 2009 voter turnout figures were slightly more than that of the 2004

figure of 58.07 percent (Election Commission of India; Institute for Democratic Election

Assistance, 2010). In the Indian context, making an argument along the lines of Putnam’s

thesis (Putnam, 1965, p.283‐284) is difficult due to the lack of verifiable data. However, it

would be interesting to study the effect of media on political participation and voting

behavior in the post‐liberalization period.

In India, internet and cable television have brought about meaningful changes to public and

private spheres of life more quickly than education, industrialization or any other socio‐

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economic factor. Electronic media had no role to play for a decade after

independence. Print media and radio (circa 1936) served as the primary means of political

information and mobilization. Mass media received a boost in September 1959 as a result of

the introduction of television to urban India. The emergence of television in postcolonial India

was characterized by compet ing v is ions . Its deeply segmented political sphere

witnessed several rounds of intense debating between politicians and bureaucrats who were

concerned with the efficacy of investing in television considering only a few could manage

access to the medium (Sinha, n.d.). The government controlled national television network

began as a “modest enterprise” since viewers had access to one channel, while the bigger

cities/metropolis had access to two channels. In terms of influencing civic and political

engagement, its influence was minimal since the goals of the state regulated electronic

media were restricted to educational and entertainment based programs (Sinha, n.d.).

In 1991 the Indian television network was deregulated and cable‐satellite network emerged

for the first time. From its modest beginning with two channels in 1990, the Indian

audience got access to five hundred and fifteen cable‐satellite channels by June

2010. Moreover, there were thirty three twenty four hour news channels that would

constantly engage in political and economic debates and conduct opinion/exit polls in

election years (Press Trust of India, 2010a). The number of satellite‐radio stations grew

from six during the 1990s to three hundred and twelve by the middle of the last decade

(Ministry of Information and Broadcasting). These would include the community radio

systems that became very successful in three states including Karnataka, Gujarat and

Uttaranchal, serving as the key medium for engaging in grassroots activism, but operating

independent of state and commercial control. The service providers for these stations were

non‐governmental organizations using radio for generating development and community

education. More specifically community radio served as a tool for empowerment that

allowed local citizens the opportunity to seek accountability for state action (Shaw, 2005).

But the success of community radio was limited to few states, due to barriers for entry

created by the commerce radio lobbies and state agencies resisting citizens’

accountability through enforcement of strict guidelines and high licensing fees (Shaw,

2005). The deregulation of the television network in the 1990s was accompanied by the

internet revolution. From 1992 to 2010, the number of internet users grew from none to

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81,000,000 (International Telecommunication Union, 2008). Today internet has emerged as a

new medium for information delivery. The internet holds the promise of “enhancing

democracy and changing traditional one‐way process of political communications”

(Grossman, 1995, 149; Oblak and Zeljan, 2007, p.60). The role of the internet in providing

for political information becomes relevant since majority of the Indian population is

relatively young. According to a recent estimate, by 2020 the average age of an Indian will

be 29 years, in comparison to 37 for China and 48 for Japan (Basu 2007).

Literature Review

The influence of media on political participation has been studied extensively in the

United States (Chaffe & Kanihan, 1997; Golan & Wanta, 2001; McComb & Shaw, 1972;

Tedesco, 2001; Tolbert & McNeal, 2003; Weaver, 1996). The role of the media in

determining political participation has been studied from three main perspectives – the role

of the media as a source of political knowledge (Berkowitz & Pritchard, 1989; Chaffee

& Frank, 1996; Chaffe & Kanihan, 1997; Culbertson & Stempel III, 1986; Weaver, 1996); the

role of the media as an ‘agenda setter’ (Golan & Wanta, 2001; McComb & Shaw, 1972;

Tedesco, 2001); and the role of the media as a platform for political participation (Hook,

2011; krueger, 2002,2005).

The literature on political knowledge focuses on a wide variety of issues like the

correlation between reliance on different forms of communication resources and the

corresponding level of political knowledge (Berkowitz & Pritchard, 1989), the relative

importance of print and broadcast media in the context of political knowledge (Chaffe &

Frank, 1996; Chaffe & Kanihan, 1997), media exposure and its impact on candidate

evaluation (Weaver, 1996) etc. In this literature the main thrust has been to analyze if

media exposure has a positive impact on the political knowledge of the masses. In studying

this issue scholars have disagreed on the relative strengths of the different forms of media.

While Berkowitz and Prichard (1989) found the print media to be a very strong indicator of

political knowledge enhancement, Chaffe and Kahnihan (1996) concluded that the

television can be a more informative source than the print m e d i a under certain

circumstances. However, in another study Chaffe and Frank (1996) presented a more

nuanced explanation of the roles played by newspaper and television with regards to

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political learning. They found that while newspapers constitute the primary information

source for those “actively seeking information”, television is a stronger instrument of

political learning for those who “lack political information”.

