Impact of Social Media on

Voting Behavior A Whitepaper

24/5/2013

This whitepaper presents the findings of an online research conducted to probe and identify social

media behaviours that may influence voting preferences and choices of individuals in real world

parliamentary elections.

Shoeb Ahmed Khan

Intern – MSL India

Overview Social Media has undoubtedly carved a place for itself in the lives of people. It cuts across

boundaries of geography, demography, language and subject. There have been countless

examples of movements, protests and discussions online that have resulted in the toppling of

governments, downfall of brands and celebrity meltdowns. Even companies now allocate

budgets to monitor online conversations about their brand and leverage them to improve their

products, customer service and build a positive vibe and recall.

Over the last year we have seen a number of trends online that may well affect the outcome

of the elections due to be held in 2014. Be it the NaMo v/s Feku episode or the outcry over

the arrest of two women for tweeting about Bal Thackeray, India is increasingly taking to

social media to voice its opinion. Politicians and political parties have identified this trend too

and have started developing their social media presence, but are they doing it right? A recent

study said that most of the political opinion online is pro-BJP as they have spent considerable

time and effort in building their voice on social media.

In 2012 the Prime Minister’s office took to Twitter and started tweeting with the handle

@PMOIndia. Narendra Modi is the most followed politician on Twitter followed by Sushma

Swaraj, Arvind Kejriwal etc. This is still a relatively new phenomenon to India as politicians

in US and Europe have long been using social media as a platform to generate support and

present their views. The 2008 US presidential election was widely hailed as the Social Media

Election as Barack Obama’s highly effective online campaign consisting of social media,

podcasts, mobile messaging etc. led to a landmark victory.

In this whitepaper I present the findings of a research conducted online to probe factors that

may affect voting behaviour and to gather insights into the decision making process of a

voter.

Introduction At the end of 2012, it was estimated that India had more than 150 million internet users,

which is the same as the number of television sets in the country. Of this, 65 million are

Facebook users and Twitter has an estimated 35 million accounts. A study done by Pew

Research says nearly 45% of Indian web users connect on social media to discuss politics (1)

.

So while internet penetration is small (10%), the number of users is rapidly growing and is

dominated by first time voters. Between 2004 and 2009, the voting population went up from

670 million to 720 million. The number is expected to increase to 800 million by the time the

country goes to the polls, a greater number of voters than ever before will be 25 years or

younger (2)

. With elections slated for next year, it's a huge vote bank that politicians can't

afford to ignore.

The Internet and Mobile Association of India’s latest report predicts social media users will

influence the elections in 160 “high impact” constituencies out of the total of 543

constituencies in the next general election. High-impact constituencies are those where the

number of Facebook users is more than the margin of victory of the winner in the last

election, or where Facebook users account for over 10% of total voters in a constituency.

Another IAMAI report also states that social media usage is spreading fast in areas other than

the top eight Indian metros. One third of the social media users, as the study reveals, are

residents of smaller towns with population fewer than 500000. Even more significant is the

fact that a quarter of social media users are residents of towns with a population less than

200000 (2)

.

There are mixed views among politicians about social media’s impact. In an interaction

organised by Google in the capital a few weeks ago, politicians active on social media had

expressed their scepticism at the ability of the medium to influence elections. Both Minister

of State Shashi Tharoor and Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, who have

large followings on Twitter, said that with net penetration of less than 12 per cent, no serious

politician can mount a significant poll campaign based on social media, let alone win an

election (3)

In Malaysia where traditional media is predominantly state-owned, the Internet is emerging

as a new political battleground where alternative online news websites are shaping opinions

of the youth who are increasingly taking to social media to gather information on political

parties before they go out to vote (4)

. Back home in Bihar and Maharashtra politicians are

increasingly logging on to Twitter to lure the youth. Nitish Kumar, Ramvilas Paswan, MNS,

Shiv Sena and the NCP all have developed an online presence (5)

Current Scenario An analysis of the social media presence of the two biggest political units in India –

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the ruling party Indian National Congress (Congress)

showed the following results

Share of Voice (1/04/2013 - 20/5/2013)

BJP

Congress

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

1600

Tweets Retweets All Tweets

#bjp

#congress

0

1000000

2000000

3000000

4000000

5000000

6000000

7000000

#bjp #congress

Impressions

#bjp

#congress

BJP’s online presence consists of an official website (www.bjp.org) and a sister website

(www.yuva4india.tv) which is their internet TV portal. It is well represented on Facebook

(917k likes), Twitter (34k followers) and YouTube. The presence of high profile politicians

such as Narendra Modi, Sushma Swaraj, Vijay Goel, Rajnath Singh on Twitter futher

amplifies BJP’s reach on social media.

