Capstone Dissertation Proposal On

Are You Following Me?

A Content Analysis of Global Politicians Social Networking Profiles

SUBMITTED TO: LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY

In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of degree of
Master of Business Administration

Submitted By:
Pallavi Guleria

Supervisor:
11105856

Dr. Anish Yousaf

Meenakshi Dixit 11104126

Assistant Professor

Dinesh Singh

School of Business, LPU

11110601

DEPARTMENT OF MANAGEMENT
LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY
PHAGWARA
(2015-2016)

TO WHOM SO EVER IT MAY CONCERN

This is to certify that the project report entitled Are You Following Me? A Content Analysis of
Global Politicians Social Networking Profiles carried out by Ms. Pallavi Guleria, Ms. Meenakshi
Dixit and Mr. Dinesh Singh have been accomplished under my guidance and supervision as duly
registered MBA students of the Lovely Professional University, Phagwara. This project is being
submitted by them in the partial fulfillment of the requirement for the award of the Master of
Business Administration from Lovely Professional University.
Their dissertation represents the original work and is worthy of consideration for the award of the
degree of Master of Business Administration.

Dr. Anish Yousaf

Assistant Professor
(School of Business)

DECLARATION
I, Pallavi Guleria, hereby declare that the work presented herein is genuine work done originally
by me and has not been published or submitted elsewhere for the requirement of a degree program.
Any literature, data or works done by others and cited within this dissertation has been given due
acknowledgement listed in the reference section.

Pallavi Guleria
(Students Signature)
Reg No. 11105856
Date: ___________

DECLARATION
I, Meenakshi Dixit, hereby declare that the work presented herein is genuine work done
originally by me and has not been published or submitted elsewhere for the requirement of a degree
program. Any literature, data or works done by others and cited within this dissertation has been
given due acknowledgement listed in the reference section.

Meenakshi Dixit
(Students Signature)
Reg No. 11104126
Date: ___________

DECLARATION
I, Dinesh Singh, hereby declare that the work presented herein is genuine work done originally
by me and has not been published or submitted elsewhere for the requirement of a degree program.
Any literature, data or works done by others and cited within this dissertation has been given due
acknowledgement listed in the reference section.

Dinesh Singh
(Students Signature)
Reg No. 11110601
Date: ___________

TABLE OF CONTENTS
S. No.

Particulars

Page no.

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1

WORLDS MOST POPULAR POLTICIANS

1.2

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

1.3

RESEARCH GAP

1.4

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

1.5

SCOPE OF THE STUDY

1.6

CONTRIBUTION OF THE STUDY

CHAPTER 2: REVIEW OF LITERATURE

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

15

3.1

SELECTION OF POLITICIANS

16

3.2

SELECTION OF A SOCIAL NETWORKING SITE

17

3.3

NUMBER OF UPDATES

18

3.4

WHAT INFORMATION IS COLLECTED

19

3.5

FRAMEWORK USED FOR CODING THE UPDATES

19

3.6

TIMELINES OF THE STUDY

20

REFEENCES

21

LIST OF TABLES
S. No.

Particulars

Page no.

1.1

WORLDS MOST POPULAR POLITICIANS

3.1

SELECTION OF POLITICAL LEADER

17

3.2

SAMPLE OF DATA COLLECTED FROM OFFICIAL

18

FACEBOOK PAGES
3.3

CATEGORIES OF BALES IPA OBSERVATION

19

SYSTEM
3.4

TIMELINES FOR THE STUDY

ii

20

LIST OF FIGURES

Sr.no
3.1

Particulars
LIKES ON OFFICIAL PAGES OF POLITICIANS

iii

Page no
16

Are You Following Me?