The agenda‐setting literature on the other hand studies how the media influences the

public’s perception regarding the salience of a particular issue. Mc Comb and Shaw (1972)

in their seminal study on the agenda‐setting role of the media found that “…the political

world is reproduced imperfectly by individual news media. Yet the evidence in this study that

voters tend to share the media's composite definition of what is important strongly

suggests an agenda‐setting function of the mass media.” More recent studies on the agenda‐

setting role of the media may be found in the works of Golan and Wanta (2001) and Tedesco

(2001). Golan and Wanta (2001) focused on the concept of second level agenda‐setting.

The main difference between McComb and Shaw’s (1972) idea of agenda setting and Golan

and Wanta’s (2001) concept of second level agenda setting is that while the former focuses

on how the media influences the amount of importance that the public attaches to a

particular political issue the latter studies if the attributes attached to a particular political

leader by the media is transferred to the public. Golan and Wanta (2001) in their study

of the primary in New Hampshire for the year 2000 found that second level agenda setting

was particularly potent in the initial stages of the campaign when the mass public was

beginning to learn about the candidates. Tedesco (2001) in his study on the 2000 primaries

focused on the relationship between the candidate and the media in the context of agenda‐

setting. In this study Tedesco (2001) found a positive relation between the issue agendas set

by the media and the candidate with particularly strong correlations for Republican

candidates. With the onset of the internet revolution, more and more scholars have studied

the media as a platform for voicing public opinion (Hook, 2011, Krueger, 2002, 2005).

Lijphart (1997) had identified low and unequal voter turnout to be a major problem

of the American democracy in his article “Unequal Participation and Democracy’s

Unresolved Dilemma.” Similar concerns have been raised by scholars like Norris and Solop

(as cited in Krueger, 2002) as far as political participation on the internet is concerned.

According to these scholars the internet revolution has failed to expand online political

participation because the internet is only accessible to the advantaged sections of the society.

However, Krueger (2002) argues that if “near‐equal” access to the internet is established in the

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future then it will have a strong potential for expanding online political participation. In India,

there have been several studies on the nature and functions of the media (Fernandez, 2000;

Johnson, 2001; Kluver et al., 2007; Prasad, 2006; Sonawalkar, 2001). In fact much of these

studies have focused on the role of the Indian media in the post liberalization period

(Fernandez, 2000; Johnson, 2001; and Sonawalkar, 2001). However, these studies mainly

focus on the cultural impact of the media. For instance Fernandez (2000) in her article

“Nationalizing ‘the Global’: Media Images, Cultural Politics and the Middle Class in India”

argues that the social as well as the cultural images emanating from the process of economic

liberalization in India is a result of the interaction between the global and the national.

Johnson (2001), on the other hand, focuses on the influence of television on rural India.

Sonawalkar (2001) looks at the imperialistic tendencies of Indian television channels on South

Asia from a cultural context.

An overview of the Indian media literature suggests that there has been very little

research on the impact of the media on political participation in general and voting

behavior in particular. Therefore in this article we try to study the impact of the media on

political participation in India with a special emphasis on electoral behavior in the post

liberalization era.

Television as a Political Tool: Great expectation High Penetration

In India and other post‐colonial countries television often becomes the “compelling medium

for influencing a normative national consciousness of language, image and sound, television

(re)produces a vision of the world for its audiences. These productions link television with

the political economy of nation building. The medium can work to socialize people, foment

material desires, and normalize consumer relations” (Ives, 2007, p. 154). If we look at the

argument in the context of Indian television, we observe that the broadcast media under state

monopoly helped to tentatively bridge the gap between a literate elite and the mass

audience, to which print media, had formerly catered. Access to literacy in pre‐colonial India

was restricted as the colonial state sought to train select group of middle class for

administrative purposes (Rajagopal, 2004, p.7). The emergence of the cable‐ satellite

television helped to narrow the gap between literate elite and others, even further as it

brought “market forces and the power of television together by 1992” (Rajagopal,2004,

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p.7)

Hindu Tele- epics Political Participation

If there were a truly Indian genre, it would be based on the Hindu mythological tele‐

epics starting in 1987 (Kumar, 2005). This becomes evident when we look at the success of

mythological soap operas such as the Ramayana (1987‐1988) and Mahabharat

(1988‐ 1990) that drew over 500 million television viewers. But here we are

interested in exploring whether or not the narrative‐discursive framework of the tele‐epics

provoked newer challenges for the Indian society in the form of an assertive Hindu

supremacy manifest in the Ram Janmabhumi Movement of the 1990s. Rajagopal (2004)

argues that the inclusion of “religious programming onto state‐controlled television, created

what did emerge as a distinctive programming genre, namely, mythological soap

operas, the successor to the government’s failed experiment in developmental soap operas.”1

