Motivated Mobilization: The Role of Emotions in the Processing of Poll Messages

In this article, we show how exposure to favorable messages about one’s preferred party can affect emotional reactions and subsequent political behavioral intentions. Through an online experiment (N = 540) conducted during the 2019 Indian general election, we find that exposure to favorable poll results increases enthusiasm and decreases anger, while both enthusiasm and anger activate behavioral

How Facebook can be more responsible when it goes local

With increasing numbers of people accessing social media in their own languages — what I term “internet vernacularisation” — Facebook and other social media companies must invest in building an infrastructure to ensure users are not exposed to harmful and fake content. Click to read.

Celebrity Politicians, Digital Campaigns, and Performances of Political Legitimacy in Indonesia’s 2019 Elections

In this article, we analyze celebrity politicians’ social media campaigns during Indonesia’s 2019 elections. We particularly examine the visual political communication strategies of celebrity politicians, particularly how they use their fame and celebrity status to make claims as political candidates and how they transform their fame into political legitimacy through social media. In the process

Was the 2019 Indian election won by digital media?

In this article, we examine the role of (digital)media during the 2019 national election in India, focusing on the success of PM Narendra Modi’s campaign. We show how the media environment that was split especially along the lines of opposition to Modi in elite English-language media versus a juggernaut Modi campaign on all levels, especially

Misinformation Concerns and Online News Participation among internet Users in India

In this article, we show the factors that affect concerns for online misinformation among English-language internet users in India, and how online news participation is affected by the rise of misinformation. WhatsApp use, but not Facebook and Twitter, trust in news, and identifying with main political parties (BJP/INC) are all correlated with higher concern over

Selective Belief: How Partisanship Drives Belief in Misinformation

In this article, we analyze the relationship among belief in misinformation, socialmedia use, and partisanship. Through a cross-sectional survey (N = 1,820) on the 2019 Indonesian national elections, we show that although the political use of social media is not associated with belief in misinformation, partisanship is strongly associated with belief in various types of

Low Margin Constituencies and NOTA Vote Share in Bihar Assembly Election 2020

There were 23 seats where the vote margin was less than 2,000 for the winning candidate in the 2020 Bihar assembly election. Of these 23, 11 had a vote margin of less than 1,000 between the winner and the runner up. The narrow vote margins indicate that the results could have been swayed in the

The Congress Party Spent More Money in Political Ads on Facebook before the Second Phase of Bihar Polls

While the BJP spent more money than other political parties on Facebook political advertisements before the first phase of voting in the Bihar assembly elections, the trend changed before the second phase of voting on November 2. The Congress party has surpassed other political parties in terms of overall spending on Facebook political advertisements between

BJP Spent More Money in Political Ads on Facebook before the First Phase of Bihar Polls

As Bihar entered its first phase of assembly elections, we noticed some interesting trends in terms of money spent by the major political parties on Facebook political advertisements. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spent an estimated amount of INR 17,959,85 on Facebook political advertisements in the week ended with October 25, while the Congress party

We have now included campaign ads of the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) in our analysis

The Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) started advertising on Facebook and Instagram from the third week of September. While the first ad was issued on September 22 by both Chirag Paswan and LJP official Facebook accounts, the bulk of ads were bought only from mid-October onwards.