A Content Analysis of Global Politicians Social Networking Profiles
1. INTRODUCTION
Social media [technology] has become a growing phenomenon with many and varied
definitions in public and academic use. Social media generally refer to media used to enable
social interaction. For our purposes, the term social media technology (SMT) refers to webbased and mobile applications that allow individuals and organizations to create, engage, and
share new user-generated or existing content, in digital environments through multi-way
communication.The use of social media interfaces through computer and mobile devices has
become quite widespread, and currently, the two most prominent interfaces are Facebook and
Twitter. Facebook allows users to create profiles; allows those user-operated profiles to interact
with each other; allows for the expression of interests and the discovery of commonalities
between users; and allows users to build and maintain connections and invite others to join a
community. In contrast, Twitter is a social media interface that enables users to share a limited
amount of user-generated content, quickly and easily, to an extensive number of other users.
With this interface, the communication exchange is central, and the creation and sharing of
user profiles is not necessary, but Twitter can link to user profiles that exist on other social
media interfaces.
Although people have been using the internet to connect with others since the early 1980s, it is
only in the last decade that social networking services have proliferated and their use has
become a widespread practice particularly amongst young people. The use of Social
Networking Services (SNS) such as Facebook.com and Twitter.com has become a popular
and integral part of everyday communication. Young people are particularly enthusiastic users:
the vast majority is engaging on a daily basis with SNS via a computer or mobile phone. Social
media are becoming increasingly important for communication between government
organizations and citizens. Although research on this issue is expanding, the structure of these
new communication patterns is still poorly understood. Although social media were introduced
to support networks of friends, they quickly made their entrance in the domain of politics and
administration. Much has been written about the use of social media in democratic elections to
mobilize voters and influence message frames and to increase civic engagement and political
participation for analyses of social media use implications for social capital. At the same time,
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social media have also been embraced by government organizations to enhance their
performance and legitimacy.
Given the tremendous growth of social media, in particular Twitter and Facebook, social media
are increasingly used in political context recentlyboth by citizens and political institutions
(e.g., politicians, political parties, political foundations, think tanks etc.). From the perspective
of political institutions, it is important to actively participate in the political communication
based on the use of social media, especially during election campaigns. Social media thereby
represents the ideal vehicle and information base to gauge public opinion on policies and
political positions as well as to build community support for candidates running for public
offices. It has been observed that in a very shortspace of time, politicians in modern
democracies across the world have eagerly adopted social media for engaging their
constituents, entering into direct dialogs with citizens and enabling vivid political discussions.
In this regard, politicians are said to have a leading role with the most prominent example of
Barrack Obama being able to successfully employ social media within his last election
campaign. On the other hand, social media are said to have the potential for increasing political
participation and discussions among citizens. Twitter, Facebook, and others provide ideal plat
forms for users to spread not only information in general but also political opinions through
their networks. Studies have shown that from the perspective of political institutions and
government agencies, there is a need to continuously gather, monitor, analyze, summarize, and
visualize politically relevant information from online social media with the goal to improve
communication with citizens and voters.

1.1 WORLDS MOST POPULAR POLITICIANS

Barack Obama is 44th and current president of the United States of America. He is most
powerful person in the world. In 2008 presidential elections Barack Obama had more followers
on Facebook than his opponent John McCain. He uses social media at the most and followed
by 45,774,469 people around the world. After that Narendra Modi who is a current prime
minister of India and known for his strategies used through social media. He knew whats the
in thing and how to use that for his benefits, which makes him the second most followed
person on social media i.e. 31,045,276 people. Mitt Romney who is former governor and a
businessman turned politician is also followed by many. He is followed by 10,819,568 people
on Facebook. He gain popularity this year because he is the only strongest competitor to barrack
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Obama. Recep Tayyip Redogan Turkish president also uses social media but mainly followed
by Turkish people. Arvind Kejriwal who became chief minister of Delhi gained popularity on
social media because of his campaign against corruption. He uses social media for everything
i.e. from wishing to insulting people and currently he is followed by 6,542,965 people.
Table 1.1: Worlds Most Popular politicians

S. No.

Politician Name

Country

Likes on
Facebook

Current
Position

Barack Obama

United States of
America

45,774,469

President

Narendra Modi

India

31,045,276

Prime Minister

Mitt Romney

United States of
America

10,819,568

Businessman,
Governor

Recep Tayyip
Redogan

Turkey

7,884,623

President

Arvind Kejriwal

India

6,542,965

Chief Minister

Presiden Joco
Widodo

Indonesia

5,956,49

President

Paul Ryan

United States of
America

4,905,295

Speaker of the
U.S House

Aecio Neves

Brazil

4,685,138

Member of the
Senate

Sarah Palin

United States of
America

4,556,910

Governor

10

Enrique Pea
Nieto

Mexico

4,497,014

President

Source: Official Facebook Pages of Politicians

Page 3 of 23

Uses of social media in politics

The place and role of social media as a strategic marketing tool in politics is becoming
increasingly important and inevitable. More specifically, it is becoming the tool of choice in
political communication and has notably been used successfully to drive collective action in
social movements with unprecedented goals. Twitter was used for mobilization, Facebook was
used to create, maintain and nurture the network of people, while YouTube and other video
oriented social network sites enabled the ordinary citizen journalism that broadcasted the
stories beyond any form of borders. Social media have been used in the political context in the
following ways: Building relationships, Campaign organization and communication, Political
engagement, Political crowd sourcing.
One of the most important findings in literature about the role of social media is that it is an
enhancing platform cannot of itself guarantee success. Social media can play a significant role
as a communication tool in politics, but the application of the marketing concept of strategic
fit and alignment could determine success or failure in the use of social media in politics or any
business endeavor. The following are factors to watch in the use of social media in the field of
politics: Penetration of the Internet and Social Media, Cultural behavior orientation and
Demographics.

