JOURNAL OF MEDIA AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

For the first time in India’s general elections of 2014, social media was used extensively by certain political parties and candidates. It was no different in Karnataka. Social media provided an alternative forum for parties and candidates to reach out voters. Social media has turned into additional vote base for political parties and candidates points out this study. The two national parties and one regional party made efforts to make use of the Internet based tools, though their efforts, interest and investments in terms of money were not equal. However, the social media tools used by them were more or less the same. The two national parties – the Indian National Congress (INC) commonly referred as the Congress party, and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) – were way ahead of other national parties when it comes to using social media. Between the two, the BJP was more aggressive than its nearest rival the Congress on social media plank