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THE ROLE AND IMPACT OF MEDIA IN ELECTORAL PROCESSES (By-Dr. Sushma Sharma & Subodhika Sharma)
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THE ROLE AND IMPACT OF MEDIA IN ELECTORAL PROCESSES
Authored
By-Dr. Sushma Sharma & Subodhika Sharma
Abstract
Election
is the process through which the nation’s will as to who should form the next
government is expressed. As such it symbolises the sovereignty of the people.
It invests the government with the consent of the people, and further, imparts
continuity to it, by ensuring peaceful and orderly replacement of government.
Thus, election by itself forms an important process of democracy; indeed, it is
its touchstone. Free and fair elections are sine qua non of any good
government which professes to be based on people’s will.
The
heart of India’s democratic system witnesses regular elections with the
participation of the largest electorate in the world. But for some time now,
the fairness in the functioning of the political parties and electoral process
has come to be diluted. It has been witnessed that increase in the electoral
corrupt practices and electoral offences are the major factors which are
affecting and corroding our electoral process, thereby shaking the very
foundations of our democracy.
It
is a popular saying that ‘free press is essential to a free society’. The
media, print, electronic and social, as a powerful disseminator of information
and tool of communication drastically shapes public opinion. A media that is
responsible will help strengthen the democratic process and contribute to a
more credible and inclusive election, whereas a media which can be
captured or co-opted by a particular interest or party may be used to sway
public opinion for or against issues, groups or candidates thereby fuelling
election-related conflict and violence.
More
recently, it is being witnessed that a large part of the battle for the Lok
Sabha and the Legislative Assemblies elections are being fought from digital
war-rooms, like the news rooms and social media platforms, and apprehension
looms large over how the election authorities will
track
and regulate the content over such platforms. Further, paid news, media bias,
media houses ownership by political affiliations, selective election coverage,
partisan reporting, targeted political advertising, polarising studio
discussions during ‘primetime’ television
affect the entire electoral process starting with the conception of the
electoral system and elaboration of its legal framework.
Because of its power to influence and inform, the
media is expected to play an informed, watchdog role and keep citizens up to
date on electoral issues, on the positions of candidates and the how and whys
of voting. Adherence to the basic journalistic standards of integrity and expectations
for balanced, accurate reporting is non-negotiable. An independent, unbiased
press has no substitute and its role is crucial in pushing through electoral
reforms.
The primary objective of this paper is to explore
the dynamic and complex relationship between media and elections.
Keywords: free and fair election, role of media,
paid news, social media, media bias
Introduction
Elections
are the centrepiece of democracy. Through voting, people can voice their
opinions, express their hopes and aspirations, discipline their leaders, and
ultimately control their nation's destiny. Hence, elections are the public’s
source of power.
The mainstream media (in all its
forms), sometimes known as the Fourth Pillar of democracy, plays a vital role
in elections and oversight of government actions. It influences public opinion
and keeps the powerful in check by seeking transparency in their actions,
thereby preventing governments from turning despotic. Democracy requires that
the media be inclusive and supervise public policy in order to be considered as
universal vehicles of information. A free media is considered the watchdog of
the government.
The media also
have other roles in enabling full public participation in elections:
§ by educating voters on how to
exercise their democratic rights;
§ by reporting on the development
of an election campaign;
§ by providing a platform for the
political parties and candidates to communicate their message to the
electorate;
§ by providing a platform for the
public to communicate their concerns, opinions, and needs, to the
parties/candidates, the government, and to other voters, and to interact on
these issues;
§ by allowing the parties and candidates
to debate with each other;
§ by reporting results and
monitoring vote counting;
§ by scrutinizing the electoral
process itself, including electoral management, in order to evaluate the
fairness of the process, its efficiency, and its probity;
§ by providing information that,
as far as possible, avoids inflammatory language, helping to prevent
election-related violence.[1]
A report by the Cairo Institute for
Human Rights Studies sums up effectively the role of media as: “The media plays a major role in keeping the citizenry abreast of
current events and raising awareness of various issues in any society. It also
has an extremely significant impact on the public’s views and way of thinking.
