University of Economics, Prague Faculty of Informatics and Statistics
Use of social media by political parties of India in comparison of EU
MASTER THESIS
Study program: Master’s of Information system management Field of study: Information system
Author: Mohd Danish Ansari
Supervisor: Ing. PhDr. Antonín Pavlíček, Ph.D Prague, August 2021
Declaration
I declare that I am the only author of this master thesis which named “Use of social media by political parties of India in comparison of EU”. I marked out all quotations. The used literature and sources are stated in the attached list of references.
In Prague on ....24/06/2021... Signature
Mohd Danish Ansari
3 Acknowledgement
I hereby wish to express my appreciation and gratitude to the supervisor of my thesis Ing.
PhDr. Antonín Pavlíček, Ph.D for his time, Suggestions, helpful guidance & dedication .
Keywords
Social Media, Loksabhaelection, Narendra Modi, Rahul Gandhi, BJP, Congress, Social networking sites
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Contents
1. INTRODUCTION... - 3 -
1.1METHODOLOGY ...-4-
2. WHAT IS SOCIAL MEDIA? ... - 9 -
2.1.FORMS OF SOCIAL MEDIA ... -13-
3. THE USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA IN SELECTED COUNTRIES: ... - 15 -
3.1.INTERNET ADAPTATION BY THE SELECTED COUNTIES: ... -15-
3.2.TIME SPENT ON THE INTERNET: ... -16-
2.3. AVERAGE MOBILE AND FIXED INTERNET CONNECTION SPEED: ... -16-
3.4SOCIAL MEDIA FOLLOWING IN SELECTED COUNTRIES: ... -18-
3.5TIME SPENT ON SOCIAL MEDIA IN SELECTED COUNTRIES: ... -18-
4. THE ANALYSIS OF COUNTRIES AND POLITICAL PARTIES ... - 20 -
4.1. INDIA ... -20-
4.2.FRANCE ... -29-
4.3GERMANY ... -34-
4.4.ITALY ... -39-
4.5.SPAIN ... -42-
5. GENERAL ELECTION 2019 (LOK SABHA ELECTION 2019) ... - 46 -
5.1. ANALYSIS OF THE TWEETS DURING INDIA’S 2019 GENERAL ELECTION (FEBRUARY 2019 TO MAY 2019):………..-47-
6. “MAIN BHI CHOWKIDAR” MOVEMENT ... - 56 -
6.1. NYAYSCHEME ... -58-
6.2. AWARENESS OF BALAKOT AIR-STRIKE ...-59-
6.3. MAJORITARIANISM ... -61-
6.4. CONFIDENCE IN SOCIAL MEDIA ...-65-
6.5. SOCIAL MEDIA INFLUENCE IN VOTE CHOICE: ...-67-
6.6. THE DECLINE OF INC SOCIAL MEDIA &BJP’S SOCIAL MEDIA ADVANTAGE: ...-72-
6.7. SOCIAL VERSUS TRADITIONAL MEDIA: ...-73-
6.8. IS SOCIAL MEDIA A POLARIZER?: ...-76-
6.9. DOES SOCIAL MEDIA DRIVE PARTICIPATION?: ... -77-
7. CONCLUSION ... - 79 -
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS... - 81 -
LIST OF FIGURES ... - 82 -
LIST OF GRAPHS ... - 83 -
LIST OF TABLES ... - 85 -
LIST OF REFERENCES ... - 87 -
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1. Introduction
In Today’s world, the importance of the internet and social media is increasing day by day. The real ability of social media is it can connect you to your friends, family, and other people within your society as well as all over the world and allow you to share information with them with just one click. The invention of the internet and social media enabled businesses to interact directly with the customer and buyers which make the World feel smaller. There are more than 3.8 Billion social media users all over the world. As per the recent survey, more than 90 percent of people around the world between the age of 16 and 29 is using at least 1 form of social media. Social media is a combination of a variety of tech- assisted activities. Various activities like blogging, vlogging, social gaming (online gaming), photo sharing, social networking sites, video sharing and online reviews, and many more are considered in social media. Nowadays, social networking sites becoming very popular among governments and politicians for engaging with constituents and voters in their constituency. Government and political parties use social networking sites to engage with their fans and followers, do their online campaigning for the election, and also try to influence the general public. For business, Social media make it easier to reach out to their targeted groups and offer them lower cost and other benefits than their competitors. Use of social media give advantage to political parties, businesses as well as each individual as they can share their ideas and express their thoughts, feeling, and talent in front of people from all over the world. Due to the increasing demand for social media now the political parties start taking advantage of this demand try to engage and creating new trends on social networking sites and connect with their fans and followers online. Social media is offering a lot of opportunities in each field of society such as:
• Social media is now being used to alert patients about the wait times, sending update about the patient status, delivering health messages to public, for the recruitment of and communication with staff.
• Social media allow people to break the barriers stay in touch with each other at any part of the world and develop relationship without hesitation.
• Social media is helping student to get notified about their classes, study materials, connecting with their professor, joining online school/universities activities.
• Social media being really helpful in this Coronavirus situation for each individual to get updated about the situation in their country as well as all over the world.
• Best things about social media is it offers everything without any cost to the user.
This thesis focuses on the activities and engagement of political parties on social media platforms. Different approaches and ways of using social platforms by political parties will show us the position of social media and the trust of the public on social media in their countries. As the use of social media is increasing day by day we can easily see that government bodies, political parties and politicians are actively using these platforms. An increasing number of fans and followers on their official political accounts as well as on their official individual account speak the truth that they are trying really well to attract the user of social media towards them in their country.
- 4 - Political parties use social media platforms for:
• To tell the user and general public about the history and ideology of their party
• To share the ideas of their leader about the development of the country.
• To speak with the public and getting know about the problem and need of the public.
• To inform the public about new development in the country.
• To inform the public about the update and regulations in the country.
• To plan and organize the election campaigns, election events and election rallies.
All the above points prove that the ideology behind using social media is the same all over the world but there are still differences between using social media platforms and interacting with the public through posts and tweets. To analyze this difference and the reason behind this difference these following hypotheses arise:
H1: If there is pre-election and the main election term, then the use of social network sites by political parties is increased.
H2: The use of social media during pre-election and the main election period influences the vote choice.
