“IMPACT OF DIGITAL MARKETING ON VOTING

BEHAVIOUR AND POLITICAL PREFERENCES IN

INDIA”
SYNOPSIS SUBMITTED FOR THE FULFILLMENT OF DEGREE
OF
MASTERS OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION
(MBA)

Presented to
Dr. Monica Bedi
University Business School
Chandigarh
Presented By
Jai Bharti
M.B.A. III rd Semester-A

University Business School

Panjab University Chandigarh

2019-2021

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Introduction …………………………………………………………………. 3-7

2. Review of Literature …………………………………………………………8-10

3. Research Methodology ……………………………………………………….. 11-13

4. Tentative Schemes and Dates………………………………………………….......14

Bibliography …………………………………………………………………15-16

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 Chapter 1

Introduction

The definition of social media use is radically different today from the media use of an age
before. However, before consumers regarded social media as a digital technology medium,
they now regard it as an information source and assume it to be a credible medium. The
social media sites became a forum for Indian voting casters to find out about the candidates
for Prime Minister in the 2014 Indian lok-Sabha election. As a consequence, political
lobbying by Prime Ministers has often used social media to successfully threaten these
people. As an integral part of political campaigning, Mr. Modi, who is currently the Indian
Prime Minister, has founded social media. This study studies whether more social media
savvy election campaigns eventually garner more votes. Secondly , the research also aims to
establish whether the use of Facebook and Twitter to send messages to prospective voters for
their help will only have a positive effect on the willingness of younger individuals to cast a
vote or on all age groups.

Social Networking offers the advantage of being instantaneous, accurate and unique to the
goal. Social networking has gained worldwide attention in recent years, but the notion is not
new. During the mid-90s, users of personal computers were often drawn to services such as
chat rooms, newsgroups, and instant messaging with widespread adaptation (Thurlow, Lengel
& Tomic, 2004). What's fresh is the expansion of social media (YouTube, Facebook , Twitter
& Instagram) and its use on the Internet for more than just socialising. The messages on these
social media sites were originally perceived to be negligible and were most frequently
ignored. They were just a way of either selling to a targeted audience or sending statements to
identified friends on the network detailing daily personal activities. When Twitter was
launched in late 2006, its founders suggested that the purpose of tweets was to tell one's
followers what they were doing (Jackson & Lilleker, 2011). Social media, however, is not
only used for triviality in the second decade of the 21st century, but is often used to spread
serious social and political messages to the intended audience. The impact of the use of social
media sites on the behaviour of citizens in Indian political affairs has recently become more
apparent than before. Narendra Modi, a relatively small BJP political party leader, announced
his candidacy for Prime Minister of India in September 2013. Nearly 9 months later, the tiny
politician became India's Prime Minister. When mainly all politicians were busy stressing the

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emerging social media instruments as "waste of time" and impersonal way of communicating
with the people, Modi's party gets the credit for successfully engaging people on social
media. Therefore, Modi’s political campaigning was unorthodox; his campaign success has
frequently been credited to his ability to inspire the people along with his public speaking.
However, his use of Internet and social media for engaging individual voters in India
provided him with the level of support that most candidates never see. He is considered to be
India’s first social media prime minister (Financial Times, 2014).

Social media is such a comprehensive terminology that it covers a large range of networking
websites. However, the one of the similarities between these websites is that it allows an
individual to to interact with the website and interaction with other people. Several of the
social media websites are:

• Social Bookmarking- it relates to the people by marking websites and searching through
websites bookmarked by various other people.

• Social News- Networking by voting for articles and marking and discussion on them.

• Social Networking- it includes addition of friends, commenting on profiles, joining groups

as per personal likings and having discussions in forums.

• Social Photo and Video Sharing- Networking by sharing photos or videos with contacts and
remarking on the other user submissions.

• Wikis- addition of the new articles and checking existing articles.

• Blogs - A type of website which is typically upheld by an individual with regular entries of
observations, explanations of events or other material such as visuals.

