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Populism and social media use: comparing the Indian Prime Minister
Narendra Modi’s strategic use of Twitter during the 2014 and the 2019 election
campaigns

Article in Media Asia · October 2022

DOI: 10.1080/01296612.2022.2135269

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MEDIA ASIA
https://doi.org/10.1080/01296612.2022.2135269

ARTICLE

Populism and social media use: comparing the Indian

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s strategic use of Twitter
during the 2014 and the 2019 election campaigns
Neelam Sharma
Department of Communication, Media and Persuasion, Idaho State University, Pocatello, Idaho, USA

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
Populist leaders’ charisma, and their ability to connect directly Populism; social media;
with the voters, usually via social media platforms, characterize Twitter; Narendra
the populist communication style. This study, with its focus on Modi; India
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 2014 and 2019 online elec-
tion campaigns, extends our understanding of how populist lead-
ers change their online communication strategy to seek votes
during two different elections. After analyzing and comparing
Modi’s tweets from 2014 with his 2019 online campaign, this
study demonstrates that Modi, as a first-time contender,
employed a key populist strategy of attacking opposition and
elites, along with promising economic growth, in 2014. However,
as an incumbent in 2019, he primarily used Twitter for self-pro-
motion and to establish a direct connection with voters. While his
attacks on opposition reduced significantly, his engagement with
the mainstream media increased in the latest elections. This paper
also discusses the increasing digitalization and its impact on
populist communication.

The recent rise in populist leaders across countries has, in part, been attributed to the
increasing digitalization and substantial growth in the use of social media platforms
(Kyle & Gultchin, 2018; Maldonado, 2019). Social media platforms like Twitter,
Facebook, and YouTube have emerged as mainstays of populist communication as
these platforms provide a direct line of communication for populists to connect to
the public, often bypassing the mainstream media (Bimber, 2008; Engesser et al.,
2017; Tromble & Koole, 2020). Recent studies on populist communication demon-
strate that political discourse on social media can be fragmented as different political
actors promote different ideologies online (Engesser et al., 2017), which can result in
more emotional appeals than rational appeals to lure voters (Maldonado, 2019), and
is often an interplay between offline and online populist communication (Postill,
2018). Sinha (2017) envisages populist communication on social media to be a con-
tinuously changing array of ideologies as the transitory nature of the medium rapidly
moves the focus from one issue to another.

CONTACT Neelam Sharma [email protected]

ß 2022 Asian Media Information and Communication Centre
2 N. SHARMA

Most of the studies on populists and their social media use have focused on
Western democracies (especially since Donald Trump’s victory in 2016 in the USA).
This is despite the fact that the world has witnessed a five-fold increase in populist
leaders since the 1990s, and reports have identified the emergence of 46 populist lead-
ers across different countries in the last three decades (Kyle & Gultchin, 2018).
Furthermore, our understanding of the use of social media platforms by populists in
different political campaigns is limited as most of the scholarship revolves around
political campaigns around a single campaign. If populism is considered a thin ideol-
ogy (Mudde, 2004)- an accepted view that considers populism lacking in its ability to
stand alone as a practical political ideology and fails to exhibit a recurring pattern
(Schroeder, 2020)- do these ideological strands remain intact over several online pol-
itical campaigns or do populists change strategies and find new issues to address
within their populist discourse, as Sinha (2017) suggests?
This paper explores how a populist changes his communication strategy by examin-
ing Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Twitter campaign for his last two victorious
elections: 2014 and 2019. Modi’s political style is categorized as “cultural populism” in
which he promotes the key themes of religion, traditionalism, national sovereignty, and
the “others” including non-natives, religious minorities, and elites (Kyle & Gultchin,
2018). Since his election in 2014, several scholars have analyzed Modi’s emergence as a
strong, far-right political leader who has relied on populist ideology to garner voters
(Sinha, 2021), and establish a direct connection with young voters using social media
platforms (Rodrigues & Niemann, 2017) and how his populist strategies have shaped
India’s foreign policy since 2014 (Plagemann & Destradi, 2019).
Though prior studies have analyzed Modi’s rise in Indian national politics from
the lens of populist ideology (Sinha, 2021; Chakravartty & Roy, 2015), few empirical
studies have identified the key populist communication strategies employed by Modi
in 2014 and the 2019 online election campaign and how, if at all, the 2019 online
campaign was different from his 2014 campaign. This comparison is important
because, in the 2014 elections, Modi is among the most followed political leader on
social media platforms in the world (On Twitter, he is the third most followed polit-
ical leader- and has more than 50 million Twitter followers) (Bhattacharya, 2020).
Modi positioned himself as a worthy outsider and promised voters a change for the
better by emphasizing how the previous regimes have failed the citizens. In 2019,
Modi was the incumbent to the post and could not play the outsider card anymore
and had to rely on other strategies to lure voters. Thus, it is plausible that he changed
his strategy to lure voters to his re-election bid in 2019. This study, thus, extends our
understanding of populist leaders’ use of social media by investigating how a demo-
cratically elected populist leader changes his communication strategy by incorporating
different elements of populist communication to lure voters in two differ-
ent campaigns.