H3: The political parties in Europe and in India do not create strategies on internet use depending on inhabitant time spent on the internet.
1.1 Methodology
The thesis research aims to analyze the difference in how political parties are using the internet and their social media networks, and in how they are dealing with their followers/fans between India and the European countries.
Secondary research, primary research, and deductive thinking used as methodologic tools.
Secondary research helped a lot to complete the theoretical part of the thesis. Primary research used in practical part In order to continue this research, India and Four countries that have the highest population in the EU which are France, Germany, Italy and Spain will be picked and analyzed. These Four countries picked since all these four countries have very close total population.
France: 67,400,000 (One World - Nations Online, 2021), Germany: 84 036 205 (Woldometers, 2021), Italy: 60 371 619 (World Population Review, 2021) and Spain:
47000000 (Expatica, 2021)). Thus, the research is done in almost equal demographic standards.
However, India have biggest population and also known as biggest democracy in the world with the total population of 1,352,642,280.
In the next section of this thesis, Each countries’ government parties and opposition parties have taken into account and analyzed their activities on their social media account like Facebook and Twitter.
Criteria for the analysis are the following:
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• Number of follower/fans of each political party.
• Number of post shared by each political party.
• Response on their political pages.
• Impact of their post on general public
• Reason of using social media by political parties.
• Activity and behavior of political parties on social media
For the analysis from Facebook and Twitter, I consider data from Socialbakers and Open AI to get more insight of the followers and fan from the selected official account of political parties. Chosen accounts are the current ruling party and the main opposition parties of the selected countries along with the chair people of the political parties.
India:
Parties in India (Part I)
Indian National Congress
Samajwadi Party
Aam Aadmi Party
Bharatiya Janata Party
Bahujan Samaj
Party
Founded 1885 1992 2012 1980 1984
Left/Centric/Right Centre Left Centre Right Right
Leader(s) Sonia Gandhi
Akhilesh
Yadav Arvind Kejriwal
Narendra
Modi Mayawati Table 1.1: Parties in India (Part I)
Source: Author
Table 1.2: Parties in India (Part II) Source: Author
Parties in India (Part II)
All India Trinamool
Congress
Communist Party of India
All India Majlis-e-
Ittehadul
Muslimeen Janata Dal Shiv Sena
Founded 1996 1964 1958 1977 1966
Left/Centric/Right Centric Left Right Centric Right
Leader(s)
Mamta Banerjee
Sitaram Yechury
Asaduddin Owaisi
Nitish Kumar
Uddhav Thackeray
- 6 - France:
Parties in Frace
La République En Marche!
Les Républicains
Rassemblement National
La France
Insoumise Parti Socialiste
Founded 2016 1977 1972 2016 1880
Left/Centric/Right Centric Centric Right Left Centre-left
Leader(s)
Emmanuel Macron
Nicolas Sarkozy
Jean, Marine Je Pen
Jean-Luc Mélenchon
François Hollande
Table 1.3: Parties in France Source: Author
Germany:
Table 1.4: Parties in Germany Source: Author
Parties in Germany
Christian Democratic Union
of Germany
Social Democratic
Party of Germany
Alternative for Germany
Free Democratic
Party
Alliance 90/The Greens
Founded 1945 1863 2012 1948 1979
Left/Centric/Right Centre-right Centre-left Right Centric Left
Leader(s)
Armin Laschet MdL
Saskia Esken and
Norbert Walter- Borjans
Jörg Meuthen and Tino Chrupalla
Christian Lindner
Robert Habeck and Michael Kellner
- 7 - Italy:
Parties in Italy Partito Democratico Lega Nord Forza Italia
Fratelli d'Italia
Movimento 5 Stelle
Founded 2007 1991 1994 2012 2009
Left/Centric/Right Centre-left Right
Centre-
right Right Right
Leader(s) Valentina Cuppi Matteo Salvini
Silvio Berlusconi
Giorgia
Meloni Vito Crimi Table 1.5: Parties in Italy
Source: Author
Spain:
Table 1.6: Parties in Spain Source: Author
The data for analysis is gathered from official page of the political parties, Socialbakers and OpenAI platform which are described below:
Socialbakers is a global AI powered social media marketing company which offer a marketing SAAS platform. Social bakers social media platform which used by McDonalds’s L’Oréal and Desigual for their social media marketing on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and some other more. Social bakers is leveraging the biggest social media data set industry by machine learning and providing solutions to brands and ensure their investment in social media is delivering measurable outcomes. Social was established by the name of Facebakers on 13th October, 2008 and renamed the Facebakers to socialbakers in July 2010 to avoid the confusion between Facebook and Facebakers. In September 2020, Socialbakers is acquired by Astute for an undisclosed amount. (bakers, 2020)
Parties in Spain Partido Socialista
Obrero Español Partido Popular Unidas
Podemos Ciudadanos
Esquerra Republicana
de Catalunya
Founded 1879 1989 2016 2006 1931
Left/Centric/Right Left Centre- right Left Centre -
Right Centre - left Leader(s) Cristina Narbona Pablo Casado
Blanco
Pablo Iglesias
Inés Arrimadas
Pere Aragonè
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OpenAI is an Artificial intelligence research laboratory which is announced by Elon Musk, Sam Altman and other investors in October 2015 and pledged over US1$ Billion for this venture and in April 2016 release OpenAI first public Beta of “OpenAI Gym” for reinforcement learning research. In 2019 OpenAI transition from Non-profit to for profit organization and distribute equity to the company employees. In June 2020 OpenAI announced GPT-3(Language model trained on trillions of words available on Internet).
GPT-3 provide more natural language of answering the questions and also translate different and improved text (Editor OpenAI, 2021).
All the gathered data from each account include number of likes and post shared on the social networking sites (SNS). The number of likes, comments and retweet (In case of Twitter) specify the enlighten of the followers devotion to the political party as well as for the chairperson of the political party. The number of posts shows how actively the account is and how often the post is getting shared to interact with the general public. It shows the behavior of political parties and how general public accept them. Result of this analysis help us to understand the behavior of social media use by political parties.
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2. What is Social Media?
