Political propaganda in election campaigning

Abstract

With the advent of social media and internet penetration, participation of young population has been increasing in political discussions and issues. This has led to the online discussion platforms and social media websites a constant source of political news and debates. Voters be rationally uninformed seeking to make an informed decision and surfing the internet for free information become a target for political interest groups. These interest groups use propaganda to influence them make decisions in their own favour. With this project we aim to understand the effect of different propaganda techniques on young population and how it influences their decision-making process. Primary research on the young population revealed that around 61% of the target population come across misrepresented posts or narratives regularly on social media and other news platforms. They also revealed that only 35% of them actively check and validate the authenticity of these misinformation. Net promoter score is an indication of the level to which a person belonging to a particular political ideology promotes the posts and articles that they encounter. The results showed that individuals who identified themselves with AAP and BJP had a higher net promoter score compared to people with other political ideologies and also the ones who are politically neutral. High exposure to misinformation, low propensity to validate the information and high net promoter score poses a significant threat to the spread of propaganda narratives and be detrimental to one’s own interests.Propaganda