Social Media in Political Campaigning in Nepal, Bangladesh, and West Bengal

It’s been a busy week, but we’ve reached the final session of the IAMCR 2024 conference in Christchurch, which begins with a paper by Samiksha Koirala and Soumik Pal on the use of social media in political campaigning in Bangladesh, Nepal, and India. They begin by noting the domination of South Asian politics by long-lived political dynasties; however, the emergence of social media as a campaigning space has begun to disrupt such structures.

This is also aided by growing Internet penetration and the widespread use of various social media platforms. Emerging political parties, especially also catering to younger voters, are making increasing use of such platforms – but this has not necessarily translated to substantial electoral success yet. Strategic messaging by such parties is starting to cut through, though.

This is a shift from traditional campaign modes (rallies, door-to-door campaigning), and the present study examined this shift by undertaking case studies of six politicians in Bangladesh, Nepal, and the Indian region of West Bengal. (The inclusion of all of India in this study would have required considerably more resources than we’re available for this.)

Politicians were selected for their social media popularity, with two politicians from each of the three countries; the study examined their social media activities, as well as conducting interviews with campaign staffers and others. In Nepal this involved Kathmandu’s mayor (and former rapper) Balendra Shah as well as MP and former journalist Sobita Gautam; in Bangladesh, the MP and minister Zunaid Ahmed Palak as well as Dhaka mayoral candidate Ishraque Hossain; in West Bengal, MP and former banker Mahua Moitra as well as MP candidate Debangshu Bhattacharya (both of them from a regional party opposing the autocratic BJP).

What emerges from the analysis is that social media allow for targetted messaging by and immediate feedback to candidates , enabling them to go viral and reach large audiences; engagement is generally higher with young voters, but older users do also engage. Traditional campaigns are seen as less personalised, but still important as well. Facebook, Xitter, and WhatsApp are all used for such campaigning – as well as Instagram in Nepal; in Bangladesh and West Bengal Facebook and WhatsApp are most popular.

In Bangladesh, there is a strong focus on the founder or leader of the political party, rather than on individual politicians; in Nepal, there is more personalisation and humanisation of individual politicians; while in West Bengal, Xitter is used to shape and control the political narrative and Facebook provides updates about campaigns and achievements. Some such choices are also driven by limits to the freedom of expression in these countries – and women and politicians from marginalised communities often face hate speech and disinformation, limiting their online activities.

Regulatory and physical repression is a problem here, too: laws introduced by the ruling parties seek to curtail or criminalise the freedom of expression online, and physical communication infrastructure is also attacked or sabotaged, especially during public rallies.