Social media are interactive technology that allow the people to share their status, ideas, career interest and much more from the virtual communities and networks. People usually access social media on their Mobiles, Desktops and laptops through the internet. Social media is a big platform as it has Millions of users the reason people use social media because they are allowed to share, discuss, participate and are allowed to media content posted by other which increase the interest of people of using social media. Social is used to explore a lot of interesting things like sharing or watching videos, images, articles and it is also used for promoting business, creating blogs or making friends. (Dollarhide, 2021)
In 2019, Merriam-Webster refers social media as "forms of electronic communication (such as websites for social networking and microblogging) through which users create online groups to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (such as videos)." (Merriam-webster, 2019)
According to Andreas Kaplan, mobile social media applications can be distinguished among four types:
Space-timers (location and time-sensitive): Exchange of messages with significance mostly for one specific location at one specific point in time (e.g. Facebook Places, WhatsApp, Foursquare)
Space-locators (only location sensitive): Exchange of messages with significance for one specific location, which is tagged to a certain place and read later by others (e.g. Yelp, Qype, Tumblr, Fishbrain)
Quick-timers (only time sensitive): Transfer of traditional social media mobile apps to increase proximity (e.g. posting on Twitter or status updates on Facebook)
Slow-timers (neither location nor time sensitive): Transmission of traditional social media applications to mobile devices (e.g. watch over a YouTube video or read out a Wikipedia article)
Social media platforms have the potential for content posted their to spread it virally on social media platforms. This term is similar to the viral infections which spread Individual to Individual because on social media a viral content is which is shared from one individual to another and then they reshare it and the cycle repeats. There is another term called Viral Marketing nowadays business uses it a lot because form social media platforms they can achieve widespread advertising coverage. There are lot of platforms of social media like Facebook, Tweeter, Instagram. Instagram is one of the most famous platform as it is the popular way to connect with celebrities leaders, friends , family. On January 2020 on Instagram there are around 1 Billion active users, but still Instagram is behind Facebook because Facebook still have 2.8 Billion User Instagram is ahead of most of the other famous social media platforms because Twitter have 353 Million users and Pinterest have 456
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Million user. On Instagram 500 Million users uploading and checking other stories that’s why Instagram Ads are more expensive than Facebook.
According to a research in the starting of 2021 (KEMP, 2021), there are 4.33 Billion user of social media around the world which is equating to more than 55% of the total population.
These data suggest that more than 9 in 10 internet users now use social media each month.
In the last 12 months 521 million user joined social media in the year to April 2021. That equates to annualized growth of 13.7 percent, or an average 16½ new users every single second. It’s also worth nothing if we compare it is compared to the total population because most the social media platforms restrict use of their platforms to people aged 13 and above.
Figure 2.1.: Use of social Network and Messenger around the World Available at: https://wearesocial.com/blog/2021/04/60-percent-of-the-worlds-
population-is-now-online (Accessed: 11 June 2021)
Facebook still remains the world’s widely used platform. There are six other platforms which claim that each of them have more than 1 Billion active users.
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Graph 2.1: Favorite social media platform Source: Author
According to the GWI new section in the survey about the favorites social media platform among users from the age group of 16 to 64. But they didn’t include China in this survey as the users in China are unable to access the same social media platforms as the rest of the world.
As per the survey conducted 24.1% of internet users' favorite social media platform is WhatsApp. Facebook is on second as almost 22% and Instagram ranked third with 18.4%
by the respondent from the survey. Twitter rank fourth as only 5% of the respondent choose this option.
As previous section showed that the WhatsApp is the world’s favourite social media platform but still Facebook have the world’s largest active user almost 2,800 million.
Youtube is on second with almost 2300 million users and Whatapp is on Third with 2000 million users.
Latest data shows that the Facebook attracted 57 million user in just last three month from the survey.
According to widely available data up to 17 April January 2021, at least 17 social media platforms have 300 million or more monthly active users*:
0.00%
5.00%
10.00%
15.00%
20.00%
25.00%
Whatsapp Facebook Instagram Twitter FB
Messenger Tiktok Snapchat Whatsapp Facebook Instagram Twitter FB Messenger Tiktok Snapchat
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Graph 2.2: Active Users of Social Media Platforms (in millions) Source: Author
1. Facebook has 2.797 billion monthly active users.
2. YouTube’s potential advertising reach is 2.291 billion.
3. WhatsApp has around 2 billion monthly active users.
4. Facebook Messenger has around 1.3 billion monthly active users.
5. Instagram’s potential advertising reach is 1.287 billion.
6. WeChat (inc. Weixin 微信) has 1.225 billion monthly active users.
7. TikTok has 732 million monthly active users.
8. Douyin (抖音) has 600 million daily active users (note: monthly active users may be higher).
9. QQ (腾讯QQ) has 595 million monthly active users.
10. Telegram has 550 million monthly active users.
11. Snapchat’s potential advertising reach is 528 million.
12. Sina Weibo has 521 million monthly active users.
13. Kuaishou (快手) has 481 million monthly active users.
14. Pinterest has 459 million monthly active users.
15. Reddit has around 430 million monthly active users.
16. Twitter’s potential advertising reach is roughly 396 million.
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000
Facebook Youtube Whatsapp FB Messenger Instagram
Tiktok Telegram Snapchat Twitter Quora
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17. Quora has around 300 million monthly active users.
Graph 2.3: Global active User
Available at: https://wearesocial.com/blog/2021/04/60-percent-of-the-worlds-population- is-now-online (Accessed: 11 June 2021)
2.1. Forms of Social Media
There are many different forms of social media. According to (Mayfield, 2008), there are six
primary forms. He considers blogs and microblogging as the same concept.
1) Social Networks: Networks that people can create personal accounts and pages in it to share and to communicate with friends, followers and fans through these accounts and pages. The biggest social networks are Facebook, Whatsapp and Instagram.
2) Blogs & Vlogs: Blogs are online journals while Vlogs are online Video journals. Blogs are also called digital diaries.
3) Wikis: These are the online encyclopedias that act as a online shared information resource.
Users can add or edit the information on these platform. The most popular one is Wikipedia.
4) Podcasts: It is a service that audio and video files are available in it by subscription sometime free as well as paid; such as iTunes, Youtube and Spotify.
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5) Online Forums: Online Forums allow people to discuss online on a specific topic or topics with online shared link. Forums were invented before the social media appeared.
6) Content communities: Communities that share particular contents in the form of visual.