The “serialized epics” in Indian television would allow, “the collective sharing of an

idealized Hindu past that would essentially provide the opportunity of religious nationalist

mobilization. As battle scenes witnessed in the epic, Ramayana became the model for

Hindu militancy while the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) began to mobilize the

political‐ religious, Ram temple movement, along the lines of the epic‐serial”(Rajagopal,

2004, p.25, 31, 72). The serial being broadcast to nationwide audience orchestrated different

forms of political mobilization, including rioting or joining community services like

‘kar‐seva’ (altruistic service), alongside changes in voting behavior. In terms of the

narrative of political mobilization, the Hindu nationalist continued to rely on

constructing the memories of “‘otherness’ in a community, as means of resistance

to oppression”. (Rajagopal, 2004, p.70). There is little disagreement that the

commodification of Hindutva (the dominant religious ideology) started in the late

1980s, three decades after India received independence. The government under the

Congress Party decided to take a landmark decision, allowing broadcasting of Hindu epics

on state controlled television. The politically charged decision sought to revive the flagging

fortune of the party by targeting the “Hindu votes” and risking alienation of both the Muslim

voters and secular credentials. However due to organizational deficiency the Congress

failed to capitalize on the tele‐epic’s popularity and revive its fortune. It was the BJP’s 7

“open advocacy of the Hindutva (the movement for Hindu self‐assertion and nationhood)”

that helped them to capitalize on the televised narrative of an emergent collective Hindu

identity. By the time of the general elections of 1991 they became a national party and

made significant electoral gains (Chatterjee, 1994, p.14) (see table 1).

Table I: Summary of General Elections 1991Source: The Election Commission of India

Political Group Seat Distribution

Congress (I) 226

Bharatiya Janata Party 119

Janata Dal (JD) 55

Communist Party of India Marxist (CPI (M))

35

Telegu Desam (TD) 14

Communist Party of India (CPI) 13

All‐India Anna DravidaMonnetra Kazhagam (A‐IADMK)

11

Others 33

In the post 1991 period following de‐regulation of the television networks, and a

growing nexus between market reforms and technological advancement, interaction

between media effect on political behavior underwent some changes. As market reforms

and liberalization started influencing society, the top‐down approach to economic

development got replaced. Rajagopal (2004) thought that the change in the discursive

narrative of state economy grew out of the complex politico‐economic reality as civil

society started contesting the claims of “benign (or not‐so‐benign) authoritarianism through

which economic policy was legislated, and which had survived more than four decades of

democratic elections” (Rajagopal ,2004, p.2). The 1990s witnessed for the first time an

emerging alliance between two contradictory forces, Hindutva and neoliberalism.

Gopalakrishnan (2008) compared this alliance to “living political projects, shaped in a

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dialectical relationship” with their social foundations and common goals offering a space

that could be exploited (Gopalakrishnan, 2008, p. 11) in terms of the tactics used for

operating the alliance. At the national level, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA),

headed by the BJP made “discursive adjustments” that allowed them to develop a political

praxis built on the neoliberal privatization of “education, intensified repression of social

movements and the opening of the Indian economy to Non Resident Indian driven foreign

investment. The two projects also promoted ‘anti‐terrorism’ as the single most important

agenda of the Indian state, while attempting to dissolve its commitment to any forms of

‘social justice"(Gopalakrishnan, 2008, p.10). Riding high on the success of what

emerged as successful alliance between neoliberalism and Hindutva, in 2003 the BJP

led NDA coalition launched a nationwide television campaign with the slogan “India

Shining”. The NDA government spent an estimated twenty million dollars of the

taxpayers’ money were used to air the campaign in print and electronic media, in all

languages (Zora & Woreck, 2004). The campaign was aired 9,472 times making it the

second most viewed advertisement between December 2003‐January 2004 (Chandran,

2004, February 24). In the print media similar success were achieved in terms of its

popularity, as it became the fourth most advertised insertion in the 450 national and

regional newspapers (Ad‐Ex India Ananlysis, 2003; Bidwai, 2004). The New York based

advertisement agency, Grey Worldwide were the brainpower behind the sixty second

media blitz, focusing on a “feel‐good” propaganda that were accompanied by the

economic liberalization mantra along with images of India’s industrial and agricultural

development, the emergent middle‐class and the idea of India as an emergent super power.

The NDA alliance emphasized that the “India Shining” was a government campaign that

showcased India’s economic progress rather than political campaign for the upcoming

General Election 2004 (The Hindu, 2004). The campaign plank was set up against the

backdrop of the existing Indian economic development. According to Kohli (2006) the

success of Indian economy under the NDA regime was reflection of the neoliberal

intervention of favoring pro‐business industrial policy and de‐regulation of the “license

raj”. This would also allow for greater freedom for private investors in different sectors of

the economy (Kohli, 2006). The figures listed in table II are often cited as indicators of

economic progress in India, through the India Shining campaign.