The media is the primary means through which public opinion is shaped and at
times manipulated. If this is the media’s role then in normal course of events,
it becomes even more vital in exceptional periods, one of which is electoral
junctures, when the media becomes a primary player. Elections constitute a
basic challenge to the media, putting its impartiality and objectivity to the
test. The task of the media, especially national media outlets, is not and
should not be to function as a mouthpiece for any government body or particular
candidate. Its basic role is to enlighten and educate the public and act as a
neutral, objective platform for the free debate of all points of view.”[2]
Biased Media Coverage
The media transmit campaign
propaganda to large numbers of people. In news broadcasts and news columns they
report directly or in paraphrase what campaigners say. They sell campaigners
time and space for advertising their wares. They make it possible for the
politician to reach more people, quicker and more cheaply, than he could in any
other way.
However the media may and at times
does transmit propaganda selectively.
This is most apparent when media executives
pare the propagandist’s prodigious output to fit into the time and space they
allot to reporting public affairs. They also exercise discretion when they sell
time and space to political groups, however; they can refuse, and have refused,
to accept advertising by minor parties. More than anything else, it is this
ability of media personnel to determine media content that makes them political
actors in their own right.[3]
The media transmit propaganda in
certain conventional formats. Newspapers present campaign messages in news
columns, news features, advertisements, and occasionally in full transcript.
Television and radio present them in fifteen and five minute newscasts; in
standard time periods offered for sale; and in interviews, documentaries, panel
shows, and debates. Magazines feature weekly summaries, interviews, picture
stories. This matters because the formats that the mass media provide for
political communication are not just different ways to present the same things.
They lead politicians to say things differently and to say different things.[4]
Furthermore, the media present
campaign propaganda in the context of materials they themselves originate:
their opinions about who ought to win; discussions of public policy issues;
reports on campaign organization and methods; personality sketches of the
candidates; lecturettes on the duties of voters and rules of fair play for
candidates; observations on who seems to be winning and why. There is a mass of
such material, implicit or explicit, that is replete with partisan preferences.[5]
Elections And Social Media
The increasing
digitalization of societies
across the world
has led to
unprecedented opportunities to seek, receive and impart political
information and ideas, which are the lifeblood of elections. The Internet, and
in particular social media and social messaging, have changed the way
politicians, political parties and the
electorate communicate with
each other, with
the chance of
being more direct
and quicker than
at any point
in history. The
accuracy of information
can be checked
and corrected faster,
more thoroughly and
by a greater number of actors than ever before.
Social media played a prominent role
during the 2019 Indian general elections as political parties, politicians, and
supporters (real or otherwise) used it extensively for political campaigning
and communication. Following the global trend, social media has been
increasingly used by Indian political actors for routine political
communication between elections to provide unmediated and direct communication
to connect leaders and citizenry, and to re-energise the political
landscape in the country. While Indian politics has become more inclusive
thanks to social media by allowing citizens who were previously excluded from
politics due to location and demography to participate directly in the process,
the 2019 general election stands out for unprecedented lows in public
discourse, the pervasiveness of false news and misinformation, and a habitual
disregard for ethical standards in political communication.[6]
The Ministry of Information and
Broadcasting under the Government of India declared that social media needs to
be regulated. Prior to the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the Election Commission
had a made few guidelines to regulate social media and had made it mandatory
for the candidates and political parties to declare the amount spent on digital
campaigning and also to authenticate the pages belonging to the party and its
candidates. The Commission also made it necessary to certify the advertisements
prior to publishing them on social media. However, these guidelines were only
laid down to regulate the pages of political parties and candidates and not
those of the public.