The most popular content communities focus on photos is Flickr and on videos -Youtube.
7) Microblogging: It is a blogging style created by the combination of a rapid messaging system and the traditional blog concept. In microblogging small updates are shared online with the followers and Fans. The most famous example is Twitter.
In addition to these forms,
8) Interpersonal Communication Sites: WhatsApp, Skype, Facebook Messenger 9) Gaming Applications: Steam, Origin
10) Professional Networks: LinkedIn, Xing
11) Commercial community sites: eBay, Amazon
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3. The Use of Social Media in Selected Countries:
In this part of analysis we will focus on the statistical data of the use of social media in the selected countries for this thesis. This analysis will also show us how much social media is popular in these countries within public and also in political parties. Following factors will be consider for this analysis:
• Internet Adaptation by the selected counties.
• Time spent on the internet.
• Average Mobile connection and fixed internet connection speed.
• Social media following in selected countries
• Time spent on social media in selected countries.
3.1. Internet Adaptation by the selected counties:
Graph 3.1: Internet Adaptation by the selected counties Source: author
Graph 3.1 above shows that the all the four European countries are above than the worldwide adaptation of Internet. 94% of German population,91% of France and Spain population and almost 84% of Italy population are using Internet daily. However, India is still lower than the worldwide average with 45% population use Internet daily. (KEMP, 2021)
0.00%
10.00%
20.00%
30.00%
40.00%
50.00%
60.00%
70.00%
80.00%
90.00%
100.00% 94.00% 91.00% 91.00%
83.70%
45.00%
59.50%
Germany France Spain Italy India Worldwide
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3.2.Time spent on the internet:
Below table shows the time spent on internet in the selected countries (Via Mobile and Computer). German people connect to the internet via their laptops/PCs mostly with an average of 03:13 hours connection time and via mobile devices are much less with 02:14.
Total time spent on the internet daily by German people is 05:27 hours. In France connection time via laptops/PCs is 03:20 and connection time via mobile devices is 02:17. Total time spent on the internet daily by French people is 05:37 hours. In Spain connection time via laptops/PCs is 03:23 and connection time via mobile devices is 02:48. Total time spent on the internet daily by Spanish people is 06:11 hours. In Italy connection time via Mobile is 02:58 and connection time via Computer is 03:24. Total time spent on the internet daily by Italian people is 06:22 hours Last, in India connection time via laptops/PC’s is 02:51, connection time via mobile devices is 03:45. Total time spent on the internet daily by Indian people is 06:36 hours. Daily internet usage of Indian people is almost 1 hours more than the daily usage of Germans and French and less than 30 minutes from Spanish and Italians.
(KEMP, 2021)
Graph 3.2: Time spent on the internet Source: Author
2.3. Average Mobile and Fixed Internet Connection speed:
Graph 3.4 and 3.5 show the average internet speed on mobile as well as fixed internet in the selected countries and also the global average speed of internet in MBPS. Germany is on top with highest mobile connection speed (60.96) and (113.19) in fixed internet connection which is slightly slower from France (178.87).
However, France is slower than Germany mobile internet speed as the average speed of mobile in France is (56.44). Spain is having (48.86) in mobile connection and
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(169) in fixed internet connection. Italy has slightly (40.83) in mobile and (76.71) in fixed connection which is less internet speed that the global average (42.7) in Mobile connection and (96.43) in fixed connection. India is way low than all the selected countries as well as from global average with (12.91) in mobile connection and (53.9) in fixed internet connection. (KEMP, 2021)
Graph 3.4.: Average Mobile connection speed (MBPS) Source: Author
Graph 3.5: Fixed internet connection speed Source: author
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
70 60.96
56.44
48.86
40.83
12.91
42.7
Germany France Spain Italy India Worldwide
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180
Germany France Spain Italy India Worldwide 113.19
178.87
169
76.71
53.9
96.43
Germany France Spain Italy India Worldwide
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3.4 Social media following in selected countries:
Graph 3.6: Social media following in selected countries Source: Author
Graph 3.6 above shows that All selected European countries are above the global average (53.60%). And India is still way behind from European countries as well from the global average.
Germany which has the most internet adaptation by population percentage has slightly lower social media following (78.70%) than Spain. Spain has the similar internet adaptation by population percentage with France, but in social media following it is on the top (80.00%) and France has (75.90%) Italy and India has lowest internet adaptation and social media following (67.90%) and (32.30%) respectively among all on the selected countries. (KEMP, 2021)
3.5 Time spent on social media in selected countries:
Indian people likely use social media more in their daily activities than all the selected European countries as it is shown in Graph 3.7. One reason for that could be that the Indian people trust all type of media in India but still spend too much time to investigate the things on social media Thus, they use social media, which Indian people find more trustworthy. (KEMP, 2021)
0.00%
10.00%
20.00%
30.00%
40.00%
50.00%
60.00%
70.00%
80.00%
78.70% 75.90% 80.00%
67.90%
32.30%
53.60%
Germany France Spain Italy India Worldwide
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Graph 3.7: Time spent on social media in selected countries (HH:MM) Source: Author
00:00 00:28 00:57 01:26 01:55 02:24 02:52
Germany France Spain Italy India Worldwide 01:24
01:41 01:54 01:52
02:25 02:25
Germany France Spain Italy India Worldwide
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4. The Analysis of Countries and Political Parties
In this part, the analysis will focus on the aspects of each selected country. These aspects include the overview of selected countries by means of the population, GDP, economic status and how do people perceive social media. Also, government parties and main opposition parties of each selected country are also analyzed. While analyzing the political parties, their activity on selected social media tools, namely Facebook and Twitter, the total number of followers, the total number of likes on the official page, the total number of tweets shared, an overview of the party and its ideology are considered.
4.1. India
The population of India is 1,352,642,280. The Capital of India is New Delhi. The Economy of India in 2019 was nominally worth $2.9 trillion, Which is the fifth-largest economy by market exchange rates and is around $11 trillion and third largest by purchasing power parity, or PPP. With an average annual GDP growth rate of 5.8% over the past decades and reaching 6.1% during 2011–2012. India is one of the world's fastest-growing economies.
The current unemployment rate of India is 5.4% of the whole population. The politics in India work under the framework of constitutions of India. India is a secular democratic country where the head of state is President of India is and head of the government is the Prime Minister of India (Wiki). As per Graph 4.1 GDP growth in India between 2021 and 2022 should decrease by 5.62 %.