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Table II: Post‐Reform Economic IndicatorsSource: Economic Survey of India

Wyatt (2005) argues that the India Shining campaign reflects India’s transition from modernist

to the post‐modernist vision of economic development (Wyatt, 2005, 466). Prior to economic

liberalization of 1991, the “literal and metaphorical” interpretation of Nehruvian modern India

was constructed through state‐led planned development. The assumption here was that state as

representation of modernity “would overcome the barriers to progress created by myth and

superstition”2. The modernist view of state‐led development was being undermined, following

the colossal failure of the planned modernist project (Wyatt, 2005, p.466). Wyatt (2005) would

sketch the postmodernist narrative through the logic of economic development characterized by

production and consumption: Consumption is coming to be understood in new ways.

Consumers are much more susceptible to the a l lure of intangible and ephemeral

goods . Advertising and branded goods are increasingly important aspects of economic life

in India. India is itself being treated as a brand (Wyatt 2005, 466). The India Shining

Campaign requires to be viewed as basis for India’s new “economic imagery” (Wyatt

2005, p.472). As the Indian nation starts becoming more secure with its post‐colonial

identity based on nascent Hindu nationalism, the political parties, started to champion the

neoliberal agenda of economic nationalism. The India Shining Campaign, under the existing 10

BJP regime planned to extend its political base to the resurgent, educated urban electorate,

who were benefactors of India’s rising status as “software superpower” and “knowledge‐

based economy” (Wyatt 2005, p.470). The India Shining Campaign articulated the

“globalist discourse” of the benefits of economic development, based on the logic of

economic liberalization.3 It also reflected the BJP and its affiliated attempt of portraying

“media‐friendly image and claims that ‘(p)roactive media management of India’s

global image is key’”.4 The two primary templates used to accomplish favorable

voting outcomes in favor of the BJP and its affiliated, were ‘making India a superpower’

and a ‘developed country by 2020’.5

The electoral campaign received further boost after the BJP, decided to use the

traditional campaign strategy of road rallies along with the India Shining campaign,

launched in print and electronic media. Bharat Uday Yatra (the India Shining Tour) was

launched as a cross‐wide rally in March 10, 2004. The campaign led by Deputy Prime

Minister, L K Advani, focused on the burgeoning economic growth and good governance,

without any reference to the Hindutva ideology. The tour attempted to appeal to the rural

audience without access to print and electronic media. Further, it tried to counter the

allegations of “large‐scale poverty and widening inequality disjuncture between the

narrative of a dynamic Indian economy and popular perceptions of that economy”, as

projected by the opposition parties, international and national print and electronic media,

along with scholars (Wyatt, 2005, p. 477).

The appeals of emergent Hindu nationalism helped to secure political participation through

voter mobilization for the BJP and its allies, during the 1991 general election. Moreover

with the “strong nationalist discipline, pro‐business government” stance, BJP brought b a c k

t he “ non‐committed v o t e r s ”, to vote for them. This form of political mobilization

from previously non‐committed voters’ were significant since the 1991 election

witnessed below average voter turnout of 57.23 percent, from 61.24 percent in 1989

(IDEA, 2010). It was becoming clearly evident that the four decade long national

consensus on the Indian National Congress was waning. This was direct outcome of the

growing contradictions within the secularism project, manifest in the legacy of anti‐Sikh

and anti‐Muslim riots. The Nehruvian consensus also suffered a collapse of economic

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modernity lead by state‐led development that characterized “wasteful and inefficient

system nurturing stagnation and corruption rather than productivity” (Rajagopal, 2004,

p.33).

In contrast, the failure of the 2004 India Shining Campaign and Bharat Uday Yatra needs

to be attributed to several contradictions within the emergent political narratives of

“Brand India”. By the early 2000, the postmodernist ambitions had lead citizens to

emerge as consumers who would become “susceptible to the allure of advertising

and branded goods” (Wyatt, 2005, p.466). These shifts in how the economic imaginary

operates become critical for “constructing India’s new national identity” and understand

the linkages between political mobilization and exposure to media. Failure of this political

advertisement on the other hand indicates that the effects of media in influencing

favorable voting outcomes (favor of BJP and its allies) can become

counterproductive. Mr L.K. Advani (2004) would concede to this argument when he says

that the 2004 electoral defeat for the NDA needs to be attributed to “…over‐confidence and

wrong slogans like India Shining...” (Press Trust of India, 2009).