Populism and its rise in a digitalized world

Populism is a highly contested concept that has been characterized differently across
traditions and has been described both as an ideology and as a communication style
 MEDIA ASIA 3

(Ernst et al., 2019; He et al., 2021; Kinnvall, 2019). As an ideology, populism is con-
sidered a “thin-centered ideology” in which populist leaders say they are guided by
the will of the people and usually advocate for the “natives” and create a narrative of
“non-natives” or others (Mudde, 2004). From this perspective, populists are not con-
sidered pluralists as they often consider just one group legitimate and advocate on
that group’s behalf (Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2017).
As a communication style, populism is viewed as a performance where a populist
leader enacts the role of a political actor. Moffitt (2016) views populism as a per-
formative style combing rhetoric with delivery mode and aesthetics, especially in
mediated communication. Populist communication, thus, becomes the communicative
representation of the populist ideology. To augment their political ideology, populists
often use stylistic elements such as people-centrism messages, and anti-elite messages
and often claim the restoration of popular sovereignty by invoking heartland and
ostracizing others (Engesser et al., 2017; M
eny & Surel, 2002). Mendonça and
Caetano (2021), in their analysis of the Instagram visuals of Brazilian populist
President Jair Bolsonaro, analyzed populist leaders’ tendency to appear anti-elite on
social media. They remarked that Bolsonaro’s rejection of basic social standards,
over-the-top masculinity, and impromptu use of everyday objects as props work to
construct an image that he is just an ordinary man, extraordinarily occupying
the presidency.
Populist leaders often are charismatic, indulge in self-promotion, and are extro-
verts- these characteristics enable them in establishing a direct connection with their
followers that, in turn, helps them to persuade their followers using emotional appeals
and energetic style (Barr, 2018; Weyland, 2017). In their analysis of populist leaders’
personality traits, Nai and Martinez (2019) find that populist leaders often score high
on extraversion and narcissism but score lower on agreeableness. To reap the benefits
of their political charisma, and to project self-assurance, populist leaders use the tactic
of self-promotion to connect directly with their followers (Weyland, 2001).
Contemporary populism is often described as mediated populism where social
media platforms play a major role in spreading populist leaders’ messages directly to
their followers, often bypassing the mainstream media (Chadwick, 2014; Engesser
et al., 2017). According to Flew and Iosifidis (2020), social media platforms are cru-
cial to populist communication for three main reasons: First, they attract many more
people than traditional media. Second, they allow more interactivity and many-to-
many communications on a global scale. Third, the rapid uptake of the global distri-
bution platforms reduces the costs of reaching international audiences.
Scholars assert that the rise of populism in recent times should be understood in
terms of digitalization and sentimentalization: that is, the increasing use of digital
platforms and enhanced use of emotions by populists to lure voters (Flew & Iosifidis,
2020; Maldonado, 2017). Social media facilitates affective (emotional) persuasion
rather than rational persuasion, thus, “enabling charismatic leaders to leverage an
often-unregulated reach of these platforms and spread their messages on a global
scale” (Maldonado, 2017, p. 8). Maldonado asserts that digital technologies and social
networks make it possible to create in voters the feeling that they are themselves dir-
ectly addressed—an unmediated communication that creates a bond between
4 N. SHARMA

followers and leaders that befits populist strategy. As per Engesser et al. (2017), popu-
lists continue their political performance on social media platforms and populism
manifests itself in fragments on social media as right-wing and left-wing leaders
employ different populist strategies online. Engesser et al. (2017) state that as the
populist ideology continues to shape populists’ messages on social media platforms,
these messages can have a low level of complexity to make these messages more com-
prehensible to social media users.
Though populist leaders’ preference for social media, and an aversion to the main-
stream news media, are well-noted in the literature (Kinnvall, 2019, Pal et al., 2017),
experts say populist leaders strategically use both the traditional and the new media
to serve different purposes. Chadwick (2014) describes this combination as a hybrid
strategy in which the new media and the old media co-exist and complement– each
serving the politicians a different goal of reaching their audience. Thus, populist poli-
ticians distribute official statements to larger audiences using mass media and turn to
social media to circumvent the media institutions and journalistic gatekeeping
(Engesser et al., 2017; Klinger & Svensson, 2015). While professional news outlets
rely on professional gatekeepers and a passive audience, the new media networks rely
on peer networks with the idea of gaining maximum attention (Chadwick, 2014;
Klinger & Svensson, 2015).
In the next section, we will focus on Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rise
as a populist and his strategic use of social media platforms.

Modi’s rise and populism

Narendra Modi’s rise to the center stage in India have been a work of several decades
of politics in his home state Gujarat, where he served as the chief minister for three
consecutive terms (Sinha, 2017). Modi, an ardent functionary of the Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), moved to Delhi, India’s capital, to contest for the post of
PM for the far-right political party Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) in 2014. Riding high
on a wave of change and development, Modi won with a thumping majority by
defeating his main rival, the Indian National Congress (INC). Noteworthy, the INC-
led coalition United Progressive Alliance (UPA) was in power for a decade and, along
with Modi’s challenge, had to deal with anti-incumbency. Modi won in 2014 by gar-
nering 31% of the total votes (Sinha, 2017). His 2019 win in re-election was even
more dramatic. As an incumbent to the post, and no longer an outsider, he won with
an even bigger margin, 37.36% of the total votes, in 2019.
Since his win in 2014, Modi’s communication strategy and his political style have
been a focus of intense scrutiny. Modi’s style of populism is described as “cultural
populism” that emphasizes nationalism, traditionalism, culture, and “the others” (Kyle
& Gultchin, 2018). According to Kinnvall (2019), Modi, like several other populist
leaders, knows that sentiments, images, and symbols, rather than rational arguments
or accurate history, can galvanize individuals, and Modi unites narratives of nativism
with those of religious discourse in his messages. Modi, with overwhelming support
from social media platforms, has crafted an image of a founder of new media, a man
 MEDIA ASIA 5