These wide definitions are not only restricted to social media. The definition of social media
refers to any website that allows people to connect with it and network with other current or
new users. Unlike all other sites, these sites have their own meaning and use. A recent idea is
the use of social media for political agendas in India. The increase in the use of social media
in India's political campaigns should, however, not be ignored now. The Indian National
Congress and the Bhartiya Janta Party are tapping into social media sites such as Facebook
and Twitter, the major political parties in India. They do so in order to out-innovate one
another. There are two most significant drivers that have contributed to the political parties'
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adaptation of social media in India. First, to attract millions of potential voters who are
otherwise difficult to meet in person and, second, to attract more than 90 million Facebook
users who are expected to affect the outcome of the 2014 election. This year alone, there are
over 100 million registered voters in the world for the first time. The sharing of political
knowledge was powered not by the government, but by third parties, mainly citizens and
foundations or non-profit organisations seeking to promote the increased engagement of
young people in Indian politics. Therefore, by its swift and two-way contact, the social media
used in politics brings the people together. The use of the Internet and social media is
undoubtedly an emerging force in Indian politics, leading to a crucial question: whether or
not this increase is good for Indian politics. 14 While discussing the effect of the Internet on
politics, Nelson (2010) argues that the Internet’s power to disseminate information has
created an environment in which any individual can possibly find and motivate like-minded
people to take political actions. Additionally, just how effective the use of social media can
be on the electoral front in India was displayed when the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Party won
and got elected in power for Delhi in December 2013. As many people have ability to
influence their families, that’s what happened here, when kids who were active on social
media asked there parents to vote in favor of AAP part instead of congress after reading facts
on social media. Moreover, the report released by the Internet and Mobile Association of
India and IRIS Knowledge Foundation stated that of India’s 543 constituencies, 160 could be
called as high impact in the forthcoming elections for year 2014. Social media in the next
general elections will most likely influence these high impact constituencies where the
Facebook users account for over 10% of the registered voting population
(Indexoncensorship.org, 2014). Since independence for many years, election campaigns in
India were designed around public rallies, public welfare schemes, and public related events
or in the form of television or radio advertisements. Therefore, with political discussion now
taking place on social media sites such as Facebook and twitter give rise to a relevant
question: could activities on these sites be a predictor of election results and prove to be an
actual game changer by influencing voters in India. And is the use of these sites as a platform
for political deliberations effective. And if so, to what extent can it be influencing in
changing the decisions of the Indian registered voters.

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Media and Politics

The growth of social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+ , LinkedIn and
Instagram has been one of the most important innovations associated with digital media over
the past two decades. Since the launch of the first 12 social media apps in the late 1990s,
websites have attracted more than a billion active users worldwide, many of whom have
integrated digital social interactions into their daily lives. Since its advent, social media has
dramatically altered the conventional marketing environment. In general , social media are
networking sites, according to Boyd and Ellison (2007), which are internet-based applications
that allow users to build a public profile within the safe and closed system, have a list of users
with whom they have relationships and can access their own list of friends and that of others
within the system. Barack Obama 's successful U.S. presidential campaign has proven social
media to be an important part of that. In particular , various outlets such as Facebook ,
YouTube and Twitter have been used to pass on Obama's views and thoughts to his followers
and supporters on important issues. In order to win over the electorate and keep the backers
informed, the instruments were used to a great extent. The Obama victory is also credited by
some observers to his online campaign (Tumasjan et al . 2011). Similarly, in 2010, social
media became the driving force for the British elections and were deemed the 'first social
media elections' (Arthur, 2010). Social media also entered Dutch politics later in the year
2011, where political parties used social media networks to campaign during their general
elections. Not only are the politicians the one who made use of social media for their benefit.
Throughout the years, advocacy groups and politicians have used social media to raise funds
for political purposes. Activists in Jan 2001, during the impeachment trial of Philippine
President Joseph Estrada, supporters in the Philippine Congress voted to set apart key proof
against him and less than two hours later activists organized a major protest with use of social
media. This is recognized to be the first event where a national leader was forced out with use
of social media (Safranek, 2012). These developments are interesting to see as they indicate
how social media is gaining significant place in political campaigning worldwide. Seeing this
trend, my research interest lies in the social media have effect and influence on individual
voters.