1.2 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

Social networking sites have become an important part of the lives of millions of Internet users
because they allow people without any particular technical knowledge to create an online profile
and to communicate and share information with others thus becoming a central platform for the
creation of political disclosure. The purpose of the current study is to find out how politicians
access the social networking sites and to examine how much involved these politically
motivated participants are with the profiles of these politicians and how do they access social
networking sites for political information and engagement and not for socialization purposes.

1.3 RESEARCH GAP

The current study is focused on examining the relationship among social media consumption
by the various politicians to drive their votes. The existing research strives to explore how
various social media channels like Facebook,Twitter,Blogs etc. are used by the politicians to
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communicate with their voters. From various research papers we got to know that there has not
been much research on this topic so to fill the gap, we chose a topic that solely tells us how
social media profiles of various politicians is helping them communicate with their voters and
also driving the votes. In an era when the publics time and attention is increasingly directed
towards platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, this study examines the still-emerging
relationship between social media use and public engagement.

1.4 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The objective of this study is to scrutinize the relationship among the use of social media, and
fan engagement including the sport marketing and brand building using the social media. The
main objective of this research is as follows:

To explore how politicians are using Social Media Sites for fan engagement.

To categorize and understand the Effectiveness of the status updated by politicians on

the official Facebook pages.

To suggest strategic measure to politicians to engage more followers using social

media.

1.5 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The scope of social media in politics is not only important but it is the opportunity to be in
touch with large numbers of voters quickly, constantly and at a low cost. With the speed of
communications and the numbers of people involved, the impact has to be significant because
politically active people are subscribing to the candidates on social media like Facebook,
Twitter, and Blog and although less politically savvy people arent adopting that they are still
seeing those messages when their politically active friends comment and like them. The study
will also helpful in understanding of fan engagement and the impact of their politicians.

1.6 CONTRIBUTION OF THE STUDY

To date the Internet and social media as tools of marketization and professionalism of
campaigning of parties and their candidates have taken their place in countries all over the
world.The contribution of the study is to identify how political leaders like Narendra Modi and
Barack Obama etc. use social media to interact with the public and how do they turn to social
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media for branding and promotional purposes and also, how social networking sites like
Facebook and Twitter etc. are used by the politicians for online political discussion.

2. LITERATURE REVIEW
Pegoraro (2010) studied the athletes use of a specific social-media platformTwitter. The
study was conducted including twitter, she found that that athletes are talking predominantly
about their personal lives and responding to fans queries through Twitter. The results indicate
that Twitter is a powerful tool for increasing fanathlete interaction .Professional athletes are
increasingly looking for positive exposure to attract fans, gain publicity, and ultimately attract
sponsorship and lucrative contracts. She shows several athletes have embraced Twitter as a
way to create positive exposure, engage fans, and increase their visibility. Twitter seems poised
to have a large impact on sports communication because of the interactivity it offers to both
fans and athletes and its rapid uptake by the sport industry.
Lin, & Pea (2011) explores the phenomena of information diffusion and influence through
retweeting behaviour in US. The study was conducted including twitter, they found that that
television networks employed more task than socioemotional communication across program
genres. More positive than negative socioemotional messages appeared, and socioemotional
messages were retweeted more often than task-oriented messages. This study extends the scope
of current media branding research and suggests managerial implications for networks' brand
management and relationship-building efforts through social networking sites. Study examines
how "old media" (i.e., television networks) communicate with their consumers through "new
media" (i.e., Twitter).Thy found that Twitter users are more influenced by networks'
socioemotional messages.
Lipsman, Mudd, Rich, &Bruich (2012) examines the nature of the reach and frequency of
branded content on Facebook.The study was conducted including Facebook, They found that
marketers increasingly look to Facebook and other social-media platforms as new ways of
communicating with their consumers, they seek metrics that can help them understand the
value and create an effective strategy for reaching key audience segments. Measurement
approach that focuses on reach and frequency within audience types (for example, fans and
friends of fans) can lead to a dramatically better understanding of how and where brand
messages are reaching consumers. Marketers also can better place their social-media strategy
within the broader framework of their marketing objectives for key consumer segment.
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Andreassen (2012) studied the Development of Facebook addiction scale in Norway. The study
was conducted including Facebook, He found that The Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale
(BFAS), initially a pool of18 items, three reflecting each of the six core elements of addiction
(salience, mood modification, tolerance, withdrawal, conflict, and relapse), was constructed
and administered to 423 students together with several other standardized self-report scales
(Addictive Tendencies Scale, Online Sociability Scale, Facebook Attitude Scale, NEOFFI,
BIS/BAS scales, and Sleep questions). That item within each of the six addiction elements with
the highest corrected item-total correlation was retained in the final scale. The factor structure
of the scale was good (RMSEA = .046, CFI = .99) and coefficient alpha was 0.83. The 3-week
test-retest reliability coefficient was 0.82. The scores converged with scores for other scales of
Facebook activity. Also, they were positively related to Neuroticism and Extraversion, and
negatively related to Conscientiousness. High scores on the new scale were associated with
delayed bedtimes and rising times.
Hassan (2014) determine the students perception of social networking on their academic
purpose. The study was conducted including Facebook, They found that students associate
social networking sites in just a small proportion with academic usage. Bangladeshi students
are mostly driven by entertainment needs followed by social needs. Social networking is used
for different purposes such as fraud, transferring misinformation, odd presentation and
plagiarism the statements of people in order to create misunderstandings for the users.
Technology can enhance the teaching and learningexperience, but it can also distract the
attention of the users from the message that is to be transmitted to the medium itself and it is
the responsibility of the professor to make sure that students remain focused on the objectives
of the course.
Caplan (2013) studied that how Republican Congressman Scott Rigell and Democratic
candidate Paul Hirschbielcandidates in the 2nd Congressional District of Virginia cultivated
twitter to attract voters in the 2012 elections. The study was conducted including Twitter, The
primary goal of this study was to define the tactical strategies of incumbent Scott Rigell and
competitor Paul Hirschbiels social media use of Twitter in the 2012 Congressional
election.The study provided insight into how Scott Rigell and Paul Hirschbiel distinctively
cultivated Twitter to attract. Caplan also find that social media sites are a means of transferring
information from one societal group to another and that this informational exchange is twosided and circulates from structure to system and system to structure. Caplan also stated that