In 2020, India had almost 700 million internet users over the nation. This figure was extended to develop to more than 974 million clients by 2025, demonstrating a major market potential in internet providers for the south Asian nation. India was positioned as the second biggest online market worldwide in 2019, coming next just to China. The quantity of web clients was assessed to increment in both metropolitan just as country districts, showing a powerful development in admittance to web. In 20202, 50% of the India population is using internet which is increase 42.5% in last 10 year as the user of internet in India was only 7.5%
in the year of 2010. (Keelary, 2020)
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Graph 4.1: GDP growth rate from 2016 forecasted to 2026 in India
Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/263617/gross-domestic-product-gdp- growth-rate-in-india/ (Accessed: 19 June 2021)
Graph 4.2: Internet penetration rate in India
Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/792074/india-internet-penetration-rate/
(Accessed: 20 June 2020)
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The use of social media also rapidly increasing in India from 202 million in 2017 to 290 million in 2019. The most popular social media platform in India is Facebook with 75.27% of the internet users. WhatsApp is following with 34%, YouTube with 10.05%, Instagram with 4.07% and Twitter with 2.61%. These numbers are the evidence that the social media is playing a vital role in daily life of the users as people are more engaging on the social media rather than traditional media in the country. Many Indian people track daily news from social media, mostly from Facebook. This decreasing trust was a result of government's banning actions and censorship activities on traditional media channels.
People also start believing the Fake news trending on the social media without having any investigating about that news which also shows that the social media is more powerful influencer than a traditional media (Anon., 2020).
Analysis of Political parties of India:
1. Indian National Congress: Indian National Congress (INC) also called at congress party in India was founded on 28th December 1885, it was the first nationalist party emerges in the British empire of Asia. In 1920, when Congress party came under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi, Congress party became the main leader of Indian independence movement to get the independence from Britain Empire in India, Also it influence Anti colonial movements against the British empire rule. (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica)
After India independence from British Empire in 1947, Congress formed union government of India and many state legislatures of India. Congress turned into India's dominant political party. In the year 2019, Congress won 17 election since independence, and has driven the decision alliance a multiple time, heading the India’s central government for over 54 years.
From 2004 to 2014 Indian national congress been in central government which is led by Dr. Manmohan Singh as the prime minister of India. Currently, Sonia Gandhi is the president of the Indian national congress. She took over the party in 1998 as a leader after the brutal assassination of her husband Rajiv Gandhi, former prime minister of India and she remained in office for 22 years.
Congress is one of the two major political party of India, the main principle of Indian National congress is social, justice, welfare state, equality and secularism in the entire country.
Indian National Congress (INC) official account on Facebook
@IndianNationalCongress has 5,892,962 follower and 5,642,116 likes. Sonia Gandhi did not have any official facebook account. However, her sons Rahul Gandhi
@rahulgandhi have 4,155,978 follower and 3,641,750 likes and daughter Priyanka Gandhi Vadra @priyankagandhivadra have 4,300,446 followers and 4,220,788 likes on their Facebook official account.
On Twitter Indian National Congress (INC) have two official account @INCIndia and @INCIndiaLive. Congress @INCIndia shared 782,000 tweets and currently having 7.3 Million followers and Congress Live @INCIndiaLive shared 102,000 tweets so far and having 234,900 followers on this account. President of INC Sonia Gandhi does not
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have twitter account as well but her son Rahul Gandhi @RahulGandhi have twitter account with 16.7 Million followers and shared 5048 tweets so far and Sonia Gandhi Daugther Priyanka Gandhi Vadra @priyankagandhi General Secretary, Indian National Congress have 3 Million followers and shared 1107 tweets. Sonia Gandhi told media that she did not want to join any social media platforms as she is already connected to her followers and general public through Congress official accounts on Facebook and Twitter.
2. Samajwadi Party (Socialist Party): Samajwadi Party (SP) was founded on 4 October 1992 by Mulayam Singh Yadav is a political party in India headquartered in New Delhi.
It is mainly based in the state of Uttar Pradesh of India. Samajwadi party formed only months before the Babri Masjid demolition (also known as Babri mosque Demolition), Samajwadi party is said to assume a critical function in forestalling viciousness inside the state following the event. Samajwadi Party is currently led by previous Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Akhilesh Yadav after he was picked the President by the National Convention held on 1 January 2017. (Routray)
The main principle of Samajwadi party is Social democracy and Left-wing populism.
Samajwadi party (SP) official account on Facebook @ samajwadiparty has 2,798,711 followers and 2,714,178 likes. Current president of Samajwadi party Akhilesh Yadav
@yadavakhilesh have 7,062,437 followers and 7,000,249 likes on his official Facebook page.
On Twitter Samajwadi party official account @samajwadiparty have 2.3 Million followers and shared 9,911 tweets. Founder of Samajwadi party Mulayam singh Yadav didn’t have any twitter handle but his son Akhilesh Yadav on twitter official account
@yadavakhilesh have 13 Million followers and shared 3,402 tweets.
3. Aam Aadmi Party (Common Man’s Party): Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is formally formed on 26th November 2012, and currently is power as a state government ruling the National Capital Territory of Delhi. Aam Aadmi Party came into the existence during the protest of India against corruption with a demand of Jan Lokpal bill (Citizen’s Ombudsman bill) in the year of 2011 against the central government of Indian national congress. (Editor of AAP)
The party made its appointive introduction in the 2013 Delhi Legislative Assembly political elections, as the second-biggest party, winning 28 of the 70 seats. With no party getting a majority in the elections, the AAP framed a minority government with restrictive help from the Indian National Congress. A huge piece of its plan was to rapidly present the Jan Lokpal bill in the National Capital Territory of Delhi. At the point when it turned out to be clear after the elections that the other political parties would not uphold this bill, the AAP government surrendered. It had been in power for 49 days.
In the 2015 Legislative Assembly political election of National capital of Delhi territory, AAP won 67 of the 70 seats, defeating two public major political parties of India, the Bharatiya Janata Party won 3 seats, while the Indian National Congress did not win any seats. In the 2020 Delhi Legislative Assembly election, the Aam Aadmi
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Party again won 62 out of the 70 seats lesser than the previous elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party won 8 more than previous elections, while the Indian National Congress didn't win any seats in this election once again.