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Need for the study

Elections finalise electoral choices in Indian democracy. Around 15 Lok Sabhas have been
created through elections since independence. Indian electoral contests range from local races
with a few thousand individuals to elections for prime ministers with more than eight hundred
million registered voters (The Independent, 2014). Elections are clearly important for
political campaigns and candidates who run for victory, gaining a plurality of the votes, with
the intention of winning. To accomplish this, candidates need to have both their supporters
and supporters cast a ballot and cast it in the contender's favour. Therefore, this study
explores the effect of Facebook and Twitter on voters when it was used as a social media
forum to send unique messages asking individual voters to cast their vote during the Indian
general lok sabha elections in 2014. The analysis is restricted to the scope of registered voters
in India who use social networking tools such as Facebook and Twitter. The focus of the
sample does not involve unregistered voters who have not previously cast a vote or who are
not currently casting a ballot. The analysis also does not involve the discussion of policies for
political parties, political campaigns and parties on social issues. Although these are beyond
the reach of this analysis, they play a role in affecting individual voters and their decision to
vote. The focus of the analysis is limited to two social media sites, Facebook and Twitter, and
all Indian countries in particular. However, the data is also gathered for two other social
networking sites – Google+ and LinkedIn to have a broader interpretation scope.

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 Chapter 2
Literature Review

The aim of literature review is to summarize the arguments and ideas of existing knowledge
in a particular field without adding any new contributions.

Over the years, many writers and experts have looked at the effect and power of social media,
such as Graber (1996), Morris (2002), Han (2008) and Kaplan and Haenlein (2010), few have
actually given an appropriate description of the word digital media. The digital networking
technology that is rapidly evolving and emerging and has ambiguous terms and uses is new
media in the simplest sense (Peters, 2009). It is associated with Internet-related technology.
As a type of new media , social media can be considered. It is important to remember,
however, that social media could be described as a form of new media; it has its own
distinctive characteristics.Most of the individuals are aware of the different tools and
communities of Internet based social media – Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Blogs, Google+
and LinkedIn etc. These tools are also known as web 2.0 tools and these have developed
rapidly over a short span of time and these kinds of functions are getting generated every
year.

According to Blumler and Kavanagh (1999) world has entered the third age of political
communication. Compared to the traditional, television-based, mass communication
campaigns that dominated the 20th century, nowadays campaigns have changed drastically.
Modern communication technology affected first the media, which became more fragmented
and personalised, and then campaigning, which in 2004 for the first time became more
narrowed, less centralised and took feedback from citizens into account. The main driver for
this change was and is the internet and its widespread usage (Vaccari, 2008).

Presidential campaigns use the Internet as an instrument since 1996. From then on, online
campaigns on any governmental level became an increasingly common part of any political
campaign and their usage and significance gradually grew (Druckman, Kifer and Parkin,
2007). While the first online projects consisted of little more than a website used as an online
brochure, the internet provides a wide variety of technological possibilities for online
campaigns nowadays. Therefore, the websites of the campaign contain a greater range of
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multi-media features, are beginning to become interactive and are intended to draw various
groups of voters at the same time (Vaccari, 2008).In 2008, as Smith and Rainie (2008, p.2)
couch, “the internet has moved from the periphery to the center of national politics”.

Farrel and Webb (2000) argue that as campaigns became more professional over the years,
not least because they didn’t flinch from spending high amounts of money and resources to
investigate and incorporate new communication technologies, they changed in certain areas:
Instead of deploying ad-hoc communicated messages, campaigns became almost permanent
and increasingly emphasised personal contacts in order to reach the voters. 5 Plus, they were
run by professional communication agencies or consultants who adopted principles from
corporate marketing and PR to politics. Moreover, Farrel and Webb (2000) identified the
trend to decentralise the campaigns’ organisation. Thanks to the internet, the latter growth has
increased even further. The campaigns provided volunteers with the means to organise
themselves instead of, for example, holding supporter meetings in central campaign offices-
an approach first used in 2004, when the Dean campaign used meetups.com, which allowed
supporters to organise local meetings with like-minded people. The 2008 Barack Obama
campaign created its own instrument that served the same purpose and included it in the
social network of MyBO (My Barack Obama). It seems to be successful: 35,000 groups of
volunteers held 200,000 offline activities (Lutz, 2009).