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Twitter creates opportunities for politicians to motivate and activate their followers and
differentiate themselves from their competitor
Hellweg (2011) studied that how politicians can use their Facebook or Twitter pages in the
most effective fashion and incorporate these new media outlets as essential campaign tool and
tactics. The study was conducted including Facebook, They found that campaigns no longer
can rely only on traditional media to reach constituents without running the risk of overlooking
a new population of voters who use social media as integral parts of their decision making
process . Hellweg also find that people are not comfortable with candidates or political figures
tweeting the same way ordinary people tweet Politicians in general were more informal with
their speech on their Twitter pages. This research discusses the impact politicians social media
use has over their overall electability and likability and explores the integration of social media
as an essential campaign tactic on both the local and national level
Aalberg, & Jenssen (2007) studied how men and women sometimes have different political
Preference. The study was conducted including Twitter. They found that the male politician
was believed to be more knowledgeabletrustworthy and convincing than the female
politician even though they presented the same speech verbatim. The candidates popularity
and the popularity of the candidates party seem to be affected as well by the gender of the
politician who performed the speech. The young males seem to favour male over female
politicians, at least when it comes to communication skills this pattern may be even more
pronounced among the older generations of males Politicians using blatant sexist language risk
being punished by their parties.5 However, everyone has not wholeheartedly accepted these
changes. 98% male armed forces react to female Minister of Defence demanding cutbacks,
80% male farmers respond to female Minster of Agriculture slashing subsidies
Adolphsen (2009) studied the whether branding can be detected as a distinct quality of political
communication in the US. The study was conducted including TV Campaign, he explore how
the boundary conditions of the Clinton and Obama brands were constructed in the ads, i.e.
which particular political product both candidates advocated. Second the brand differentiators
will be investigated, i.e. the focus will be on how the candidates political products were
emotionally wrapped. It will become evident that the brand images evoked in both
candidates TV advertisements are surprisingly similar. This finding can then be used for
answering the question whether political branding is actually detectible by external recipients
of campaign communication.Third the focus will be on how the candidates political products
were emotionally wrapped. He also stated that Clinton is always in perfect command of
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policy details, while Obama appears big on excitement and glamour but short on policy
details Obamas communication relies more on brand differentiators the emotional wrapping
and personality traits of the candidate
Kresis (2014) studied the how staffers used the platform to influence the agendas and frames
of professional journalists, as well as appeal to strong supporters His study was conducted
including Twitter , He found that Organize social media for political campaign Scripting social
media and influencing the press for politics Per formative power .
Karpf (2013) studied the major research findings regarding the Internet and American Political
Campaigns in the US. The study was conducted including Facebook, He found that political
technology use has a positive effect on traditional, offline forms of participation General
stability at the behavioural level Polarized Bundling among Small Donor Communities.
Researcher has generally found small, positive correlations between Internet use and various
forms of political participation. There should be no stable relationship between use of the
Internet for political information and political participation over time in national samples
Ammetera, Douglasb, Hochwarterb, Ferrisb, & Gardnera (2002) studied that how political
perspective can contribute to effectiveness through both enhanced leader outcomes and the
constituencies consequences which leaders are directing their efforts. The study was
conducted including Facebook, They found that propose decisive steps toward the development
of a political theory of leadership that woulddeal with deficiencies raised in past developed the
leader interpersonal style construct and suggested the critical role this plays in leadership
processes and effectiveness introduced the notion of leader reputation as an outcome variable
that captures the essence of the process dynamics of the political model proposed ideas
contributing to a political theory of leadership in an effort to characterize the behaviour of
leaders in a wide variety of contexts.
Larsen, Brown, & Riding (2010) studied that why some congressmen use twitter while others
not in context to US .The study was conducted including Twitter, They found that Republicans
are far more likely to use Twitter than Democrats, Republicans probability of having a Twitter
account is 0.44 higher than a Democrats; a Republicans probability of actively using that
Twitter account is 0.29 higher than a Democrats. 10 of 12 Republican leaders use Twitter but
only 1 of 17 Democratic leaders follows suit. They also found that Age has a similarly strong
effect on interest , The youngermembers probability of having a Twitter account is 0.31 higher
than the older members, andhis probability of using that account actively is 0.37 higher than