The Facebook page of BJP has a good mix of content ranging from photos, videos, links to

news articles and posts that are conversational and engaging in nature and relate to current

issues. The posts also contains links to their other online properties and accounts. The Twitter

account though just reflects the content on the Facebook page along with retweets from the

sister account Yuva TV. The frequency of tweets is about 2 tweets per day.

This is in stark contrast to the Indian National Congress which is almost non-existent on

social media apart from the politicians who have active accounts on Twitter. These include

S.M Krishna, Milind Deora, Ajay Maken, Digvijaya Singh etc. What is noticeable is that fact

that regardless of their non presence on social media officially, Congress was still being

talked about in contexts of governance, policies and a range of other current issues but

despite them being the ruling party, their share of voice was lesser than the BJP.

The recent war of hashtags between Rahul Gandhi and Narendra Modi that broke out over

Twitter and then made news on TV and newspapers is a good indication of how online chatter

influences the perceptions of a politician in public eye.

Research Questions Building on the basic premise that social media has some sort of influence on an individual’s

decision to vote, the next step was to identify the impact each online medium.

RQ1: Does an individual’s social media activity impact his likelihood to vote?

RQ2: What is the impact of different factors on this decision?

Research Methodology A survey in the form of an online questionnaire was circulated and 187 reponses were

obtained. The survey period lasted about 4 weeks. 48% of the respondents fell in the age

bracket of 24-30, 43% under 18-23, and 7% under 31-40. There was almost an even split

among genders as 52% respondents were men and 48% women. Majority of the respondents

were graduate and post graduate students (68.8%) while the rest were full time employees

with organizations.

Facebook was used by the most number of people (50%) followed by Twitter (27%), Blogs

(12%) and Forums (10%).

60% of the respondents had voted at least once while the rest had never voted in any kind of

election

Measures

A set of 11 variables were identified to measure the possible ways in which an individual

could engage in political-related activities. These were measured on a 5-point likert scale.

A set of 7 questions were created to probe the amount of influence different online media had

on an individual’s voting decision. These were measure on a 5-point likert scale.

Finally, respondents were asked to rank all sources of political information in decreasing

order of influence on decision to vote.

Results Factor Analysis was conducted on the 11 variables to reduce the number of dimensions and

get a clearer picture of data for use in further analysis. Factor Analysis resulted in a 5 factor

solution.

Component

1 2 3 4 5

Facebook Opinions

.823

Facebook Content Writing

.800

Facebook Groups

.726

Forums and Boards

.600

Twitter Follow .874

Twitter Trends .787

Twitter Retweets

.764

News Websites .895

Reading Blogs .642

YouTube .894

Write Blog .886

The five factors were labelled as:

1. Online opinions of the general public

2. Opinions of the twitterati

3. Journalistic Reports

4. YouTube Videos

5. Content Creation

Hence we find that these emerged as the five major factors that shape an individuals political

opinion and ultimately their decision to vote.

The factor scores of the above 5 factors were measured. A linear regression was then run

using these 5 factors as independent variables and ‘Likelihood to vote’ as the dependent

variable.

Model Summary

Model R R Square

Adjusted R

Square

Std. Error of the

Estimate

1 .299a .090 .061 1.256

As seen above, the R square value of 9% indicates that the model does not explain the

variation in Likelihood to Vote. Hence we can conclude that there is no significant

correlation between the five factors and Likelihood to vote.

On being asked to arrange different forms of media in decreasing order of their impact on

voting decisions, the following was obtained

1. Television, Newpapers and Magazines

2. Radio

3. News Websites

4. Facebook

5. Twitter

6. Blogs

7. Forums and Boards

8. Official Websites

Insights The study found that an individual’s social media activities had no significant correlation

with their likelihood to vote. Coupled with the fact that Television, Newspapers and

Magazines were chosen as the media that most impacted the decision to vote we can

conclude that the traditional forms of media still play an undeniably important role in shaping

the political opinion of the public.