of progress, and especially a common man of humble origins who openly resents the
English-speaking elites (Kinnvall & Svensson, 2018).
Modi’s strategic use of social media and his dislike for the mainstream media have
also been analyzed. Modi had an uncomfortable relationship with the mainstream
media since the Gujarat riots in 2002 (Muslims, the religious minority in India, were
the main targets) and disengaged with the national media after an intense probing by
them (Sinha, 2017). Modi, with 50 million Twitter followers, and 45 million followers
on Facebook, took to social media as his main communication platform and is now
listed among the most followed leaders in the world (Sharma, 2019). Sinha (2017)
attributes Modi’s success in 2014 to social media platforms that not only helped
Modi to connect directly with the voters but also sidestep and attack the traditional
news media. Sinha (2017) argues that Modi’s social media discourse and strategy
identified several crises: economic crisis, law, and order crisis, the crisis of morality,
and the crisis of parliamentarians (inability of other parties to represent the people).
Even though Modi’s populism is based on the identification of these crises in India,
Sinha adds that due to the transitory nature of social media, the main platform that
Modi uses to build his narrative, India will witness “a continuous contention between
varieties of populism” (p. 4178). Because of the changing discourse on these plat-
forms, Sinha (2017) argues, the populism augmented by social media platforms may
not become hegemonic as newer issues will keep emerging that will necessitate popu-
lists to change their strategies. Thus, various elements of populism will be on the dis-
play as Modi and other leaders will have to create a new narrative for the digital
platforms. Rodrigues and Niemann (2017) note that Modi’s effective use of social
media platforms contributed to his 2014 victory as Modi was able to directly connect
with the youth which helped him be viewed as a leader of young and new India.
Chakravartty and Roy (2015), who analyzed Modi’s 2014 election campaign from
the perspective of mediated populism, lament that social and partisan media crafted
an image of Modi bereft of his legacy of the Gujarat massacre. Chakravartty and Roy
term this absence of discussion of Modi’s past absence from the media platforms as
“archival emptiness in an online age of media abundance” (p. 318) that enabled Modi
and his followers to erase controversial memories of the massacre.
It is noteworthy that Modi’s rise as a populist leader coincides with an enormous
growth in India’s digital platforms in the last decade. With over 560 million internet
users, India is the second-largest online market in the world and is ranked only
behind China in terms of Internet users (Diwanji, 2020). India has over 269 million
Facebook users (Facebook’s largest user base in the world), over 400 million
WhatsApp users, and 7.9 million Twitter users (www.statista.com). Digital growth
since 2014 has been particularly remarkable. While only one in ten voters accessed
Facebook in 2014, this figure jumped to 32% by 2019 (CSDS-Lokniti, 2019, p. 12).
WhatsApp, a messaging app owned by Facebook, has 34% of voters as its users, com-
pared with 22% in 2017. 31% of voters watched YouTube, owned by Google, while
Facebook-owned Instagram has 15% electorate currently using the app. Twitter, very
popular among political leaders to disseminate information, is used by 12% of Indian
voters (CSDS-Lokniti, 2019, p. 12) and had a base of around 18 million users in
India, which is its second-largest market in the world. Sharma (2022) notes that
6 N. SHARMA

Twitter is important to analyze in India as it is used by influencers and opinion lead-

ers such as politicians, lawmakers, celebrities, and influencers. Prime Minister Modi
is among the most followed leaders on Twitter in the world and has amassed more
than 50 million followers (Sharma, 2022). Additionally, political movement on social
media platforms was higher in the 2019 election than in 2014, and one-third of first-
time voters were influenced by political messages on social media platforms (The
Economic Times, 2019). While Modi may be considered a trendsetter in the use of
social media platforms for political campaigning in India, the 2019 elections wit-
nessed small and regional parties across political ideologies garner support via online
platforms (Pal & Panda, 2019).
Rodrigues (2019) meanwhile notes that Modi’s use of social media by bypassing
the mainstream media has already augmented a structural shift in India as the
agenda-setting power of the mainstream press has diluted. Baru (2021) also makes
notes of the changing media landscape under Modi as he opines that the mainstream
press has become more partisan since 2014 and many media houses have started tow-
ing Modi’s line to remain relevant.
A few empirical studies have analyzed Modi’s social media use in terms of content,
style, and tactics. Gonawela et al. (2018), in their study on tweets by four populist
leaders including Donald Trump, Nigel Farage, Geert Wilders, and Modi found these
leaders often posted antagonistic tweets such as personal insults, sarcasm, and label-
ing, and these tweets resulted in higher retweet rates. In a longitudinal analysis, Pal
et al. (2017) analyzed Modi’s tweets from 2009 to 2015 and found that Modi’s tweets
about foreign affairs, elections, announcements of political events, development,
International/global issues, tributes, and his party occurred most frequently in the
selected time period. Modi’s Twitter account has been consistently managed since
2012; soon after in 2013 Modi was declared the PM candidate by the BJP (Pal et al.,
2017). Calling Modi’s use of social media performance by a political actor, Pal and
colleagues state that Modi differs from other leaders in the Western democracies
(e.g., Donald Trump, former US President) in that Modi crafts his messages strategic-
ally by dodging potentially controversial topics, he avoids direct offense to any com-
munity of Indians, and projects a unified voice of his party on these platforms.
Political observers noticed rhetorical differences between Modi’s 2019 campaign
and his 2014 political campaign. Varshney (2019) notes that, unlike his 2014 cam-
paign which was built around economic development, good governance, and an
attack on his political rivals, Modi’s 2019 campaign was built around his personal
charisma and incorruptibility along with grand narratives of national security (after
the Pulwama attacks) and the Hindu nationalism to persuade voters. Sinha (2021)
states that while Modi blamed his main political rival Congress for India’s faltering
economic growth in 2014, his 2019 campaign mentioned little about the developmen-
tal promises he made five years ago as his track record as PM was poor.
While the experts agree that the 2019 elections rhetorically looked different from
the 2014 elections, little empirical evidence exists that demonstrates how the 2019
campaign was strategically different from the 2014 campaign. Furthermore, little
empirical research exists on Modi’s use of social media in his 2019 election campaign
and the key populist strategies he employed, if at all, during the campaign. The
 MEDIA ASIA 7