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the older members. They said that Senators may find themselves experimenting with
innovative communications technologies like Twitter in hopes of broadening their appeal.
Baum, & Groeling (2008) seek to correct the oversight by content analysing five online news
sources including wire services, cable news, and political blog sitesin order to compare their
news judgments in the months prior to, and immediately following, the 2006 midterm election.
The study was conducted including five online news sources, they found that Democratic
activists and candidates have been quick to rally around an impressively biased and
increasingly influential community online, including such Web sites as DailyKos.com,
MoveOn.org, and HuffingtonPost.com. They also found that news stories that benefit the party
most closely associated with their own ideological orientations. Overall the news wires
demonstrated far weaker tendencies to select news based on its implications for one or the other
political party. This was especially the case for the British-based Reuters news wire. They
found find some evidence that the self-consciously nonpartisan Associated Press prefers stories
critical of Republicans, which may constitute evidence supporting the oft-cited conservative
claim of liberal bias in the mainstream news media. Blog users are also more likely than typical
individuals to discuss politics with others and, in doing so, to disseminate their views to the
broader public.
Farrell (2012) studied the How should political scientists study the Internets influence on
politics in the US. The study was conducted including Facebook, They found that the
relationship between the Internet and politics will become increasingly important for the
discipline. At the international level, the Internet is substantially affecting diffusion processes,
business preferences and the credibility of states. As the Internet becomes politically
normalized, it will be ever less appropriate to study it in isolation but ever more important to
think clearly, and carefully, about its relationship to politics.
Daves (2013) studied the Social media in election campaigning in context of EU. He found that
Low engagement of citizens in politics and ever declining voter turnout are taken as evidence
of a democratic deficit in the European Union. By providing a new form of communication
among politicians and citizens, social media may provide a way of increasing citizen
involvement in political life, especially during election campaigns. Social media have only a
very limited effect on getting otherwise disengaged citizens to engage even just to go out to
vote. Social media can be used to organize or reinforce participation in 'offline' events, and can
increase the personal appeal of a candidate. The network effects of social media, amplifying as

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they do the transmission of a political message through social connections, make social media
a valuable part of an election campaign.
Wills (2009) uses a case study of Facebook to examine the potential use of social networking
sites (SNS) for political advantage in British politics. The study was conducted including
Facebook, He found that there is significant personal information to be extracted from online
social networks. Even when privacy settings are enacted there are ways to extract information
from the structure of the network itself. He concluded that information system design should
play a more important part in protecting privacy, rather than relying on individuals to counter
a systems in-built problems through correct behaviour. He demonstrated how data disclosure
can be understood as interaction with an opaque machine, without knowledge of rules, logics
and thresholds that are hidden from view.
Emruli, Tahir, & Florin (2011) studied in the context of Macedonia to study the Internet
influence to the process of political communication, marketing and the management of public
relations, what kind of online communication. The study was conducted including Facebook.
They found that political parties have not yet exploit the potential offered from Facebook,
observations can be made for the way how they use this social media, the way of
communication and self-advertising by political parties by using this social media, as they use
it more as a means of information rather than as a media for interactive conversation with their
electorate.
Cullen, & Calitz (2014) studied that a political party in an emerging economy is currently using
social media to propose a social media political marketing framework in South Africa. The
study was conducted including Facebook, twitter and YouTube. They found that the party
members are also interested in social media and that social media account ownership is
independent of the demographics of the respondents. Political marketing, branding and
strategic communication are considered as key success factors in political campaigns. Further
study can be done in terms of the micro targeting of groups.
Kalyango, & Adu-Kumi (2012) studied in context of South Africa, the role of social media
platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, and YouTube in mobilizing them to participate
in the political discourse. The study was conducted including Facebook and twitter. They found
that social media networks, specifically, Friendster, Myspace, Facebook have helped African
netizens to perform Building political and social capital is considered by some scholars to be

