Virtual unreality

The social media is a source of unending fascination to not only the practitioners of mainstream media (MSM) but also social scientists, marketers, pollsters and now, increasingly, politicians. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and even Instagram and Tumblr are all the new stars on the Internet firmament, their reach and impact under constant study, even if they are a very recent phenomenon. No other human invention or activity spread worldwide as fast as Facebook, which reached the one billion-user mark in 2002, barely eight years after it was created in a Harvard dorm room.
It follows that these one billion people can collectively make a difference, even if they do not act in tandem. Imagine a Facebook uprising for or against a particular cause — it could theoretically overthrow governments or at the very least make them change course. That is not going to happen because people don’t hold the same views, but the theoretical possibilities are endless. George Orwell or Aldous Huxley could have made a lot of sense of out of all this.
Not surprising therefore that politicians, always on the look out for new ways to reach out to constituents, have begun to look at the social media with great interest. There was already a lot of buzz about how social media activists played a big role in the uprising of the Egyptian people — a highly debatable theory — but what has really got politicians and their spinmeisters all agog is how the Obama campaign used Facebook and Twitter to target voters in 2012 while Mitt Romney’s team remained social-media sceptic.
Naturally, the Obama experience has enthused many politicians here, especially those who think Indian elections are, or ought to be, presidential contests. The BJP was the quickest on the draw to deploy the social media (and within the BJP, Narendra Modi’s supporters), helped along by the hordes of NRIs and PIOs sitting in the United States. No doubt they will be thrilled to read the report by a research agency about how Facebook is the new votebank that politicians should worry about.
It has done a study which concludes that in at least 150 constituencies in the 2014 elections the results will be determined by social media users. Yes, you read that right.
Those same boys and girls who post pictures of their holidays or YouTube videos of cats playing pianos and spend long hours day or staring at the computer screens will now make a big difference to the election results.
The Iris Knowledge Foundation used Election Commission data and matched it with the number of Facebook users in various constituencies and crunched some numbers — their calculations show that the nearly 80 million Facebook users (estimated by election-time next year) who are eligible to vote will hold the key since they could add substantial numbers to the final result.
There are a number of things one can critique about these assumptions — the most obvious being that using Facebook from the comfort of one’s bedroom or office cubicle is one thing, standing in the sun for hours to vote is quite another. Secondly, Facebook is not as politically charged as Twitter, which is absent from this study. Most important, Indian elections are a complex affair and voters — yes, even those simpletons who do not use Facebook — take into account a lot many things, including caste factors, ideology, the performance of a particular candidate and their perception of governance. They are not swayed by heated television debates or indeed witty comments on social media; they quietly observe for many years and then make up their minds without telling anyone, including pollsters. Nor will they be particularly impressed by the 25 million NRIs who, the Iris study claims will be a “big influencer” even if they are not present in India to vote. This is the kind of self-delusionary statement that might impress those who have fan clubs in New Jersey and Houston but will not make the slightest difference to the voter in the hamlets of Bihar or even, for that matter, the smart techie in Hyderabad. The NRIs and PIOs may be all gung-ho on India and regularly give their nationalistic advice on Twitter but they have no influence on the Indian voter.
When it comes to general elections, it will ultimately come down to numbers — of seats, of voters, of percentages. The Congress has to somehow ensure it does not lose too many of its 206 seats while the BJP has to substantially up its tally of 116; at the same time, both must improve their respective voting percentage of 28.5 and 18.8.
As things stand, it is a tough job for both, the former losing credibility because of the scams and drift while the latter finding it a Himalayan task to make a dent in the southern and eastern parts of India. They will naturally use every trick in the book, some old style, others more modern — rallies, speeches, posters, banners, television debates and yes, the social media.
It is a battle with huge stakes, after all. But all those cyber-guerrillas, armed with certitudes and a handy laptop (or now, mobile phones) who think that pressing a key or two is all that it takes to get involved in the political process are living in a fool’s paradise if they are dreaming about changing the course of Indian history.
One day in the future, when 600 million people are connected to the Internet, literacy has spread to all corners of the land and the Election Commission allows people to vote from the comfort of their homes, maybe, just maybe social media will make a difference to the result. And then too, every party will have to still work hard to get the voter to buy their message.
Till then, the Internet warriors would do well to get out a bit more, attend a few rallies, read up on the parties and their programmes and then, on voting day, go out and cast their vote. It will be a bother, but millions of people all over the country have been doing it in election after election. They are fully involved in the political process, as concerned citizens who know their democratic rights and obligations; and most of them are not even on Facebook.

The writer can be contacted at sidharth01@gmail.com [2]