Prior to the 2019 elections, the
Election Commission said that the model code of conduct would apply even to
social media and online campaigning on various platforms. These guidelines were
implemented after meeting with the Industry Body Internet and Mobile
Association of India (IAMAI). The EC also mentioned that any violations on
social media would be processed under the provisions of the Representation
of the People Act, 1951 and S. 126 of the Act would be applicable. It also made
it mandatory for the candidates to mention their pages and their party pages in
the nomination papers before the election.[7]
India’s Hybrid Media System
Chadwick
provides a compelling analysis of the complexity of hybrid media systems in
which political life is mediated through the web of networked actions involving
offline and online communication as well as grassroots activism.[8]
The arrival of newer media does not displace older media but instead
facilitates the emergence of a hybridized media system. Mobile phones are a
good example of this phenomenon; once only used for communication between two
people, they have now become multimedia devices that are used for a plethora of
activities including social communication. Yet, research has also shown that
the Internet is far from revolutionary and democratizing given that the medium
has largely benefited those elite political actors who were active in the mass
media era.[9]
The new hybrid media ecology, in which traditional journalistic processes
compete with new citizen driven digital media, also makes it difficult to
identify the creators and sponsors of media frames of events or news.[10]
The context in which similar developments in the shift to a hybrid media system
are occurring in India is made more complex because the country has not one but
several media systems and party systems, based on particular regional
configurations of competition. India’s complexity is both driven by, and to a great
extent reinforced by, the nature of the growing news market, which is occupied
by multiple vernacular Indian languages as well as English.[11]
Regular (short messaging service [SMS] capable) mobile phones are important for
our understanding of information flows and symbiotic relationships among all
actors in the 2014 electoral campaign. About 70 percent of all Internet users
in India accessed the web via smartphones in 2014.[12]
The significance of mobile phones and access to social media applications was
by no means lost to the political parties during the campaign. The use of
Twitter on smartphones and texting via SMS on both regular cell phones and
smartphones to influence and shape campaign information flows was widely
witnessed and reported, especially in urban constituencies.[13]
Research
found that the BJP tactfully utilized the emerging hybridity and successfully
bypassed the traditional news media, which they viewed as inimical toward the
party, to reach out to their supporters.[14]
The comparatively low internet penetration rate in India has led many political
analysts to discount the capacity of the social media to have any significant
impact on political communication. But such a view ignores the convergence and
interconnectivity between newer and older media and the ways they influence
each other. Current affairs prime-time television programs during the campaign
were broadcasting live tweets on the screen during talk shows and interviews
with political actors that at times influenced the discussion, and viewers
without access to social media were made aware of social media. Political
parties now tailor their content for multiple forms of consumption that can be
reappropriated and reassembled in different platforms to suit the requirements
of a particular medium, a process that Howard refers to as a hypermedia
campaign in which communication is relayed simultaneously across a wide range
of outlets.[15]
Although the internet and cell phones were embedded in campaign strategies in
India in 2014, the internet had not reduced the importance of grassroots
campaigning characterized by face-to-face contact with political parties on the
streets and their door-to-door canvasing. Parties in India’s cities often set
up booths in the vicinity of one another and shout out to passers-by to take a
leaflet, rather like a vendor shouts to attract customers in a traditional
outdoor market. And just as in the market, many shoppers have a look at what is
on offer from the different vendors. Large billboards on the roads and posters
on the streets are also important and play a major role, and political parties
compete for space in the best strategic locations for their advertising. The
parties also rely heavily in terms of advertising spent on traditional media,
including newspapers, television, and radio, the last of which reaches an
estimated 158 million listeners and was an important venue for the BJP ad spend
in 2014.
The 2014 And 2019 Lok Sabha Campaigns
Unprecedented
developments came together just months before the election campaign’s official
launch in March 2014 - the recognition
that millions of young people would be eligible to vote for the first time, a
group that is more inclined to obtain political information online, the growth
of internet access particularly in the cities, and the growing use of new media
and social networks
especially
by young adults, including the vast majority who were without smartphones. And
for those with smartphones but who lacked an expensive data package, it was not
an impediment to having a Facebook page as mobile phone companies were offering
Facebook access at a nominal price of rupee 1.
The
Election Commission of India runs the national elections that are held in multiple
phases to guarantee voter security at the polls. As India voted in nine phases
in 2014, one could argue that there were nine different campaigns. There is a
national ban on reporting exit polls, which minimizes bandwagon effects in
subsequent phases of voting. Opinion polls were permitted and were the subject
of much discussion in the prime-time shows in different news channels, as well
as in newspapers and on social media. By late April and early May, there were
debates on whether there was a “Modi wave, or Modi hype” in the media.[16]
Sentiment scores for political parties and leaders were published daily
throughout the campaign in many newspapers, on television, and online news and
aggregation sites.