comparison is important as in 2014, Modi, who had never contested for the PM’s
post, positioned himself as a worthy outsider who, if elected, would magically make
all the problems disappear. In 2019, he was seeking re-election and did not have the
luxury to play the “outsider” role anymore. He, however, won again with an even big-
ger margin and decimated the opposition. Did the change in his political career also
result in a change in his social media use?
This study, therefore, poses the following research questions to explore Modi’s
online political campaign in 2019, and examine how this campaign differed from his
2014 campaign in terms of populist communication:
RQ: How did Modi’s 2019 online campaign differ from his 2014 online
political campaign?

Method
To investigate Modi’s use of Twitter for his online political campaign, we analyzed
his tweets and retweets from his official handle @narendramodi two months before
the first day of the elections. Though politicians use social media platforms strategic-
ally whenever they post something, the last few months before the elections are usu-
ally the most hectic and crucial time for them to build their key campaign
(Eldersveld & Walton, 2000). Eldersveld and Walton (2000) state that a political cam-
paign goes through several stages: from an “early-period” campaign to “post-primary
battles” -up to four months prior to the elections- where the campaigning is most
hectic and strategic time before the elections. Thus, we extracted the first set of
tweets, 597 tweets, from February 10, 2019, to April 10, 2019, by using Twitter’s
advanced search tool. India follows a multi-phase election schedule; the first phase of
2019 elections began on April 11 and the seventh and the last phase concluded on
May 10, 2019. The election results were declared on May 23, 2019. The Election
Commission of India, the federal agency that regulates elections, prohibits candidates
from campaigning directly while the elections are underway. Thus, two months prior
to the start of the elections provides ample content to understand the persuasive
strategies employed by the populist leader. We, then, extracted tweets two months
prior to the 2014 elections. We found 556 tweets for the time period- from February
7, 2014–April 7, 2014. We included all the tweets and retweets that were posted on
Modi’s official Twitter handle during the selected time periods. Since Modi often
posts the same message in several different Indian languages, apparently to reach out
to different linguistic groups in the country, we discarded duplicate tweets.
Two coders manually coded 1,153 tweets (597 from the 2019 campaign and 556
from the 2014 campaign) by following the coding scheme listed below. For ease of
analysis, we only included tweets in English and Hindi (coders were only familiar
with these two languages).
The unit of analysis was a single tweet. Each tweet, for ease of analysis, was assigned
only one primary code. We followed a method of absence/presence while coding.
Therefore, any secondary codes in a single tweet were not included. The coders were
trained over several sessions to reach an understanding of assigning codes to the tweets.
8 N. SHARMA

Figure 1. PM Narendra Modi addressing a political rally in Cooch Behar.

Figure 2. PM Narendra Modi promoting a BJP rally in Telangana.

To code the tweet data, we developed a coding scheme based on the existing litera-
ture on the characteristics of populist leaders. We identified nine relevant codes from
the literature and codes in tweet data as per the following coding scheme:

1. Self-promotion tweets: Self-promotion by populist leaders is an accepted trait in

their communication style (Barr, 2018). We, thus, coded tweets under this cat-
egory that solely focused on Modi’s promotion of speeches, rallies, accomplish-
ments, etc.(Figures 1, 2, 3, 4).
2. Attack on the opposition parties, elites, and political rivals: Anti-elite and anti-
establishment messages can be a part of populist messages (Meny & Surel, 2002).
In this category, we coded Modi’s attack on opposition leaders like INC and state
governments (Figures 5, 6).
3. Direct connection with voters: A key characteristic of populism is establishing a
direct connection with people (Nai & Martinez, 2019; Weyland, 2001; We coded
 MEDIA ASIA 9

Figure 3. PM Narendra Modi promoting an interactive program on NaMo TV.

Figure 4. PM Modi promoting his political program and the related merchandise on Twitter.

tweets in this category that tagged people directly, urging individuals to vote,
showed gratitude to common people, etc.) (Figures 7, 8, 9, 10).
4. Engagement with the mainstream news media: Populist leaders strategically use
the mainstream media to augment their interests (Kinnvall, 2019; Pal et al.,
2017). Thus, we coded the tweets that shared news media articles, positive tweets
about news media, etc. in this category. (Figures 11, 12, 13)
5. Visits to religious places (core constituency): Pal et al. (2017) found a sizeable
number of Modi’s social media posts about visits to religious places during the
2014 elections. Modi thus uses these visits strategically to appeal to his core
cadre. We, thus, coded all tweets where Modi visited different religious places
and met religious leaders of different faiths. (Figures 14, 15).
10 N. SHARMA

Figure 5. PM Modi attracking his main opposition party Indian National Congress (INC) during a
political rally.

Figure 6. PM Modi attacking his opposition party in a tweet.