Despite being outranked by traditional forms of media, it is clear that content on social media

does impact voting decisions in some way or the other.

It was also observed that any kind of advertising (online of offline) has no influence on an

individuals political opinion.

Online chatter by the general public on platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Forums has an

influence on an individuals political opinion more than content shared by official accounts of

political parties and politicians.

Recommendations 1. Social Media should be an important component of a 360 degree election campaign.

More than just maintaining presence on social media, it should be monitored to

identify what political topics people are talking about and in what context are parties

and politicians being mentioned.

2. Sentiment analysis on topics and keywords would be able to give deeper insights into

what issues politicians should make a stand on and talk about.

3. The research revealed that even though the public does not trust official channels of

communication they would still like to be able to find their local politican on social

media to be able to voice their issues and make themselves heard. Just like brands on

social media, it makes sense for politicians and parties to address citizens’ queries on

matters of importance. It is hence an important medium of propagating your mandate

to the general public.

4. Blue State Digital is a USA based digital agency that carried out Obama’s highly

succesful relection campaign in 2012. They raised $690 million in donations with

4.4M donors. This was achieved through commnity-building, engagement and

mobilization program tied in with the offline activities. They created a visual identity

for the campaign - Logos, videos, a website, emails, and social media presence.

What this means for MSL India:

Social Hive should see this as a possible area to explore in order to differentiate itself

from other agencies. By pitching to the right clients whose philosophy matches with

that of MSL Group, Social Hive could be amongst the first social media agencies to

drive a succesful election campaign in India. It would also establish Social Hive as the

go-to agency for running election campaigns. It would also help in creating

transparency and accountability for politicians as every move of theirs is tracked by

the voters online. It would also undoubtedly increase awareness amongst people about

political topics and issues of governance.

Appendix Questionnaire 1. What is your age? 18-23 24-30 31-40 41-50 50+ 2. What is your gender? Male Female 3. What is your education level? High School Undergraduate Graduate Post Graduate 4. What is your occupation status?

Entrepreneur Full-time Employee Student / Intern 5. Which of the following social platforms are you active on?

Facebook Twitter Forums Blogs 6. Have you ever voted? (Municipal or Assembly or Lok Sabha)

Yes No 7. Please indicate below your likelihood to vote in the next elections (Municipal or Assembly or Lok Sabha)

Very Unlikely Unlikely Neutral Likely Very likely

Likelihood to vote

8. For each question below, check the box that most represents your level of agreement

Strongly Agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly

Disagree

I actively engage in political discussions by expressing my opinions on Facebook (on my wall, groups, pages etc)

I follow a lot of pages and groups on Facebook that discuss politics

I write and share political content on Facebook

I follow and regularly read tweets of politicians and political parties

I tweet and retweet political content on Twitter

I read up on political topics that are trending on twitter

I read a lot of political blogs

I blog about political topics that interest me

I read a lot of opinion pieces about politics on news websites

I watch videos on YouTube related to politics

I discuss politics on various forums and boards

9. For each question below, check the box that most represents your level of agreement:

Strongly Agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly

Disagree

I might be influenced to vote for a particular politician based on the content I read about him/her on Twitter

I might be influenced to vote for a particular politician based on

the content I read about him/her on Facebook

The content on official Facebook and Twitter accounts of politicians and parties is more important than what the general public is saying about them

YouTube videos are an important source of information to me and affect my decision to vote

The conversations on forums influence my decision to vote

Online polls influence my decision to vote

Online banner ads and other forms of advertising influence my voting behaviour

10. Arrange the following choices in decreasing order of their influence on your decision to vote.

Television Radio Facebook Newspapers/Magazines Twitter Blogs Forums News Websites Official Websites of political parties and politicians

References (1) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21831185

(2)http://www.iamai.in/Upload/Research/41120136250202/Social%20Media%20&%20Lok

%20Sabha%20Elections_69.pdf

(3) http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/80-million-social-media-users-by-next-

elections/article4607051.ece

(4) http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/130503/malaysia-elections

(5) http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-03-28/news/38099816_1_ncp-and-

mns-social-media-state-ncp

http://lighthouseinsights.in/political-parties-of-bihar-are-logging-onto-social-media-but-is-it-

effective.html