Different
party leaders were the subject of most public opinion polls in January 2014 and
these leaders were emphasized to varying degrees in each party’s national
strategy. At the same time, given the fact that India does not have a one party
system, local strategies could be expected to vary. From the outset, across the
country, the AAP and the BJP emphasized the competencies and strong
personalities of their party leaders, touting their prime ministerial
potential. However, the INC’s Rahul Gandhi had early on announced that he
wanted to run the campaign but did not want to be considered as the INC prime
ministerial candidate even though his name was used by pollsters along with Mr.
Kejriwal’s and Mr. Modi’s in the “most favored Prime Minister” question. The
BJP announced early on that the party had identified 160 “digital
constituencies” ripe for a digital strategy, many of which were in urban areas
in which the party could communicate online via a social networking service
(SNS) to a sufficient number of volunteers and potential supporters so that a robust
digital strategy would accompany the BJP’s more traditional channels of
campaigning, which included SMS messaging on regular cell phones. The 160
seats, including all constituencies in eight states, were those in which
digital would be “an amplifier and booster” to traditional campaigning tools.[17]
The BJP
then developed a way to play speeches on regular mobile phones and distribute
their prime ministerial candidate’s tweets via SMS text messaging to those who
could not access the Internet. The BJP’s 2014 digital campaign strategy was
marked by online and related activities, while both BJP and INC used online
tools to track and predict vote support.[18]
All parties also utilized the local innovation of the “missed call” advertising
strategy to engage and gain supporters.[19]
The BJP’s “Mission 272+” involved a national program of volunteers who
communicated daily with the platform’s national headquarters in Bengaluru to
build a database of cell numbers from supporters who could then receive SMS
messages, calls, and invitations from the party. In comparison with the BJP’s
central strategy and platform, the AAP’s national strategy appeared to ride
even more on the reputation of their own party’s leader, than on any central
implementation of a campaign strategy. Mr. Gandhi was much less evident online,
focused more on traditional media, and lacked a clear digital strategy.
Conclusion
The
conduct of any election without a very substantial involvement of the country’s
vibrant media cannot be imagined. The media has been a force multiplier in the
delivery of free and fair polls each time and is to be lauded for its role in
dissemination of important information, for effective enforcement and for
creating an aware electorate. At the same time, elections are conducted on the
basis of laws, instructions and stipulated procedures and some of these touch
upon media and media practices, particularly during election campaigns by
political parties and candidates. The wave of information explosion mostly
through digital platforms, poses a new kind of challenge in elections. Keeping
in mind these challenges and the need for a level playing field, Election
Commission of India, in coordination with various regulatory/self-regulatory
authorities of media organisations - Press Council of India (Print Media), News
Broadcasters Association (participating Electronic Media channels) and Internet
and Mobile Association of India, (IAMAI and participating Social Media
platforms) should strive to deal with the new and complex challenges and ensure
free and fair elections and purity in election processes. However, it is to be
kept in mind that such measures must not rise to the extent of curtailing the
freedom of media which is an integral part and parcel of the Freedom of Speech
& Expression under Article 19(1)(a).
The
success of any measure depends upon the working of and adherence to the system
on the part of the electoral machinery at all levels and with the involvement
of all stakeholders. In a democracy, there are several entities that function
as the forum for debate and discussions. Intellectual think tanks, educational
institutions and civil society organisations may be an independent option to
organise open debates relating to the constructive role of media.
The fact
that a credible and responsible media and informed public opinion have no
alternative in a democratic set up cannot be lost sight of.
Article Information
THE ROLE AND IMPACT OF MEDIA IN ELECTORAL PROCESSES (By-Dr. Sushma Sharma & Subodhika Sharma)
Authors: Dr. Sushma Sharma, Subodhika Sharma
- Journal IJLRA
- ISSN 2582-6433
- Published 2022/09/05
- Volume 2
- Issue 7
About Journal
International Journal for Legal Research and Analysis
- Abbreviation IJLRA
- ISSN 2582-6433
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