Moreover, campaign websites began to include features that aimed to activate the users,
meaning they were asked to contribute to the campaign in any possible way. The term
grassroots campaigning refers to those kinds of campaigns which are largely based on
activism from the ground. In a political context that describes citizens who perform voluntary
work for a campaign they support. The Internet offers many different opportunities to
mobilise citizens in order to stimulate this active participation in a campaign (Klotz, 2007;
Vaccari 2008). This issue will be discussed in more detail later on.

Neelika Arora has published research article entitled “Trends in Online Advertising” in
advertising Express, Dec2013. The global online advertising revenues are expected to touch
US $10bn by 2015. In India, the revenues at present are estimated to be Rs.80 cr. and are
expected to increase six times more within the next five years. In India, Internet as a medium
is accepted by a wider industrial segment that includes automobiles, telecom, education,
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banking, insurance, credit cards, FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods), apparel/clothing,
durables, media, business services and tourism. Out of these, it is estimated that the banking,
FMCG and insurance sectors together account for 45% of the total advertising spend. In
comparison to this, automotive, travel and retail spend 37% of the total advertising revenue
and financial service companies spend 12% only. Some of the top spenders in India are
automobiles, followed by brands like Pepsodent, Kelloggs, Cadbury, HDFC (Housing
Development Finance Corporation Ltd.) loans and Sunsilk. In addition to these the early
adopters in the field of finance and IT are also increasing their spending. Globally, the trend
is that almost 60% of the revenue goes to five firms- Goggle, Yahoo, Microsoft,
AOL(America Online Launchers), and Overture. Approximately, 90% of the Goggle
revenues come from advertising. In India, portals like indiatimes.com, exchange4media.com,
rediffmail.com, agencyfaqs.com etc are attracting major online spender. This article explains
demographic profile of Indian users. It also gives the comparison between global trend and
Indian trend, which is useful for my research work.

Vikas Bondar has published his article on “sales and marketing strategies” Internet is a really
good thing. The Internet gives people a greater amount of information as we need. It is the
best way to get a comparison of the products that we need. If we are interested in buying, it is
best for us to check the Web sites. Also, if we would like to make our own Web page, we can
do this, without paying a lot of money. From where do we set all this information? The
answer is from advertising, which we see, everywhere: on TV, on the Internet, in the
newspapers and more. Year after year we get more and more new, interesting information
and in the future the Internet use will increase more than now. This article explains how
internet is useful tool for advertisement.

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 Chapter 3

Research Methodology

3.1 Problem Definition

“Impact of Digital Marketing on voting behaviour and political preferences in India”

3.2 Objectives of the study

The study attempts to investigate the relationship between voters beliefs and behavioural
responses towards different social media political advertising. The study has the following
sub objectives:

1. Explore different internet platforms used to access and/or to share political information
by the voters.
2. Study perception of new media as a platform for electoral engagement for users and non
users.
3. Study the attitude towards Political Digital Advertising in India.
4. Study voters online experience of accessing/sharing political content.

3.3 Hypotheses

H1: There is significant impact of Digital Marketing on voting behaviour .

H2: There is significant impact of Digital Marketing on political preferences in India

3.4 Research Design

The nature of study undertaken is descriptive. “A research design is arrangement of

conditions for collection and analysis of data in a manner that aims to combine relevance to
the research purpose with economy in procedure”.

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Descriptive research studies are those studies, which are concerned with describing the
characteristics of a particular individual

3.5 Method of data collection

When collecting data to approach the purpose of a research there are two ways in which the
data can be collected. In order to acquire a general knowledge about the topic, secondary data
is primarily used and is one of the ways by which data can be collected. These Conway to
collect data is the primary data collection. Usually when a study is conducted, secondary data
is not sufficient enough and needs to be completed with primary data which is collected by
the researcher (Christensen,2001).

Secondary Data

It is possible to classify secondary data into three separate subgroups: documentary, multiple
sources, and survey. The second documentary and information comes in both written and
non-written form. That is the data that can be obtained from sources such as papers,
databases, transcripts etc. This type of knowledge depends on the access that the researcher
has to it. The secondary data based on the survey is the data gathered through the survey and
available as data table forms. Multiple secondary data sources are data collected into a
documentary or survey form.