Table III: Summary of General Elections 2004Source: The Election Commission of India

Political Group Seats Distribution

Congress (I) 146

Bharatiya Janata Party 137

Communist Party of India ‐ Marxist (CPI (M)) 43

Socialist Party (SP) 37

Other Parties 23

Majority Society Party (BSP) 18

Communist Party of India (CPI) 10

National Congress Party 9

Independents 5

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Figure I: Summary of Exit Polls: General Elections 2004Source: h t t p : // www .hi n du o nn e t . c om / e l ec t i o n s 2 0 0 4 / i n d ex.h t m

Chaffe and Kahnihan’s (1996) augmented that television could be a more informative source

than the print media under certain circumstances seems to have some relevance for India. The

proliferations of cable‐satellite and radio in India over the last twenty years are an indication

of the emergence of television as a useful alternative of information delivery. This growing

popularity of television as a primary communication medium could also be attributed to the

inaccessibility of print media to certain sections of population due to the problems of

illiteracy, poverty and linguistic heterogeneity. We would further argue that Indian print

media over the years have come to represent an elitist‐subculture as they were set up by

industrial corporations and business houses (since prior to 1990 television was regulated by

the state) and serve as their mouthpiece for small group of educated middle‐ class elites.

The popularity of the cable‐satellite television indicates that India has now entered the era of

electronic capitalism. The print media uses the trajectory of information delivery that oscillates

between catering to the regional or national level. The mode of information delivery for the

electronic media is more nuanced, since it starts out by claiming its niche at the national level,

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before reinforcing itself into the local and regional venues.6 We would argue that the role‐

played by television in constructing the post‐modernist Indian identity, had influenced political

parties to succumb to the temptation of using the televised space for communicating political

agenda and achieving electoral success. The India Shining is a great example of how the BJP

and its ffiliates attempted to capture the neoliberal imagery of progress through political

advertisement. What would probably explain its failure are the inherent contradictions between

the neoliberal agenda of self‐sustaining growth and free‐market operations and the

paternalistic state‐led bourgeoisie narratives that were constantly being circulated through

other media outlets including the print and electronic media (also the Internet). The validity of

our claims are once more established when we look at the fate of the recent political

advertisement, Jai‐Ho (Hail India) under existing Congress party.

In March 2009 the Congress Party led government acquired the copyrights of Jai‐Ho (Hail

India) for $200,000, to use the song as part of its political campaign for the upcoming general

elections (BBC, 2009). Unlike the India Shining campaign, Jai Ho (Hail India) had established

its credibility as an award winning song showcasing the plight of real India, the common man

and how he willingly marches forward despite the growing adversaries. The imagery of the

common man has always been an intrinsic part of the Congress campaign

for the last several decades. As India’s premier national party and primary one for the last fifty

years, the party found itself at the cross‐roads of harboring an elitist sub‐culture based on party

membership that were dominated by foreign‐schooled, educate, upper and middle class

intelligentsia. This was in contrast to the electoral base that would represent people from

different sections of society including the social and economically marginalized sections of

population.

The overall thematic narrative of the Jai Ho campaign focused on the common man and his

path to success that would be shaped by the neoliberal logic of market driven economic

development. However, what was critical to the Jai‐Ho campaign was the contrasting imagery

of the neoliberal ideology, from the India Shining campaign. The India Shining campaign

focused on growth rates, surging stock markets, booming service sector and sound financial

reserves. The broad indicators of neoliberal development paradigm although significant,

would overlook the shortcomings of neoliberal development in post‐ colonial setting such as

India, characterized by uneven development and inequality in the distribution of wealth. The

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Jai‐Ho campaign had already been part of the Indian psyche; following the success of the

award winning song that established its credibility by celebrating the common man and their

resilience to overcome adversaries. Reflecting on the campaign that ran for sixty seconds

(in three different formats), three broad themes emerged ‐ the Congress leadership over the

years; the success of the Indian farming community with implicit reference to the

Congress initiated Green Revolution of 1965; and the Gandhian vision of self‐sustaining

Indian economy based on agricultural progress and small cottage industries. In addition to

this they also focused on the current leadership and “…showcasing, among other things,

India’s Moon mission, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, the India‐U.S.

Nuclear deal and Bharat Nirman”(Hindu, 2009).

When NDA launched the India Shining campaign, it intended to capture the

economic imagination of the nation spurred by successes of neoliberal development

agenda. The BJP insisted that the campaign was not meant to be a political campaign for the

upcoming elections. On the contrary, it was a government advertisement meant to promote

“Brand India” by referencing India’s socio‐political and economic accomplishments. But the

timing, price tag and the problematic trajectory of India’s political‐economic development

lead to rejection of the BJP mandates. The Public Interest Litigations (PIL) seeking ban on

the campaign and challenging full disclosure of the funds used for the campaign indicated

one more instance of growing interaction between media and political participation. It is to be

noted, that the narrative of political participation in a democracy manifests itself in a

number of ways including voting, attendance to town hall meeting, opinion polls or seeking

accountability for governmental action through the act of lodging a civil case.In 2009 when

brand‐Congress launched the Jai‐Ho campaign, as compared to the India Shining campaign

(2004) and the Bhai Ho (a satirical rendition of the Jai Ho campaign that translated to “Be

Afraid”) (2009), the differences in the discursive narrative was discernibly evident.

