The 2014 General Elections saw a new kind of election
campaigning. Far removed from the dusty rallies, a considerable
part of the campaigning took place online. Political parties
employed big data analytics to crunch user information of nearly
100 million Indian social media users and used it to their
advantage in campaigning.
Political parties' major portion of campaigning was done by
PR executives sitting on computers, in addition to the proactive
Twitter accounts of their leaders. A study estimated that around
Rs. 300-400 crores were spent by the political parties for their
publicity and campaigns on social and digital media in 2014.
Two Sides of the Coin
Social media is no longer just a communication platform between
individuals but has shaped itself into a media giant with a reach
like no other. The 2016 US Presidential Elections saw an
unprecedented rise in candidates' engagement of social media,
with campaigns circulating misinformation and rumours