The main principle of Aam Aadmi Party is Anti-corruption,Participatory democracy, Populism, Civic nationalism in the country.
Aam Aadmi Party official Facebook account @AamAadmiParty has 4,734,320 followers and 4,213,895 likes and the Leader of AAP Arvind Kejriwal
@AAPkaArvind have 8,664,813 followers and 8,159,406 likes on his Official Facebook page.
On Twitter Aam Aadmi party official account @AamAadmiParty have 5.4 Million followers and shared 115,100 tweets. On Arvind Kejriwal Official Twitter account
@ArvindKejriwal have 20.9 Million followers and shared 30,400 tweets. Arvind Kejriwal also handle chief minister of Delhi Twitter handle @CMODelhi with 572,700 follower and only 605 tweets shared.
4. Bharatiya Janata Party (Indian People's Party): Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is one most the major political party of India founded on 6 April 1980 by 2 politicians of India Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L. K. Advani. BJP founded with the Alliance of Hindu nationalist volunteer organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), and still regarded as the political arm of the RSS who aims the protection of India's "Hindus"
cultural identity in India . (The Editors Britannica )In 1998 under former Prime Minister of India Atal Bihari Vajpayee formed NDA (National Democratic Alliance) government, lead Vajpayee, lasted for a full term in office, this was the first non-Congress government in India. In 2004 NDA suffered defeat from Indian National Congress, and for the next ten years till 2014 BJP sit in the opposition until Long time Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi led BJP to a landslide victory in the 2014 general election. Bhartiya Janta party is currently ruling party of republic of India since 2014 under the leadership of Prime minister Narender Modi. BJP is country's largest political party of representation in the national parliament and state assemblies and world's largest party in terms of primary membership. Now the NDA is led by Prime minister Modi and have alliance governs 18 states in India. In 2019 BJP won General elections with majority. Soon to the victory Modi revoked the special status granted under Article 370 of the constitution of India from Jammu & Kashmir(which has been the subject of dispute among 3 countries like India, Pakistan, and China after the independence of India in 1947).
Later in 2019, Government led by prime minister Modi introduced the “Citizenship Amendment Act”. This act amended the citizenship act 1955 by enabling a path of getting Indian citizenship for the illegal immigration of Various religions like Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi, and Christian religious minorities fled persecution from the Muslim majority countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan before December 2014. Muslims from these countries were not got this eligibility as the mentioned countries have Muslims majority. This is the first time in the Republic of India law to use religion as a criterion for citizenship.
The main principle of the BJP party is Integral humanism, Hindutva, Neoliberalism, Conservatism, Social conservatism and Right-wing populism.
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Bharatiya Janata Party official Facebook account @BJP4India has 16,635,277 followers and 15,983,994 likes and the prime minister of India and BJP parliamentary president Narendra Modi @narendramodi have 46,381,157 followers and 45,920,318 likes on his Official Facebook page.
On Twitter Bhartiya Janata party official account have 14.9 million followers and shared 208,600 tweets. However, BJP also have different tweeter handle for each state BJP Uttar Pradesh @BJP4UP with 1.9 Million followers and 53,800 tweets, BJP Delhi
@BJP4Delhi with 798,500 followers and 59,800 tweets, भाजपा महाराष्ट्र
@BJP4Maharashtra with 310,000 followers and 58,100 tweets and many more.
Narendra Modi handle two Twitter account @narendramodi with 63.7 Million followers and 28,300 tweets and Prime Minister Of India @PMOIndia with 39.7 million followers and 27,800 tweets.
5. Bahujan Samaj Party (people in majority): Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is domestic level political party in India which is formed to represent the issues and distress of minorities of SC and ST (scheduled castes & tribes) and other religious minorities.
(D'Souza) Bahujan Samaj party was founded on 14th April 1984 which is the birth anniversary of B. R. Ambedkar (Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar) by Kanshi Ram who was Indian politician and social reformer too. The first notable political success for BSP was in 1993, when BSP made a union with Samajwadi Party to form the governance of Uttar Pradesh. In 1995 BSP left the alliance with Samajwadi Party and President of BSP Mayawati get brace from Bhartiya Janta Party and she became Chief Minister (Government Head) of the state of Uttar Pradesh. In 2007 BSP win the Uttar Pradesh parliamentary election with 206 seats out of 403 seats, This victory of Bahujan Samaj party is accredited to the shift of party ideology from lower caste hindus to the all communities which also include hindu’s from higher caste because in 2004 Mayawati appoint a high caste Brahmin Hindu lawyer Satish Chandra Mishra. Bahujan samaj party completed their full five-year term under the supervision of Mayawati as a Chief minister of Uttar Pradesh.
Bahujan samaj party administration is commonly known for corruption, self- dramatizing (which include the establishment of Mayawati and BSP logo figures in the different part of Uttar Pradesh) and many money scandals. All these factors are responsible for the defeat of BSP in 2012 Uttar Pradesh state assembly elections. In this election BSP only manage to win 80 seats and asked Mayawati to leave office. BSP also have a force in national politics with a small number of member in Lok Sabha (lower chamber of the Indian parliament) and Rajya Sabha (upper chamber) however in 2014 Lok Sabha General election BSP failed to win even a single seat.
Bahujan Samaj party official Facebook account @bsp4up has 90,432 followers and 85,854 likes and on twitter official account BSP @Bahujan4India have 60,800 followers and shared followers and shared 41,800 tweets. However, BSP president Mayawati did not have any Facebook page but on twitter she has 1.5 million follower and 822 tweets.
6. All India Trinamool Congress (All India Grassroots Congress): All India trinamool Congress was founded on 1st January 1996 by Mamta Banerjee. (Editor of AIT)She has
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been member of Indian National congress for almost 26 years. She formed her own party for the state of west Bengal and the election commission of India allotted her “Jora Ghas Phul” (Grass and flower) as their party Symbol. Just after the formation of the party AITC won seven seats in 1998 loksabha election. In the year 1999 AITC won 8 seats but the year 2001 was good for AITC as they won 60 seats with the support of INC. In the next two election AITC won 30 and 19 seats in 2006 and 2009 respectively. Mamta Banerjee became very popular in west Bengal in 2011 elections with her AITC party slogan 'Ma Mati Manush’ (Mother, Motherland and People). In 2011 people give votes due to have political change in 34 years long rule of the left regime in west Bengal as AITC and Congress union possible this change in the state of West Bengal. However in the year 2012, Mamta Banerjee stop giving her support to INC and UPA(United Progressive Alliance) due to the hike in the diesel price and brining FDI (foreign direct investment) in Indian market.