Santosh Desai, CEO of Future Brand argues that “The smartest thing of the Congress

campaign was not to give BJP ammunitions to shoot back at the incumbent. The entire

communication strategy didn’t gloat over achievements; it made the right soothing

noises and didn’t push the envelope too much.” (Banerjee, 2009).

Moreover studies conducted by B r a n d S ci e nc e @ I M RB International revealed that Congress

campaign proved to be successful in all the cities with the exception of Bangalore. The

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Congress campaign scored high on “entertainment and enjoyment parameters” with 72 percent

(compared to 51 percent for the BJP). Similarly 55 percent felt optimistic watching Congress

campaign versus 40 percent for BJP commercials (2004, 2009). Finally, the language of

the campaign was simple, positive and appealed to women voters (The Economic

Times, 2009) In the post‐colonial context fashioning of the political identities and co‐

existence of collective identity based on caste, class, religion and nationalism have been

rooted in traditional forms of participation and mobilization techniques (Kidambi, 2007, p.

241). What is perhaps more distinctive is the role of media plays in the formation of political

opinion. This study affirms the proposition that the relationship between media and political

behavior is more nuanced, as it is nested in the ideological contradiction between neo‐

liberal agenda and the “culture of paternalism”. It is also a product of the complex socio‐

cultural reality fostering heterogeneity and possibility of “violent fracture” (Kidambi. 2007, p.

240).

Table IV: Exit Surveys 2009Source: Douglas, S. (2009)

Agency Dates Predictions

CNN‐IBN 05/13/2009 UPA 185–205, NDA 165–185, Third Front 110–130, Fourth Front 25–35

Star‐Nielsen 05/13/2009 UPA 199, NDA 196, Third Front 100, Fourth Front 36

India TV 05/13/2009 UPA 189–201, NDA 183–195, Third Front 105–121

Times Now 05/13/2009 UPA 198, NDA 183, Third Front 0, Other & Independent 162

Headlines Today 05/13/2009 UPA 191, NDA 180, Third Front 38, Other& Independent 134

India TV 05/13/2009 UPA 195, NDA 194, Third Front 108, Other& Independent 46

UTVi 05/13/2009 UPA 195, NDA 189, Third Front 0, Other & Independent 14

16

Congress (own survey) 05/13/2009 UPA 205, NDA 168, Third Front 0, Other & Independent 153

BJP (own survey) 05/13/2009 UPA 170, NDA 220, Third Front 0, Other & Independent 164

Table V: Summary of General Elections 2009Source: The Election Commission of India

Political Group SeatsDistribution

Congress (I) 205

Bharatiya Janata Party 116

Samajwadi Party 22

Bahujan Samaj Party 21

Janata Dal‐United 20

Trinamool Congress 19

DMK 18

Communist Party of India ‐ Marxist (CPI(M))

16

Biju Janata Dal (BJD) 14

Shiv Sena 11

Nationalist Congress Party 9

Communist Party of India (CPI) 9

AIADMK 9

Telegu Desam Party (TDP) 6

Rashtriya Lok Dal 5

RJD 4

Akali Dal 4

17

CPI 4

Independents 9

Others 29

T he I nte r net a nd P ol i tical Pa r ticipation in I

n dia

American scholars like Krueger (2002, 2005), Norris and Solop (as cited in Krueger, 2002)

have studied the impact of the internet revolution on political participation. These scholars

have tried to find out if the internet has opened up opportunities for greater political

participation in the United States. However, it is difficult to find a similar body of literature

regarding the impact of the internet on political participation in India. Therefore, in this

paper we try to analyze if the internet revolution has influenced political

participation in India in any significant way. For exploring this issue we focus on two major

aspects of the internet that involve mass participation ‐ social networking and blogging. For

studying the role played by social networking with regards to political participation in

India we focus exclusively on Orkut communities dealing with Indian politics. On the other

hand, in order to examine the impact of blogging on political participation we study the

major blogging websites of India.

In the first part of this section we focus on the analysis of the Orkut communities on Indian

politics. Orkut is a social networking website run by the Google Inc. (D’monte 2010). It was

launched in the year 2004 (D’monte, 2010). After Brazil, India is the second largest market

for Orkut (D’monte, 2010). In India, Orkut was the single largest social networking website

till July 2010 (Press Trust of India, 2010). It was only in July 2010, that Orkut with 19.9

million visitors lost its top position to Facebook with 20.9 million visitors (Press Trust of

India, 2010b). Other significant social networking websites in India include

BharatStudent (4.4 million visitors), Twitter (3.3 million visitors), Yahoo Pulse (3.5 million

visitors) and Yahoo Buzz (1.8 million visitors) (Press Trust of India, 2010b). In this study we

focus exclusively on Orkut because it has been the most popular social networking website

in India till July 2010.