6. Policy appreciation and promises for the future: This category included tweets
where Modi tweeted about his policies and made promises about the future.
Promises of a bright future to its core constituency are the hallmark of populist
communication (Engesser et al., 2017).
7. Sovereignty and national building: Messages of nation-building and sovereignty
are key to populist communication (Engesser et al., 2017). Here, we coded tweets
where Modi appreciated armed forces, and scientists; tweeted about securing bor-
ders, tweeted about national safety, etc.
8. Tributes: Pal et al. (2017) have identified tributes and homages as a distinct cat-
egory in a longitudinal analysis of Modi’s tweets from 2009 to 2015. We also
found a number of tweets in our data where Modi pays homage to past leaders,
wishes people on anniversaries, congratulates them on their achievements, etc.
 MEDIA ASIA 11

Figure 7. PM Modi establishing a direct connection with the voters by retweeting a user’s message.

Figure 8. PM Modi establishing a direct connection with the voters by retweeting a user’s message
on women empowerment.

9. International relations/image: Pal et al. (2017) found that Modi tweeted a lot
about India’s image abroad India’s image among other countries is a core

Two coders, after receiving training, coded the tweet data. One coder coded the
entire sample while the other coder coded 20% of the total tweets. The intercoder
reliability Krippendorf alpha value range ¼ 0.78–0.89.
12 N. SHARMA

Figure 9. PM Modi sharing a tweet from the New India Junction.

Figure 10. PM Modi individually tagging prominent personalities urging them to spread his mes-
sage of participating in the voting process.

Results
The content analysis demonstrates that Indian PM Modi’s online strategy included
posting tweets about self-promotion, attacks on opposition and elites, promoting pol-
icy and promises for the future, establishing a direct connection with the voters,
engagement with the mainstream media, showcasing his religious visits, nation build-
ing, tributes and homages, and his tweets about India’s image abroad in both the
2014 and the 2019 election campaign (Table 1). The frequency of tweets posted under
these categories, however, varied substantially before the last two elections.
A comparison between the frequency of tweets among these categories in the last
two elections presents insights into Modi’s strategic use of the social media platform.
In 2019, Modi used Twitter mainly for self-promotion, which constituted 32.99% of
 MEDIA ASIA 13

Figure 11. PM Modi’s engagement with the mainstream newsmedia before the 2014
general elections.

Figure 12. PM Modi’s engagement with the mainstream newsmedia before the 2019
general elections.

the total tweets posted from February 10, 2019, to April 10, 2019 (Table 1). This is
significantly more than how Modi used Twitter for self-promotion in his 2014 online
campaign (X2 (1, 1153) ¼ 29.31, p < .001) when his self-promotion tweets consti-
tuted 22.84% (n ¼ 127) of the total tweets.
In this study, we found several tweets where Modi used the social media platform
to promote his image via promoting his political rallies by posting about his travel
schedule and uploading several videos and photographs of the crowds in these rallies
to project how successful these political gatherings were. For example, in a tweet
dated April 6, 2019 (Figure 1), Modi posted a video of his speech in Cooch Behar,
West Bengal, and stated “Great vibrancy in Cooch Behar. West Bengal is with the
14 N. SHARMA

Figure 13. PM Modi retweeted an interview with a mainstream news media TV channel.

Figure 14. PM Modi’s visit to Dholeshwar Mahadev Temple in 2019.

BJP! Watch.” Similarly, on March 28, 2019, Modi posted: “People in Telangana see
BJP as a ray of hope. They want BJP. Watch” (Figure 2). Modi also promoted his
newly launched NaMo App (a web-based app that allowed users to access all the lat-
est news about Modi, purchase Modi and BJP-related merchandise and make dona-
tions to the party) and NaMo TV (a TV channel launched by Modi to promote
himself) on Twitter. For example, on March 30, 2019, Modi tweeted: “The day we
were most looking forward to is here! At 5 pm, lakhs of Chowkidars from different
parts of India will interact in the historic #MainBhiChowkidar program. This is an
interaction you must not miss. Watch it live on the NaMoApp or NaMo TV.”
(Figure 3). Likewise, Modi promoted his merchandise too on Twitter (Figure 4).
As Modi built his 2019 digital campaign on the promotion of his own image, there
was a significant reduction in his tweets about promises for the future or tweets about
 MEDIA ASIA 15

Figure 15. PM Modi’s meeting with leaders from the Muslim community in 2019.

Table 1. Comparison between online campaigns on Twitter by @narendramodi from 2014

to 2019.
Variables 2014 2019 X2 (df ¼ 1)
Self-promotion (rallies, speeches, travel 127(22.84) 197(32.99) 29.31, p < .001**
announcements, book launches, etc.)
Direct contact with the public (common people, 36(6.47) 97(16.25) 3.4, p ¼ .06
celebrities, etc.).
Policy appreciations and promises for the future 191(34.35) 98(16.42) 21.06, p < .001**
Attack on the opposition parties & elites 133(23.92) 78(13.07) 10.87, p 5 .001**
Mainstream media references 3(.54) 25(4.19) .06, p ¼ .79
Religious visits (Far-right Hindu leader image) 8(1.43) 13(2.18) .092, p ¼ .76
Nation building & sovereignty 8(1.43) 32(5.36) .23, p ¼ .63
Tributes 49(8.81) 43(7.20) 1.97, p ¼ .16
India’ image abroad 1(.18%) 14(2.35) .012, p ¼ .91
Total 556 597
p < .001, the relationship is significant, n ¼ 1153.