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the primary use of social networking sites such as Facebook using social media as mobilizing
tools for social change in the national political discourse is an important fact.
Ali, Jan, & Iqbal (2013) studied in context of Pakistan, the social media implications on
Pakistans politics. It also tries to examine the role of Facebook in building the public
perception it focuses to measure the fans of political personalities of Pakistan on Facebook.
They found that Facebook as a social media forum is playing very effective and constructive
role in our society as well as in the politics of the country In Pakistan where youth is 70% of
population, political parties cannot ignore the fact the fact that this segment of population uses
the internet and social networks the most. Social media is challenging the traditional political
patterns and it is introducing the new political paradigms
Biswas, Ingle, & Roy (2014) studied that whether there is any significant relationship between
dependent variable I might be influence to vote for a particular politician based on content I
read about him on twitter or Facebook with respect to independent variable I follow political
candidate on twitter and Facebook and I actively engage in political the impact of social
media on voting behavior in India. This study includes social media platforms such as
Facebook, YouTube and twitter. They found that social media play a significant impact on
voting behavior of young voters. Political parties will be successful in influencing the people
of the metros city and semi urban cities. "Social media provides platform to the people to get
connected to parties they favor, People use social media platform to keep track of political
development,
Rajput (2014) examines the recent happenings of Indian political world only on the micro
blogging site, Twitter. Further it discusses the twitter activities of Indian politicians against the
politicians all over the world. The study was conducted in India in context to SNS twitter. They
found that provides politicians a way to directly communicate with the public. However social
media cannot be an alternative for traditional media such as TV, newspaper, radio etc. but can
be used along with these channels to harness its full potential .Parties need to adopt some code
of conduct when communicating with this new age media. After some initial doubts and
oppositions social media has come parallel to the mainstream media. The use of Twitter in
Indian political world is in gestation stage and a long way is to go for politicians. Leaders need
to be careful while posting the tweets on Twitter as any negative tweet may lead to controversy
that can harm their party as well as their political career. Parties need to adopt some code of
conduct when communicating with this new age media.

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Weinstein (2013) studied in context of US, how do youth who are civically engaged off--line
manage opportunities for civic expression on social media do civically engaged youth express
the civic facets of their identities in their online lives? If so, what patterns characterize the
relationships between their online civic expression and off--line civic engagement? They found
that most notably, peer approval and opportunities to attract or maintain desired professional
roles both within and beyond the civic domain. The potential for online expression to have
unwanted implications for their off--line lives crystallizes the risks for some youth and leads
them to mask their civic identities online, the decision to refrain from expressing appears
neither a reflection of problematic multiplicity nor an indicator of a less robust civic identity,
but instead a response to thoughtful and even civically oriented considerations. Future research
could use the patterns and considerations framework we propose to explore their suitability for
more representative populations.
Larsson (2014) examines the uses of social media by politicians by presenting a study of party
leaders uses of Facebook during the 2013 Norwegian election campaign. This study was
conducted in Norway. This study has provided important insights into the uses of Facebook at
the hands of high-end politicians. Interested researchers might find it rewarding to take the
audiovisual qualities of social media more clearly into account. As pictures and videos can be
said to be an integral part of Facebook and indeed of political campaigning in itself, the
inclusion of such content could be expected to carry some weight in determining the popularity
of specific posts. The time period studied is suitable, future research might find it fruitful
Facebook to adopt longitudinal designs perhaps also covering the activities of other, less
senior, politicians.
Arulchelvan (2014) studied to assess the effectiveness of new media political campaigns during
the elections. The study was conducted in India in context to SNS. They found that Almost
54% of the samples taken are not aware of websites of political parties while the rest 46% know
that political parties have official websites which gives details and information about that
particular party The survey revealed that about 48% of respondents mostly youngsters were
aware on the websites of the political parties and 52% of the respondents are not much aware
of political websites. Usage of Internet is common with youth and upper middle class. Internet
campaign may be successful if it becomes popular among the rural masses in future.
Khaldarova, Laaksonen, & Matikainen (2011) studied about the use of social media by the
elected Members of Parliament (MPs) for a four week. This study was conducted in Finland in
context to Facebook and twitter. The study revealed that the majority of MPs use personal
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accounts on Facebook, but half of them are closed meaning that people searching for MPs are
unable to contact them or view details without becoming their friends. Almost one third of
MPs' personal profiles on Facebook social media does not play the role in the Finnish politics
as it is usually ascribed for. The power of social media in the recent elections has been
obviously exaggerated as most of the elected MPs can hardly be considered as active or very
popular social media users. Finnish politicians have adopted social media, especially blogs and
Facebook, for the 2011 elections. But their way of using social media mostly reminds one-way
mass communication. In this sense it seems that despite the high hopes laid upon social media
services as a tool of e-democracy, there still exists a gap between politicians and citizens. Social
media will not foster deliberative democracy unless it is truly used for two-way
communicationand as a platform for conversation.
Charlotte, & Austin (2009) studied to provide longitudinal primary research regarding how the
most popular political how revenue social is media blogs utilize and generated by the blog.
This study was conducted in US in context to Facebook, twitter and Myspace. The study
revealed that the social networking sites of Facebook (18.6%), Myspace (1.7%) and LinkedIn
(1.7%) were not overly popular with political bloggers, but thirty-nine percent of the bloggers
had a link on the blog to either their twitter account or an actual feed of their twitter tweets.
This study looked at four major means by which a blog could generate revenue: donations,
selling, advertising, and network support. Thirty nine percent, or twenty three, of the political
blogs did not accept donations of any kind to support the blog or a political candidate.
Muniandy, & Muniandy (2013) studied the impact of social media in the social and political
aspects, specifically in Malaysia. It was found that 90% of Malaysian Internet users have access
to social media sites. Malaysians also prefer to surf the Internet than to watch television, and
they are spending twice as much time on their online activities. Also 80% of Internet users in
Malaysia stream online video content each month and 51% have an active YouTube profile.
Thus, Social media changed the static political state to a more dynamic one as the uncensored
Internet gave opportunities to both politicians as well as people of Malaysia to express their
opinions. The researcher stated that Social media empowered the people and provided a golden
opportunity to express their views, suggestions and opinions on any topics.
Arulchelvan (2014) studied the effectiveness of new media political campaigns during the
elections. He stated that every large political party has tried to use all the available new media
tools and Television, Mobile phone and Internet have played a great role. He found that he
political parties have reached a large number of voters through the new media and it made their
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election campaign easy, fast and successful. The survey revealed that about 48% of respondents
mostly youngsters were aware on the websites of the political parties and 52% of the
respondents are not much aware of political websites. Unlike the traditional method of
campaigning, Internet advertisements, official websites of the parties, SMS, IVRS have
reached large number of audience. He also found that, though new media technologies,
especially Internet and mobile are good means of election campaigns, mobile phone campaigns
will have a good reach among all class of people.