We begin our analysis by running a search on Orkut for communities with the key words 18

“Indian politics”. The search results produce a list of communities on Indian politics created in

India and other countries. From the search results we select a sample of thirty two

communities that were created in India. We pick out these thirty two communities on the basis

of active participation. All the communities selected for this study were created between 2004

and 2010. The number of members for the communities range between 25 and 13,343 (as of

February 2011). We study these communities with the specific purpose of answering three key

questions – Is the creation of communities systematically related to national parliamentary

elections? Is the membership of the communities systematically related to national

parliamentary elections? What is the general approach of these communities towards

Indian politics and whether the approach taken in the communities is related to any tangible

form of political participation?

In the first question, we inquire if there is a relationship between national elections and the

creation of communities related to Indian politics on Orkut. Our argument in case of this

particular question is that if creating communities has an influence on political participation

in general and voting behavior in particular then more and more communities are

likely to be created in the years when India had a national parliamentary election. Considering

Orkut was launched in the year 2004, our study is restricted to the 14th Lok Sabha election of

2004 and the 15th Lok Sabha elections of 2009. However, on looking at figure II, we fail to

find evidence in support of a systematic relationship between the year of community creation

and the national elections. While 2004 and 2005 had only one community created per

year, figure II shows that the maximum number of communities were created in the years

2006 and 2007. Out of the thirty two communities analyzed in this study as many as nine

communities were created in 2006 and the same number of communities was created in

2007. Seven communities were created in 2008. Four communities were created in 2009 and

only one community was created in the year 2010. This implies that the maximum number of

communities was created in years when Indian did not have a national election. The years in

which India did have a national election i.e. 2004 and 2009 witnessed the creation of only

one and four communities respectively. This trend is indicative of the fact that the creation

of online social networking communities with a political intent is not directly related to

political participation in general and voting behavior in particular. In the second question we

focus on studying the relationship between community membership and national 19

parliamentary elections in India. Our expectation from this question is that if joining

communities did have a direct influence on political participation in general and voting behavior

in particular then a community created in a year when India had a national election is likely to

have high membership. Figure III shows the membership in different communities by the year

of their creation. This graph shows that the one community created in 2004 and the one in

2005 had very high membership numbers. In fact the community created in 2004 had as

many as 13,074 members whereas the community created in 2005 a membership of about

13,343. However, the membership for communities created in 2006 remained relatively

low with only one out of nine communities witnessing a membership higher than 3000.

Most of the communities created in 2007 had membership figures lower than 3000. Only one

of the nine communities created in 2007 had more than 6000 members. Memberships for the

communities created in 2008 and 2009 remained very low in the sense that they had less than

1000 members. However, the one community created in the year 2010 witnessed a massive

membership of more than 9000. This graph fails to portray a systematic relationship between

community membership and na t iona l e lec t i ons . While the yea r o f the 14 th Lok

Sabha election witnessed a community with membership as high as 13,074, the communities

created in 2009 failed to have more than 1000 members. On the other hand, the community

created in the year 2005, which was not a national election year, had the maximum membership

of 13,343 people. Moreover, 2010 in spite of not being an election year witnessed a dramatic

increase in membership as compared to 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009. Considering the graph

depicts a highly unsystematic pattern in the relationship between national elections and

membership in different communities by the year of their creation, it is difficult to argue that

joining communities has any direct impact on political participation.

In the final part of our analysis of the Orkut communities on Indian politics we look into the

general approach taken by the communities on Indian politics as such. In order to answer this

question we classify all the communities studied for this paper into two broad categories –

communities not seeking a change of the current state of Indian politics and communities

aiming at bringing about a change in Indian politics. These communities are coded as zero

and one respectively. The classification is based on the words used in the community titles

and the description of the communities. We treat the use of words and sentences like

“change”, “clear up this devouring threat of corrupt and unjust political society”, “…need

20

a revolution here” in the title and description as indicative of communities belonging to the

second category. Figure IV shows the number of communities falling under each of the

two aforementioned categories. This graph indicates that there are as many as 20

communities that aspire to bring about change in the current state of Indian politics whereas

only 12 demonstrate no explicit desire for change in the status quo. The question that

immediately follows is that are the members of those 20 communities using the community

platform for organizing concrete efforts like demonstrations, marches, online protests,

campaigns etc. for bringing about a change? However, a study of the various

comments posted on the communities suggest that the members are using the community

platform for general discussion as opposed to organizing tangible programs for bringing about

a change in Indian politics. Thus all the three aspects of Orkut communities on Indian

politics suggest that social networking communities have failed to directly influence

political participation in general and voting behavior in particular in India.

