Political Campaigning in Digital India: Routledge South Asian History and Culture Series

This book provides a conceptual toolkit to understand the changing technologies and dynamics of political campaigning in India. Examining political campaigning and party strategies across many Indian states, with special attention to regional politics, histories, cultures, social and technological contexts, the book discusses the potential impacts of campaign strategies on electoral outcomes. Political campaigning reached a tipping point with millions of social media users engaging online with family and friends, political issues, parties and candidates in India’s 2019 parliamentary election. Although India’s political parties had been working with consultants and professional advertising agencies for decades, by 2019, millions of first-time voters as well as older voters were microtargeted with campaign messaging by parties and their affiliates, including frequent misinformation from unknown sources supporting one party or another.