policy matters (X2 (1, 1153) ¼ 21.06, p < .001). In this study, such tweets only con-
stituted 16.42% (n ¼ 98) in 2019 compared to 34.35% (n ¼ 191) during the 2014
digital campaign. In his 2014 tweets before the polls, Modi emphasized good govern-
ance, changing people’s lives, and economic growth. For example, on April 6, 2014,
Modi, as a first-time contender to the top post, tweeted: “NDA wants to change peo-
ple’s lives. We are devoted to ensuring that the poor enjoy a life of progress and dig-
nity,” and similarly on April 4, 2014, Modi tweeted during his visit to the eastern
state of Odisha: “NDA will ensure Odisha’s progress. We will harness Odisha’s rich
potential in sectors like tourism, and handicrafts.” On March 28, 2014, Modi assured
Indians that he will give corruption-free governance: “Assured the people that NDA
will give a development-oriented Govt. If a Rupee leaves Delhi, every single Paisa will
reach the people.” The promises, especially in the regions that did not have a BJP-led
government, and his achievements as a PM during 2019, albeit the promises of devel-
opment occurred much less frequently. For example, on March 31, 2019, Modi
tweeted: “Your vote in 2014: Brought fear among the corrupt. Brought accountability
16 N. SHARMA

to those who looted. Ensured those who cheated the nation are on bail. With your
vote in 2019, they will head to where they really belong.”
Likewise, his scathing attacks on the opposition parties and political rivals reduced
significantly in 2019 on Twitter (X2 (1, 1153) ¼ 10.87, p < .001). Despite tweeting
fewer such attacks, however, Modi’s recurring attacks constituted calling his political
rivals such as the Indian National Congress (INC) as dynasts, elites, corrupt and
incompetent. For example, on April 5, 2019, Modi tweeted: “Beware of the Dynastic
Hand! They are going to INCREASE TAXES. YOUR MONEY will FUND the
LIFESTYLE OF CONGRESS LEADERS!” (The emphasis is included in the original
tweet) (Figure 5). Similarly, on March 19, 2019, Modi tweeted: “The biggest casualty
of dynastic policies are institutions. From the press to parliament. From soldiers to
free speech. From the constitution to the courts. Nothing is spared. Sharing some
thoughts.” (Figure 6).
Modi’s tweets that established a direct connection with the common people (as
well as celebrities) increased substantially in 2019 (16.25% in 2019, n ¼ 97; 6.45% in
2014, n ¼ 36) and this difference was marginally significant (X2 (1, 1153) ¼ 3.4, p ¼
.06). His attempt to directly connect with the people of all age groups was evident in
the tweets and retweets that were posted on his verified Twitter handle from
February to April 2019. These included simply appreciating people for supporting
him and his party to urging voters directly to come out and vote on the election day.
This type of engagement was particularly visible in Modi’s tweets targeting children
and women. Several of these tweets included children chanting “Modi Modi” in the
videos uploaded on Twitter, and Modi’s official handle retweeting these with appre-
ciative comments.
For example, on March 18, 2019, Modi retweeted a user’s daughter’s picture and
appreciated the family’s commitment to promoting Modi’s message. The quote
retweet read: “Happy to see young Chowkidar Navya take the lead and show remark-
able passion towards India’s development.” (Figure 7). On March 25, 2019, Modi
retweeted about women’s initiative in appreciating the Modi’s government by writing
“appreciable effort,” (Figure 8), and on March 23, 2019, retweeted a video of women
celebrating Holi and calling themselves Citizen Chowkidars (Figure 9).
Modi’s other form of establishing a direct connection with the voters was him urg-
ing people to come out and vote by using the hashtag #Votekar (Come out and
vote). Here, Modi’s handle used the opinion leaders and prominent people in India
to leverage their reach to augment his message of enhancing voter participation in
the election process. Several tweets, especially in late March 2019, highlight this
attempt by Modi. For example, on March 24, 2019 (Figure 10), Modi tagged several
prominent media houses, Bollywood actors, and cricketers to urge their followers to
come out and vote by using the hashtag #votekar. This direct connection with the
influencers was missing in 2014.
In another shift from the 2014 campaigning style, Modi engaged with the main-
stream news media on Twitter more frequently in 2019 as compared to 2014.
Mainstream media was largely ignored in his 2014 online campaigning. We only
found 3 tweets (.54%) that had any reference to a news media report. For example,
on February 14, 2014, Modi tweeted a link to a news report published in the
 MEDIA ASIA 17

Hindustan Times (a leading Delhi-based newspaper) to highlight the increasing

unemployment levels and, on March 12, 2014, tweeted a Times of India article on
Sardar Patel (Figure 11). On many other occasions, he used his webpage www.naren-
dramodi.in to share content with tweeters. This engagement with the mainstream
media, however, jumped to 25 (4.19%) in our sample of tweets in 2019. We found
tweets about links to TV interviews of the PM with the leading mainstream news
media houses, speeches at the events organized by independent media, and establish-
ing a direct connection with the leading editors by tagging them to urge their fol-
lowers to go and vote on the voting day, using the hashtag #Votekar (do vote). For
example, on April 6, 2019, Modi tweeted about his interview in the Hindustan Times
(Figure 12). Similarly, on April 4, 2019, Modi retweeted his TV interview on the ABP
news TV channel (Figure 13). In another tweet, on March 17, 2019, Modi praised the
mainstream news media and tweeted: “Media makes our democratic spirit stronger,”
and on March 21, 2019, he tweeted on fake news, “Fake news is a real danger. It
needs to be curbed.”
Modi tweeted more about his visits to religious places, mainly Hindu temples, in
2019 as compared to 2014. In 2014, 1.43% (n ¼ 8) of tweets were about Modi’s visits
to religious places. In 2019, this number jumps to 2.18% (n ¼ 13). For example,
Modi’s tweets included his visit to Delhi’s ISKCON temple on February 26, 2019, as
well as his visit to Mahadev Temple on March 4, 2019 (Figure 14). Modi also tweeted
about interacting with the Muslim community, the minority religious group in India,
but those tweets were casual or official interactions as a PM (Figure 15) and not his
actual visits to their religious places.
As a PM in 2019, Modi tweeted more on national building, national safety and
border safety, and scientific achievements as compared to 2014. In 2019 such tweets
were 32 (5.36%) while in 2014 there were only 8 (1.43%). Paying tributes, wishing
people on their anniversaries, and paying tributes to national heroes remained con-
sistent in both years (49, 8.81% in 2014; 43, 7.20% in 2019).
India’s international relations and India’s image abroad was a priority in both the
elections, though as PM, Modi tweeted more about India’s engagement with other
countries in 2019. These tweets were mostly during the PM’s visits abroad (.18% in
2014; 2.35% in 2019).