In the following section on the role of the internet revolution in the context of political

participation, we focus on the major political blogs of India. The data that we use in this paper

for studying the blogs is obtained from the website of “BlogRank”. “BlogRank”

uses a wide range of factors to rank the major Indian blogging websites. According to

Khalid (2009, June 2) the key factors used by “BlogRank” for ranking the blogging websites

are – RSS membership, Yahoo incoming links, Yahoo indexed pages, Google indexed pages,

Google page rank, monthly visitors, pages per visit, link page ratio, complete Alexa and

Technocrati ratings, and social cites popularity. In our paper we use the rankings published by

“BlogRank” to focus on two major issues – first to study the rank of the political blogging

websites among the major blogging websites of India and then to analyze if the political

blogging websites involve any form of tangible political participation. We specifically focus

on the top seventy five blogs of India. We consider a blog to be political only when political

issues are specifically mentioned in the title of the blog.

Out of the top 75 blogging websites we only found one with an explicit content. This blog titled

“Indian Political Blog” ranks 72nd in BlogRank’s list of the top 75 blogs. “The India

Political Blog” has been created as a platform for voicing public opinion in the three key areas

of governance, consumer rights and politics. The major difference between the Orkut

communities discussed earlier in the paper and this blog is that posts on “The India Political

21

Blog” seem to be more detailed and more informed that the casual comments on the Orkut

communities. Moreover, this blog also seems to be very active in the sense that it has been

maintain an archive of all the posts since June 2007. The archive lists the comments

posted to the community on a monthly basis. Although the description of this blog does not

mention that the blog intends to promote any form of direct political participation the

blog does provide for a platform for exchanging opinion on political issues. However, the

low rank of this blogging website in the list of the major blogs in India indicates that political

blogging is not yet popular among the internet savvy masses. This again shows that the

internet revolution has not succeeded at influencing the political behavior of the masses in a

substantial way.

Conclusion

In this paper we have tried to study the impact of the electronic media on political

participation in general and voting behavior in particular in India during the post

liberalization era. In order to study the role of the electronic media we have focused on the

television and the internet. As far as the role played by television is considered we have

mainly concentrated on the tele‐epics, the cable network channels, and the use of television for

airing campaigns like “India Shining” by BJP and “Jai‐Ho” by the Indian National

Congress. In case of the internet we have looked into online social networking communities

dealing with Indian politics on Orkut as well as blogging website on the same issue. Our

findings suggest that television has exercised a meaningful influence on political

participation in India during the last 20 years. However, the extent to which campaigns on

television have led to successful mobilization has varied depending on the crafting of the

contents of the campaign. The internet, on the other hand, has not yet emerged as a potent

factor for determining political participation. Future research can be directed towards

survey oriented field work that can be used for conducting quantitative studies on the

relationship between the electronic media and political participation in India.

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Note

1 See Chapter 4: A ‘‘split public’’ in the making and unmaking of the Ram Janmabhumi movement in A.

Rajagopal (2004) “Politics after Television: Hindu Nationalism and the Reshaping of the Public in India”.

Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. p.21.

2 James C. Scott (1998) Seeing Like A State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have

Failed. Yale: Yale University Press, 90–93 in Wyatt, A. (2005). Building the temples of postmodern India:

economic constructions of national identity. Contemporary South Asia, 14(4), 465‐480.

3 Jalal Alamgir (2003) ‘Managing openness in India: the social construction of a globalist narrative’, in

Linda Weiss (ed), States in the Global Economy: Bringing

Domestic Institutions Back In. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p 226. Ibid. 471

4 India Brand Equity Foundation (IBEF) (2003), op cit, Ref 13, p 3. Ibid. 473.

5 Make India a superpower: Advani’, The Hindu, 11 March 2004,

http://www.hindu.com/2004/03/11/stories/2004031107510100.htm (accesssed 20 June 2005) Ibid. 471

6 Richard Dienst (1994) utilizes an important distinction, one between the ‘‘time of the image’’ and the ‘‘time of

viewing,’’ in Still Life in Real Time: Theory After Television. Durham: Duke University Press: 58‐59;

Mary Ann Doane has written that television’s greatest ability is to be there – both on the scene and in your

living room. Mary Ann Doane, (1990) ‘‘Information, Crisis and Catastrophe,’’ in Logics of Television: Essays

in Cultural Criticism, ed. Patricia Mellencamp. Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press and British

Film Institute. P.238 According to traditional notions of time and space, as Samuel Weber points out, television

can be neither fully here nor fully there; it is rather ‘‘a split or a separation that camouflages itself by taking

the form of a visible image. That is the veritable significance of the term ‘television coverage’: it covers an

28

invisible separation by giving it shape, contour and figure.’’ See Samuel Weber, (1996)‘‘Television: Set and

Screen,’’ in Mass Mediauras: Form, Technics, Media, ed. Alan Cholodenko (Stanford: Stanford University Press,

p.120 in Rajagopal 2004, 289.

29