Third International Conference on Communication & Media Studies

Abstract

The advent of social media has opened up a multitude of different horizons for political actors and their audiences. The inherent two-way communication between politicians and their voters has made social media as one of the most viable platforms for political campaigns. This research does a comparative analysis of usage of social media by politicians of different countries and establishes a pattern of usage of social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook in political campaigns. It then extends the investigation into the practices used by Members of the National Assembly (MNA) of Pakistan in regards to reaching their potential voters. The findings concluded that 25% of the MNAs use social media for political activities and within this group of MNAs; the majority prefers Twitter to Facebook due to the direct nature of platform. For the same reason, the percentage, which runs their own Twitter accounts, is higher than those who offload these tasks to their teams or managers. Based on the findings, it is concluded that Pakistani political actors are well aware of the purpose of using social media and are even satisfied with the way that the social media platforms help them in achieving that purpose. This is consistent with patterns observed in studies throughout the world.