The results of the elections announced in December 8th , 2013 seems to have changed the tie for news channels and social media which only seemed to have time for Narendra Modi, the only other option than the UPA government in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. The performance of the Aam Aadmi Party in the Delhi elections was beyond all expectations. The media, thereby, has latched on to the leader of the party, Arvind Kejriwal as the new hero. He has been steadily eating into Modi’s media space since then. In the tug-of-war with the media’s attention, Modi seems to be losing so far.
According to the Twitter polls conducted on Thursday evening, 30.35% of the 4,693 people talking about Modi were talking positively. Kejriwal was hot on Modi’s tail with 3,418 people tweeting about him, 30.06% of which was positive. When it comes to the awareness, reach, prominence and the favourability factor amongst the Tweeters, Kejriwal is way ahead of Modi on the race with 424 points. Modi has only 218 points, followed by Rahul Gandhi who has 157 points. Communications experts are of the opinion that it is time for Modi to reinvent his strategy when it comes to the media. According to them, Modi has been losing out on both the print media as well as the social media.
Senior professor of communication and media studies at Mudra Institute of Communication and Advertising (MICA), Arbind Sinha said that Modi had been riding the wave of popularity when it came to his stand against the Congress. However, with the entry of Kejriwal into the picture, the Aam Aadmi Party has eaten into media space earlier held by Modi on web, print and social media. Since a huge number of the readers are not firmly affiliated to any party, they can easily change their views. The BJP supporters, according to him, will not get affected by the party but the youth without a definite political opinion may just go with the wave in favour of the Aam Aadmi Party.
Anthropologist and senior fellow at the Centre for Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) in Delhi, Shiv Visvanathan said that the Aam Aadmi Party has definitely created a tremendous political wave. However, it is yet to be seen as to how they will be when it comes to governance and improvement of the existing system. The pary may have stolen the limelight for the moment, but, according to Visvanathan, it is too early in the game to predict a trend. The party has to be watched for at least another month or two before asserting as to whether they will succeed in expanding beyond Delhi and creating a similar wave in other states.
BJP national spokesperson Prakash Javadekar, however, denied that Modi was losing out to Kejriwal and his party when it comes to media attention. He says that although he cannot comment on the recent media coverage of Kejriwal, he does not believe that Modi’s popularity has been affected in any way.
By Dyuti Basu.
A HyderabadTalks Exclusive.
Courtesy: Hyderabadtalks.com
http://hyderabadtalks.com/2014/01/aam-aadmi-steals-the-limelight-from-modi/
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