Assembly election of 2016 in west Bengal was historic and gave AITC a massive direction for the second time. AITC won 211 seats out of 294 seats in that election. In the same year AITC become a national party after expanding their political coverage in the state of Odisha, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, Kerala, Haryana, Sikkim, Tripura and Assam. In the Loksabha election of 2014 AITC secured 34 seats out of 42 seats in their home state but due to having major impact of social media in the audience BJP won in West Bengal and AITC secured only 22 seats in 2019 Loksabha Election.
All India trinamool Congress official Facebook account @AITCofficial has 1,163,086 followers and 1,113,804 likes and Mamta Banerjee official Facebook Account has 4,103,336 Followers and 3,602,305 Likes.
On Twitter All India trinamool Congress @AITCofficial have 323,300 followers and shared 70,300 Tweets and On Mamta Banerjee official Twitter account
@MamataOfficial have 4.9 Million follower and she shared 7328 Tweets.
7. Communist Party of India (Marxist): The CPI(M) was formed in Calcutta from October 31 to November 7, 1964. (Routray)The CPI(M) was formed in the battle against revisionism and sectarianism in the socialist development at the global and public level, to safeguard the logical and progressive fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism and its proper application in the solid Indian conditions. The CPI(M) consolidates the fine legacy of the counter settler battle and the progressive tradition of the unified Communist Party which was established in 1920. After some years, the Party has arisen as the premier Left power in the nation. The CPI(M) has developed consistently since1964. The Member of the Party, which was 118,683 at the hour of its arrangement, has developed to 10,00,520 out of 2018. The Party has tried to freely apply Marxism-Leninism to Indian conditions and to work out the methodology and strategies for a people's vote-based unrest, which can change the lives of the Indian public.
The CPI(M) is occupied with achieving this fundamental change via completing a program to end settler, large middle class and landowner abuse. The CPI(M) as the main Left party is resolved to manufacture a Left and majority rule front which can introduce a genuine option in contrast to the current middle-class proprietor arrangements. In the last couple of races, the CPI(M) has been challenging on a normal 15 percent of the
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complete seats. (India follows the "first past the post" framework and not corresponding portrayal) In the 2019 decisions to the Lok Sabha (lower place of the Indian Parliament) the CPI(M) won 3 seats. The Lower House of Parliament has a quality of 543. In the Rajya Sabha (Upper House) the CPI(M) has 5 individuals. The CPI(M) is at present heading one state government – Kerala. In Kerala, the Left Democratic Front headed by the CPI(M) was chosen for office after the election of 2016. The Left Front government headed by the CPI(M) was repeatedly in power in West Bengal since 1977 up to May 2011.The Left Front headed by CPI(M) was going government in Tripura till 2018.The CPI(M) has accompanying Legislative congregations in the conditions of Kerala, West Bengal, Tripura, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Odisha and Maharashtra.
Communist Party of India (Marxist) official Facebook account @cpimcc has 491,371 followers and 471,328 likes and CPI (M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury
@ComradeSRY on official Facebook Account has 256,696Followers and 250,513 Likes.
On Twitter Communist Party of India (Marxist) @cpimspeak have 355,600 followers and shared 19,800 Tweets and On Sitaram Yechury official Twitter account
@SitaramYechury have 982,800 follower and shared 7980 Tweets.
8. All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (All India Council for Unity of Muslims):
All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) is a regional political party in India which was founded on 2nd March 1958 by Moulana Mohammed Abdul Wahed Owaisi.
(Editor of Aimim) Current President of AIMIM is Asaduddin Owaisi. Since 1984 AIMIM held Lok Sabha seat for the Hyderabad State constituency and in the election of 2014 AIMIM won 7 seats and get recognition as state party by the Election Commission of India. AIMIM is the only party in India who represent Muslims of Hyderabad, Telangana and India. In the year 2020 AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi led a protest against the CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act) and NRC (National Register of India) which is introduced by BJP.
All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) official Facebook account @ PartyAIMIM has 531,045 likes and 893,629 followers and chairperson Asaduddin Owaisi facebook handle @Asaduddinowaisiofficial has 31,73,563 likes and 35,42,640 followers.
On Twitter All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen @aimim_national have 661.5K Followers and shared 10.3K Tweets and Chairperson Asaduddin Owaisi @asadowaisi have 1.9M Followers and shared 31.5K Tweets.
9. Janata Dal (United) - Janata Dal (United), JD(U) English People’s Party (United), state political party in Bihar and Jharkhand states, eastern India. (D'Souza) It also has had a existence in national politics and in the central government in New Delhi. The party’s foundation can be traced to the founding of the Janata (People’s) Party in 1977, an alliance of several smaller parties that combined forces to oppose the Indian National Congress (INC) and its leader, Indira Gandhi, then prime minister of India. In 1988 V.P.
Singh was a principal founder of the Janata Dal (JD) through the union of the Janata Party and two smaller parties as part of the United Front (UF), a revived opposition to
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the Congress Party. By 1994 two leading party members, the socialist leaders George Fernandes and Nitish Kumar, had separated from the JD and formed the Samata (Equality) Party. Another division of the JD occurred in 1997 when Lalu Prasad Yadav singled out his followers and formed the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD; National People’s Party), which then became a powerful force in Bihar state politics.
Janata Dal United official Facebook account @ janatadalunited.in has 117,646 likes and 118,532 followers and chairperson Nitish Kumar official facebook handle
@NitishKumarJDU has 16,63,391 likes and 17,29,750 followers.
On Twitter Janata Dal (United) @Jduonline have 82.4K Followers and shared 9,446 Tweets and Chairperson Nitish Kumar @NitishKumar have 6.6M Followers and shared 4360 Tweets so far.