Shift in the online narrative in the last two months of election campaigning
in 2019
To gain insights into how Modi used Twitter in the 2019 election campaigning, we
broke up the data into two separate months (February 10–March 10, and March
11–April 10, 2019) to understand how the narrative changed in the last few weeks of
the campaign (Table 2). Modi tweeted a little more in the last month (315 tweets and
retweets, 52.51%) compared with the previous months (282 tweets and
retweets, 47.49%).
Modi promoted himself and his travels and rallies (Self-promotion) significantly
more in the last month prior to polling. From March 11, 2019, to April 10, 2021, we
found 103 (32.69%) self-promotion tweets compared to 94 (33.33%) from February
18 N. SHARMA

Table 2. Comparison between the last two months of online campaigning via
@narendramodi handle.
Variables Feb 10–March 10 March 11–April 10 X2 (df ¼ 1)
Self-promotion (rallies, speeches, travel 94(33.33) 103(32.69%) 23.1, p < .001**
announcements, book
launches, etc.)
Direct contact with the public 11(3.9) 86(27.30) 1.88, p ¼ .17
(common people, celebrities, etc).
Policy appreciations and promises for 83(29.43) 15(4.76) 2.48, p ¼ .12
the future
Attack on opposition parties & elites 33(11.70) 45(14.28) 2.83, p ¼ .09
Mainstream media references 7(2.22) 18(5.71) .22, p ¼ .63
Religious visits (far-right Hindu 12(5.28) 1(.32) .02, p ¼ .88
leader image)
Nation building & Sovereignty 14(4.26) 18(5.71) .44, p ¼ .5
Tributes 17(6.02) 26(8.25) .79, p ¼ .37
India’ image abroad 11(3.9) 3(.95) .056, p ¼ .81
Total 282 315
p < .001, the relationship is significant, n ¼ 597.

10–March 10, 2019. This difference was significant (X2 (1, 597) ¼ 23.1, p < .001)
(Table 2). One month prior to the elections, Modi’s focus seems to have shifted from
policy issues to establishing a direct connection with the voters. While February
10–March 10 only had 11 tweets (3.9%) on direct connect, this number jumped to 87
(27.30%) in our tweet population. This is where Modi apparently used all his emo-
tional appeal and personal charisma to attract voters.
Another shift we find is the engagement with the mainstream news media. From
February 10–March 10, 2019, the mainstream news media references were 7 (2.22%);
this number jumped to 18 (5.71%) in the last month. Modi did not tweet about his
visits to religious sites in the last one month. There is only one such tweet. However,
in the month prior, he tweeted about 15 such visits.

Discussion
Populist communication, viewed as a thin ideology, relies on populist leaders’ cha-
risma, self-promotion, and their ability to connect directly with the voters. Social
media platforms become unregulated spaces that help populists in spreading their
messages directly to the public, bypassing the mainstream media. This study, with its
focus on the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 2014 and the 2019 online polit-
ical campaigns, advances our understanding of how Modi changed his populist com-
munication online to serve his interests better.
Modi’s online campaign displayed different elements of populist communication in
2014 and in 2019 as he juggled between attacking the elites and opposition to emo-
tionally connecting with the voters on the social media platform. Similar to what
Sinha (2017) described as the transitory nature of social media platforms in which
the populist strategies continuously change to suit the strategic interests of the popu-
list leaders, we find that one common dominant theme is missing in the last two
online election campaigns, and the online discourse becomes an interplay of several
different types of populist appeals. Similar to Varshney’s (2019) and Sinha’s (2021)
observations, this study finds that Modi’s focus in 2019 was not on development and
 MEDIA ASIA 19

economic growth, or even attacking his opponents, but he relied on self-promotion