3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research methodology is a systematic and scientific procedure of data collection, compilation,
analysis, interpretation and implication pertaining to any business problem. Research
Methodology is defined as the process used to collect information and data for the purpose of
making business decisions. The methodology may include publication research, interviews,
surveys and other research techniques, and could include both present and historical
information.We need research methodology to explain where we are coming from and why we
want to do the research in a particular way. The importance of research methodology is that
different research methods are compatible with different situations, and therefore it is important
to know which method is best suitable for use with a particular hypothesis or question. In fact,
if an unsuitable research method is used, it could render the research useless.
The method of this study is presented in the following sections:
1. Selection of Politician: Narendra Modi, Barack Obama, David Cameron, Rahul Gandhi
and Arvind Kejriwal because these politicians are having highest number of followers on
their official Facebook pages. And they are most popular politicians on Facebook.
2. Which Social Networking site will be used: Facebook will be used for collecting the data
from the official Facebook pages of the select politicians. Facebook is most famous social
networking site among the users. As of the third quarter of 2015, Facebook had 1.55 billion
monthly active users. In the third quarter of 2012, the number of active Facebook users
had surpassed 1 billion.
3. What Information will be collected:The information collected includes number of likes,
number of comments, number of shares and number of tags on each posts.
4. Number of Updates per politicians: 150 updates per Politician will be recorded for
further data analysis.
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5. Framework Used for Data Coding: IPA Bales (1950) will be used to code the
information for further use.
6. Tentative Statistical Techniques: The data will be analyzed using Descriptive statistics,
Graphs, and One Way ANOVA for mean comparison.

3.1 SELECTION OF POLITICIANS

All Political Leaders are now active Social Media users. Our current Prime MinisterNarendra
Modi used social Facebook and Twitter for his election campaign and that also very effectively.
There are many other political leaders who are active on Facebook and using it to raise their
voice and their view point. We have selected different political leaders of India and other
countries. These politicians are the most popular politicians the Facebook having highest
number of likes on their official pageNarendra Modi is only second after US president Barack
Obama in terms of fan following of politicians on Facebook. Modi reportedly has the fastest
growing Facebook page for any elected official in the world after Obama. On April 7, the first
phase of the Indian general elections, Modi had 12.46 million fans on the Facebook.
FIGURE 3.1: LIKES ON OFFICIAL PAGES OF POLITICIANS

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Today, when he was appointed by President Pranab Mukherjee as the next prime minister of
the country, it had jumped to 15.245 million fans after US president Barack Obama, who has
over 40 million fan following on Facebook, Modi is the second most popular politician in the
world.Modi, however, has greater growth rate on Facebook (1.171%) compared to Obamas
0.305%.On the day of counting, mentions of Modi saw an increase of seven times. From the
day elections were announced to the day polling ended, 29 million people in India made 227
million interactions (posts, comments, shares, and likes) regarding the Indian Elections on
Facebook. That is two-thirds of all daily active Facebook users in India and an average of 10
interactions per person. In addition, 13 million people made 75 million interactions regarding
Modi.Moreover, the candidates and political parties saw a large amount of interactions on their
Facebook pages.

