As the general elections are around the corner, citizens in India decides whom to vote mainly by seeing the political analysis from the media or social media and it plays a strong role in shaping public opinion.
The general public depends on mass media to access news, citizens get access to news and information from different media outlets, and in this tech-savvy era mainly from social media.
Though social media is a great tool for campaigning, the present state of online advertising and marketing faces a huge threat due to fake news and forged content to influence voters.
India has become a digital society where social media has embedded itself in the lives of people and the election campaigning has been slowly shifting towards the digital arena in the past few years.
The media plays an important role in informing citizens about the daily political updates, and therefore achieves an even more central role during the elections and campaigns run by different political parties.
“What makes Indian news channels unique is that there are so many of them, far more than any other country. And as political debate in India has grown more polarised, often over Prime Minister Modi’s brand of Hindu nationalism, TV output has become more debased. And when that kind of coverage is fed into the Indian social media messaging machine, the effect can be dangerous,” reports Al Jazeera.
As the Indian General elections, 2019 are expected to be held in April and May 2019 to constitute the 17th Lok Sabha, here’s an Al Jazeera’s report you need to watch