10. Shiv Sena - Shiv Sena (Army of Shivaji, an ancient fighter belonging to the region of Maharashtra, India) was formed in 1966 by Bal Thackeray, in Mumbai, India. (Editor of Encyclopedia)The members and followers are allegedly considered as Hindu extremists.
Shiv Sena was formed to protect the interest of the youths of Maharashtra. When Mumbai, the capital city of Maharashtra, was getting crowded, especially because of ethnic immigrants moving into the city. The primary focus of the Shiv Sena was allegedly to motivate the Marathi (people of Maharashtra) youths to drive out non- Marathis from their city and state. This campaign was especially targeted towards the South Indians, Gujaratis (people from Indian state of Gujarat), and Muslims from Mumbai. In 1995, the state government of Maharashtra that was led by the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance proposed renaming the city of Bombay as Mumbai, as they claimed that the name Bombay was a "corruption" of the original name. In its campaign against non- Marathis and Muslims, changing the official name of the city of Bombay allegedly was the next step in asserting that the Shiv Sena was firm in its resolve.
Shiv Sena official Facebook account @Shivsena has 663,156 likes and 748,141 followers and President Uddhav Thackeray official Facebook handle @uddhavthackeray has 285,908 likes and 309,870 followers.
On Twitter ShivSena @ ShivSena have 606.5K Followers and shared 5,963 Tweets and President Uddhav Thackeray @OfficeofUT have 1.1M Followers and shared 1764 Tweets.
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Table 4.1: Comparison of political parties in India (Part 1) Source: Author
Political Parties II.
All India Trinamool
Congress
Communist Party of India
All India Majlis-e- Ittehadul Muslimeen
Janata
Dal Shiv Sena Facebook: Followers 1 163 086 491 371 893 629 118 532 748 141
Twitter: Followers 323 300 355 600 661 500 82 400 606 500 Facebook: Likes 1 113 834 471 328 531 045 117 646 663 156
Twitter: Tweets 70 300 19 800 10 300 9 446 5 963
Table 4.2: Comparison of political parties in India (Part 2) Source: Author
From the table 4.1 & 4.2 we can see that Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) having high number of followers and post/tweets on Facebook as well as on twitter. Indian national congress in on second which is almost 2 times less followers and posts from BJP. Aam aadmi party (AAP) is on third however, being a new political party which started in 2012, AAP is still doing good and attracting supporter on their social media platforms.
4.2. France
In the year 2021 French population was recorded as 67,4 million people. The official name is (French Republic) République Française (One World - Nations Online, 2021).
France is located mostly in Western Europe (UNGEGN World Geographical Names,2021).
Mostly, because it is composed of metropolitan France and "Overseas France" which persist from the French colonial empire in areas as the Atlantic Ocean, several peri-Antarctic islands, Pacific Ocean, French Guiana on the South American continent, Indian Ocean, several peri-Antarctic islands, and additionally, declares Antarctica (Wikipedia, 2021). The Political Parties I
Indian National Congress
Samajwadi Party
Aam Aadmi Party
Bharatiya Janata Party
Bahujan Samaj Party Facebook: Followers 5 892 962 2 798 711 4 734 320 16 635 277 90 432
Twitter: Followers 7 300 000 2 300 000 5 400 000 14 900 000 60 800 Facebook: Likes 5 642 116 2 714 178 4 213 895 15 983 994 85 854 Twitter: Tweets 78 200 9 911 115 100 208 600 41 800
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capital city is Paris, with 2,2 million inhabitants it is the most populated district in France (Le Grand Paris, 2021), where Emmanuel Macron has located a residence as well.
Since 1958 is established presidential democracy. The change of currency came in January 1999, when France has accepted the euro (One World - Nations Online, 2021).
Inflation is 1.3% while unemployment is 8.4% (The Heritage Foundation, 2021). France is in the regional rankings on 34th place out of 178 compared countries in economic freedom (The Heritage Foundation, 2021). However, in 2020 GDP has decreased by 8,23% in constant euros, after having + 1,49% in 2019 and + 1,87% in 2018. The biggest impact on GDP has the World health crisis known as Covid-19. On the other hand, life savings in 2020 has reached exceptional results since households' income has increased by + 1,0% and consumption declined by -6,5%.
Graph 4.3: GDP growth rate from 2016 forecasted to 2026 in France Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/263604/gross-domestic-product-gdp-
growth-rate-in-france/ (Accessed: 19 June 2021)
In January 2021 were reported 59,47 million internet users in France. Between 2020 and 2021 this number has grown by 1.4 million (+2.5%) and internet penetration stood at 91.0%. In the case of social media, 49,60 million users were reported in January 2021, where +13% growth has been noted between 2020 and 2021. Nowadays, 75,9% of the population in France uses social media (Datareportal, 2021). In the Graph 4.1. below is shown the highest amount of users in May 2021 had Facebook, the second was Pinterest, and third was the Twitter.
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Figure 4.1: Social Media Statistics in France for May 2020 – May 2021
Available at: https://gs.statcounter.com/social-media-stats/all/france (Accessed: 05 June 2021)
Analysis of Political parties of France:
1. La République En Marche! (“The Republic Onwards”): The “En Marche” (In movement) in the beginning was a political “movement” rather than the political party. This has allowed members of other parties as Modem (Mouvement Démocratique), Socialist, Green, even from the Republican one to show support and remain in their parties without any changes (About France, 2020). This caused that the party is not either left or right side but is considered in the center-ground. It has been backed by hundreds of thousands of people around all of France due to the disappointment of the politicians and the political situation in those times (About France, 2020). The political party was founded by Emmanuel Macron (above mentioned today’s president of France) in April 2016. It is a centrist and liberal party that won most of the seats in the National Assembly, exactly 350 out of 577 seats. La République En Marche has won elections in a flash. It took 31 days due to the idea they have propagated and the media they have used (Nation Builder, 2020).
The party on its official Facebook account named @EnMarche holds 248 970 followers and 234 413 who like the page (Facebook, 2021). The president and founder of the party have an official profile @EmmanuelMacron with 4 087 100 followers and 3 598 004 liking the page (Facebook, 2021).
On Twitter, their side @enmarchefr contains 283 770 followers and has shared 13 500 Tweets (Twitter, 2021). Emmanuel Macron on his official side @EmmanuelMacron has 7 020 113 followers and shared 10 200 Tweets (Twitter, 2021).