and broader nationalistic appeals to connect with voters.
Engesser et al. (2017) demonstrated the fragmented nature of populist communica-
tion styles on social media platforms. Furthermore, Chakravartty and Roy (2015)
asserted that the uncomfortable past issues are usually erased from the political dis-
course as part of a mediated populist communication strategy, as it is much easier to
build new campaigns on newer issues in an online age of media abundance. Thus, it
is plausible that populist communication will not adhere to one ideology or strategy
per leader in an online age. As a first-time contender for the post, Modi used the
populist strategy of attacks on elites, savior of people, a development guru, among
other attacks. As an incumbent, he shifted his populist strategy to establishing an
emotional connection and to promoting his own self online along with attacking
elites and political rivals (albeit on a lower scale). Future studies, therefore, must track
populist strategies used over a number to campaigns to document the different ele-
ments that are emphasized in each campaign.
As digital media enormously grew in India from 2014 to 2019, Modi also used the
hybrid media strategy in 2019 as compared to the 2014 elections. Chadwick (2014)
describes the use of hybrid media strategy by populists as a common occurrence in a
mediated world. This study finds evidence that Modi engaged more with the main-
stream news media in 2019 than in 2014. His engagement, and sometimes, appreci-
ation for the mainstream news media was clearly missing in 2014. Two reasons can
explain this shift. 1. In 2014, as an outsider, Modi positioned himself as an anti-elite
and anti-establishment and the mainstream media too became part of that narrative
as Modi’s followers deemed any opposition by the mainstream media as a personal
attack on Modi. However, as an incumbent, Modi strived to leverage the credibility
of the news media by engaging more with them. Thus, his transformation from an
outsider in 2014 to an incumbent in 2019 is reflected in his engagement with the
mainstream media. 2. The five years in power apparently helped Modi cultivate sec-
tions of reasonably friendly media houses. Baru (2021) notes that the mainstream
news media under Modi has become subdued and more partisan than in the previous
regimes. Thus, the use of a hybrid strategy suited Modi’s interest better than in 2014.
Furthermore, the mainstream media seemingly engaged with Modi on more agreeable
terms to remain relevant just when Modi’s main vehicle of communication became
the social media platforms. This is in line with Rodrigues (2019) assertion that
Modi’s rise necessitated a structural shift in the Indian media landscape where the
mainstream news media find its authority undermined and needed to reinvent them-
selves to remain relevant. Modi, in fact, does not hold press conferences to face direct
questions from the media. This selective engagement of a populist leader with the
mainstream media is interesting and the future studies must focus on how populists
integrate the mainstream media in their messaging. Does a powerful populist leader
first cultivate a friendly press and then engage with it, or do the independent media
adjust their functioning to engage with a populist who initially ignores them?
Prior studies assert that populist leaders’ chief characteristic is establishing a direct
connection with common people (Barr, 2018; Weyland, 2017). We find a clear use of
this strategy in Modi’s 2019 campaign as Modi enthusiastically engaged with the
20 N. SHARMA

common people on Twitter. While the use of personal charisma is the hallmark of any
populist leader (Barr, 2018), Modi’s connection with common people on social media
platforms must also be seen within the context of increasing internet penetration and
digitalization in India. In the 5 years of Modi’s governance, India made enormous pro-
gress in digitalization and is now among the leading media markets in the world. Apart
from other benefits of technology, it has benefitted populist leaders like Modi as this
parallel media apparatus has given Modi an easy platform to spread his message. Like
Maldonado’s (2019) assertions, digitalization promotes social media campaigns for the
populists, and the populists then turn the campaign from a rational to an emotional
campaign. Thus, as the web-based infrastructure continues to grow in India, the direct
connection between politicians and voters is inevitable, which might lead to an under-
mining of the mainstream media and the emergence of emotional rhetoric, rather than
rational rhetoric, in the political discourse. Modi’s push for digitalization in his own
campaigns (by promoting the use of NamoApp and Namo TV in 2019 and directing
traffic to his webpage www.narendramodi.in in 2014, for example) underlines the direc-
tion in which political discourse in India is heading. Studies in emerging democracies
and particularly in Global South should further explore how the increasing digitalization
in a society changes its political communication.
Modi’s focus on his Hindu identity does not change much in the last two elections.
Modi promotes his Hindu temple visits during both the elections and his interaction
with the non-Hindu community remains largely symbolic. Thus, Modi’s focus on
Hindu votes and reinforcement of a Hindu leader image is visible in both the elections.
This religious identity is crucial to a cultural populist like Modi who relies on religion,
traditionalism, and culture to build his image (Kinnvall, 2019). While Modi keeps shift-
ing from development and personal charisma to appeal to his voters, his core Hindu
ideology remains intact over the years. As noted by Pal et al. (2017), however, we also
find that while Modi employs many populist strategies, he avoids direct offense to any
community of Indians, and largely avoids potentially controversial topics. This can be
attributed to Modi’s skillfully curated political image where he has attempted to appear
more acceptable and agreeable as he occupies the top political seat in India.
We, however, find a lot of similarities in our content categories in this study with
the categories of tweets identified in Pal et al. (2017) analysis of Modi’s tweets from
2009–2015. We also coded tweets under the category “tributes” which included
Modi’s tweets about homages and tributes to prominent historical and contemporary
leaders across party lines. Just as in Pal et al.’s work, we also found Modi’s recurring
concern about international relations and India’s image abroad. These categories have
not been emphasized in research on other populist leaders in different countries.
Therefore, it is vital that country-specific research on populist leaders is conducted so
that theorizing about populists and their communication strategy emerges as a com-
prehensive understanding of how populists use social media platforms.

Limitations and future research

This study is based on a small sample of tweets selected two months before the gen-
eral elections held in India in 2014 and 2019. This study, thus, reflects only the posts
 MEDIA ASIA 21

on one online platform- Twitter and does not capture the comprehensive digital cam-
paign of the Indian prime minister. The analysis of 1153 tweets, however, presents
some compelling results and provides insights into future research on the use of
digital platforms by populists. Future studies can compare the communication strat-
egies of populist leaders from the Global South to analyze the differences and similar-
ities in their styles. Also, more longitudinal studies, such as Pal et al. (2017), can
provide insights into how populists change their messages over a period of time.
Additionally, this study relies on the manual coding of the tweets. Though two coders
independently coded the tweets, and the desirable intercoder reliability ratings were
achieved in this study, the human bias of manually coding the tweets cannot be ruled
out. Future studies therefore must employ other methods such as network analysis
and sentiment analysis to investigate the nature and relationship of various elements
in such tweets.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Funding
Office of Research, Idaho State University.
Notes on contributor
Neelam Sharma is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Communication, Media and
Persuasion, Idaho State University, USA.

ORCID
Neelam Sharma http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0197-1282

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