3.2 SELECTION OF A SOCIAL NETWORKING SITE

After the selection of the politicians, the selection of social networking site was the most
important decision. For finalizing politicians for the study the likes on the official Facebook
pages of these teams was used. As each political leader has been liked by the viewers very
much but as we are following Facebook as our social media to get know about the popularity
so we have chosen the teams on the basis of their liking on official Facebook pages.
TABLE 3.1: SELECTION OF POLITICAL LEADER
Name of Politician

Likes On Official Facebook Pages

Narendra Modi

31,045,276

Barack Obama

45,774,469

David Cameron

852,584

Rahul Gandhi

416,982

Arvind Kejriwal

6,542,965

Source: Official Facebook pages of Each Politician as on: 26th Nov2015

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3.3 NUMBER OF UPDATES

Numbers of updates are collected from top five influential politicians in the world based upon
their Facebook pages. For each politician, 150 updates are collected for the research purpose.
Number of update of each team included that how many likes, comments, shares and tags are
there on each post. Collected data also gives the information related to the post that is the name
of the post, description of the post that is either the post is a video or a picture.

Table 3.2: SAMPLE OF DATA COLLECTED FROM OFFICIAL FACEBOOK

PAGES

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3.4 WHAT INFORMATION IS COLLECTED

Information is collected from the official Facebook pages of the politicians. The information
which is collected from the official Facebook pages included number of likes, number of
comments, number of shares and number of tags on each posts. It also included the information
related to the description of the post that either the post is a video or a picture. It also tells us
about the name of the post that either the picture is uploaded or not else video.

3.5 FRAMEWORK USED FOR CODING THE UPDATES

For coding the updates Bales Interaction Process Analysis system is used. Bales' Interaction
Process Analysis (IPA) is a classic in the study of small group interaction. His research
investigates measures of leadership in small, that is, face-to-face groups. In a much simplified
form the categories of observable leadership used were Instrumental Leadership, Asking for
Information, Socio-Emotional Leadership, Good Idea Remarks, and Negative socioemotionalleadership behaviors. The IPA Bales framework is as shown in Table 4. Also, the
IPA Bales Framework was customized to be used for data coding for politician updates.

Table 3.3: CATEGORIES OF BALES IPA OBSERVATION SYSTEM

Message Orientations

Examples

Questions

Task/Instrumental
Ask for opinion

Evaluation, analysis, expression of What do you think about

feeling
the program?

Gives suggestion

Direction, possible ways of action

What can the actor do in

the givensituation?

Ask for information

Information, repetition, confirmation

Will she unleash a former

house guest tonight?

Gives opinion

Evaluation,
analysis,
feeling, wish

Gives suggestion

Direction, implying autonomy for Watch the show tonight.

other

Gives information

Information,
confirms

repeats,

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expresses The show was really

amazing tonight.

clarifies, The preview of tonight's

episode is now available
online.

Positive Socioemotional
Shows solidarity

Raises other's status, gives help, Thanks so much for

reward
liking the show.

Shows tension release

Jokes, laughs, shows satisfaction

Agree

Shows
passive
understands

Wow, that was funny.

acceptance, Yeah, I agree with you.

Negative Socioemotional
Disagree

Shows passive rejection, formality

I told you that's not

allowed in here.

Shows tension

Asks for help, withdraws out of field

I am not happy about it.

Sources: Bales (1970); Pena and Hancock (2006).

3.6 TIMELINES OF THE STUDY

The duration of the project is divided into two semesters. In Semester 1, the research design
has been completed. The data collection for the main study will be conducted in Term 2 and
data analysis and findings will be discussed in Term 2 only. Tables 3.4 discuss the timelines of
the study which has been shown below:
TABLE 3.4: TIMELINES FOR THE STUDY
Activity

Target Date

Main Data Collection

January, 2016

Data Coding and Required Software (Excel)

14th February, 2016

Data Analysis and Interpretation

28th February, 2016

Report Completion and Submission of Report

20th March, 2016

Deadlines as Given by Project Mentor: Dr. Anish Yousaf (18256)

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