18 Jan 2017  |   12:34am IST

The action is on!...on your smartphone

With the polls barely a few weeks away, the Goan youth is consuming, following and participating in the polls through social media in a big way. Café logs in to find out what’s happening

Kishore Amati

While the tentative timeline of how and when social media took over our lives and made us absolutely dependable, especially in India, may not be known, the 2014 national elections continue to be the best example of the effective use of social media for youth engagement on a big scale. Ever since then, social media has all but replaced mainstream media as the primary source of information. The youth makes extensive use of social media for consumption of news, sharing ideas, conversations and much more. In Goa too, and in the context of the state elections scheduled to happen on February 4, 2017, the Goan youth is consuming all things related to the polls through social media in a big way. Various groups on Facebook and Whatsapp have become virtual battlegrounds where supporters of political parties and ideologies clash and argue, to dictate and dominate.

Phiroze Loran from Vasco, an ardent supporter of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), is quite vocal about his thoughts and often finds himself justifying his stand or engaged in a debate with supporters of other political parties, on digital platforms. According to Loran, AAP has justified its stand against corruption, communalism and criminality by fielding clean, qualified candidates and their candidate list is the strongest endorsement of their intent. Loran says, “Our political parties have slowly begun to understand the potential of social media in influencing the outcome of elections. AAP and BJP have a well-oiled social media machinery in place and understand the power of influencers and 'twitter celebs' in shaping narratives.”

Aslesh Kamat, another very active self proclaimed social media ‘political analyst’ from Curchorem feels that he is not a supporter of any one, but is against most political parties; and hence tries his best “to help people not get misguided with false propaganda.” However, Kamat agrees that social media has an ugly side and things can get really virtually violent. Kamat says, “The use of social media is for marketing whatever you need to sell, but getting personal on Facebook with comments and Photoshopped trolls should kept in check. The youth appears to be much more aware about politics this time around as opposed to the polls in 2012. It's really going to help the elections. Though some new political parties have drastically failed to take the youth in confidence, the seasoned parties’ youth support is increasing with every passing day.”

Political pundits agree in unison that India's social media landscape is vibrant but also rough. The same set of people who could virally disseminate a message for you, could also take you down just as quickly. Internet trolling is now considered to be as effective, if not more, as getting a topic trending. While it's difficult to tell how effective social media would be in getting people out to vote, it's clearly an effective tool for amplifying a political message. There is no conclusive answer on whether social media is effective enough to encourage the young to go out and vote, but it certainly can make a big difference.