Researcher have mainly used documentary secondary data combined with multiple source
data. Documentary secondary data has been the data collected through different types of
research conducted within the topic, articles, and that are written on consumer behaviour and
e-commerce. This type of data has been the fundamental source for gaining knowledge within
the topic in order for us to be able approach the research problem. The secondary data that
researcher used for our research his data that has also led to the conclusion of which factors
that will be examined.

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Primary Data

Primary data for our research was collected through questionnaires. When collecting primary
data one can choose to do interviews, observations, experiments, and questionnaires. Due to
the purpose of our research, only the questionnaire method would be able to approach the
topic and be able to collect the answers in a satisfactory manner. In our research the primary
data is mainly concerned with analysing the respondent in order to later on classify the
respondent. Further on, the primary data will be used to analyse the factors and how these are
related to the respondent. The primary data is conducted in a manner to be able to approach
our research and solve our research questions.

3.6 Sample Design

For the purpose of this research, Convenience sampling method will be employed.
The sample size for this study was 150 Indian citizens who were above the 18 years age who
agreed to take part in the quantitative element of this research investigation.

3.7 Data Analysis and Statistical Tools

The data collected by way of questionnaires will be entered into Microsoft Excel and
imported to SPSS, once the required computations are completed in Microsoft Excel. After
this, following statistical tools :
1. Co-relation & Regression
will be used to analyze the data.

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 CHAPTER 4

TENTATIVE SCHEMES AND DATES

4.1 Tentative Chapter Schemes

Chapter 1. Introduction

Chapter 2. Research Methodology

Chapter 3. Data Collection

Chapter 4. Data Analysis

Chapter 5. Findings and Conclusions

References

4.2 Tentative Submission Dates

21st January , 2021 : Questionnaire development , collection of data.

18th February , 2021 : Analysis of Data , Write up of introduction and review of literature.

25th march , 2021. : Submission of final research paper.

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 Bibliography

Beal, A. and Strauss, J. (2008) Radically Transparent: Monitoring and Managing

Reputations Online. Indianapolis, Wiley.

Berekoven, L., Eckert, W. and Ellenrieder, P. (2006) Marktforschung: Methodische

Grundlagen und praktische Anwendung. 11th ed., Wiesbaden, Gabler.

Blumler, J. and Gurevitch, M. (1995) The Crisis of Public Communication. London,

Routledge. Blumler, J. and Kavanagh, M. (1999) The Third Age of Political
Communication: Influences and Features. Political Communication 16, 3, pp.209ff.

Bradley, N. (2007) Marketing research: tools & techniques. Oxford, Oxford University
Press.

Breakenridge, D. (2008) PR 2.0: New Media, New Tools, New Audiences. New Jersey,
Pearson.

Carr, D. and Stelter, B. (2008) Campaigns in a Web 2.0 World [Internet], The New York
Times, November 2, 2008. Available at: , [accessed on April 2, 2009].

Harlow, R.F. (1976) Building a Public Relations Definiton. Public Relations Review,
Vol. 2, pp. 34-41.

Howard, P.N. (2005) Deep Democracy, Thin Citizenship: The Impact of Digital Media in
Political Campaign Strategy. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and
Social Science 2005; 597; pp. 153ff Klotz, R.J. (2007) Internet Campaigning for
Grassroots and Astroturf Support. Social Science Computer Review 2007; 25; 3

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Achterberg, P. and Houtman, D. (2006). Why do so many people vote ‘unnaturally’? A
cultural explanation for voting behaviour. European Journal of Political Research, 45(1),
pp.75--92.
Boyd, D and Ellison, N, (2009). Social network sites: Definition, history, and
scholarship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1), pp.210--230.

Claassen, R. (2007). Campaign activism and the spatial model: Getting beyond extremism
to explain policy motivated participation. Political Behavior, 29(3), pp.369--390.

Dyrby, S. and Jensen, T. (n.d.). Exploring Affordances of Social Media Use in Election
Campaigns: What Political Parties Want to Facilitate, Project and Create.

Fenton, N. and Barassi, V. (2011). Alternative media and social networking sites: The
politics of individuation and political participation. The Communication Review, 14(3),
pp.179--196.

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