Continuous Messaging & Constant Mobilization: Party Organization in Digital Age

• In Event: Political Campaigning, Elite Discourse and Political Engagement

Abstract

How have political parties adopted Internet-based communication technologies in India? How is this adoption of new technologies shaping party organization and party-voter linkages in the world's most populous democracy? I argue that in today's digital age, parties engage in continuous messaging to keep their functionaries and voters in a state of constant mobilization. Three factors have enabled this shift. First, dedicated IT and Social Media units that are formalized organizational verticals operating across party levels. I describe the internal party workforce of these units, and how they are distinct from a party's other organizational units. Second, party behavior that emulates their organizations and voter outreach efforts online. Parties do this repeatedly on Internet-based platforms, not only during election campaigns, but months after too. Third, content from in-person party events that is used for within-party online engagement. Parties utilize a complementarity between their physical and digital activities. Social media increases the importance of offline party events and shapes how they are conducted, and online content associated with these events serves organizational purposes. Through such content, lower-level party functionaries signal their ability and loyalty, and higher-level party functionaries project themselves as role models. I also suggest that frequent exposure to such online content reinforces partisanship among voters. I draw on evidence from in-depth interviews with party elites, speeches of party leaders, and internal party documents, as well as an original survey of party functionaries in North India to support my argument. I discuss the implications of my findings in the context of multi-party democracy, gaps in political participation and in access to digital technologies, and most recently, the use of AI-based technologies by parties in developing settings such as India.

Author

• Shahana Sheikh, University of Pennsylvania