Impact of Social Media on the coming General Election in pakistan

[Sociologist PU]

Dear members, the stage is set for general elections in Pakistan. what do you think the impact of Social Media, especially the Face Book will have on the result of these elections ? The question arises in my mind when i see a large number of Pakistanis now interacting daily and regularly on face book and discussing political issues.

It is also being said that face book is responsible for bringing change in many countries in recent past and this time it is the turn of Pakistan to see the change through the face book+election within a few months.

[Call for Change]

In my opinion Face Book's impact on coming elections would be minor. Reasons are as follows:

1-Large chunk of Pakistani population lives in rural areas and the votes are given on the basis or "Baradri system" .

2- Most of the people are uneducated and poor and they do not have access to the face book.

3-apparently the sign of change is "Imran Khan". So, what I have observed from the face book pages of Imran's supporters is that they are too emotional and irrational. Instead of talking about issues they are playing the blame game. They are unable to sell their ideas on facebook.

4- Other veteran parties like PML-N or PPP are equally active on face-book and other social networking sites. So, all of these parties have their supporters to combat the opponents.

5- The electoral system and the cast system in Pakistan is very strong and I don't think coming elections are going to make a big difference. You can have an idea of future from yesterday's by-elections.

[adeel abdullah]

yes off course,i do not expect any big change in the upcoming elections. as there are only two main political parties ,the ppp and pml(n), and either one of them will forma coalition government.as for as the social media is concerned,it can not play any effective role to educate the people about the importance of the up commng elections. the people use the Facebook and other means just to preach their own ideology about things and the above mentioned reasons are also enough to confirm the silent role of social media in the upcoming elections.

[Sociologist PU]

@ call for change

may i update u on the composition of pakistani population on urban/rural basis that the proporation is almost 50/50 now and even the vast rural area has access to internet. I see youth from villages interacting on fb regularly.
Literacy rate is also not that bad as it was a decade ago. Every semi-literate or even illeterate is using a cell phone.
The conditions are much different then the previous elections and i think may be change is in offing !

Lets see

[HASEEB ANSARI]

Impact of social media on the upcoming general elections will be immense. The Pakistani youths are connected every time only because of social media. They asses, criticise and evaluate things through it, besides, social media is no more a scarce commodity in Pakistan. This huge influx of the social media will play decisive role as far as the results of the election are concerned.

[Sociologist PU]

Further, i see daily Polls being conducted on FB showing the mood of educated class of Pakistan and in case the educated class comes out of their homes to cast votes on election day, the result will be surprising !

[Alyy]

It will definitely cast a huge impact in upcoming elections. Every political party has made its team for Social Media considering its importance and impact. The youth, which never was interested in elections is all set to go and show their decision on election day.

[Taimoor Gondal]

social media will have no effect or very little effect on upcoming elections. The users are social media are mostly below 18 and can not cast a vote.
The mature people using social media will cast vote on rational analysis rather then emotional and irrational social media.

In villages again the votes will be casted on biradryism and ancestors affiliation with the parties.

Social media is unable to show the menifestos of parties and is marely working on blame game and the language which is used on social media to spread one's agenda is so unethical and vulgar which could not bring a positive change.

I have witnessed in rural area that people has same mindset and the vote cast is on the basis of that respective candidate will help them even in their illegal works. They have affiliations with parties and are unwilling to change their affiliations at any cast.

When I asked some people in villages to change their mindset, their reply is

'' saray chor ne. Assi te onhan nu vote daina a jehra saday kam aaway''

so in this mindset social media wouldnot bring any change in our electroal process.

[Maha Khan]

Originally Posted by Sociologist PU

Dear members, the stage is set for general elections in Pakistan. what do you think the impact of Social Media, especially the Face Book will have on the result of these elections ? The question arises in my mind when i see a large number of Pakistanis now interacting daily and regularly on face book and discussing political issues.

It is also being said that face book is responsible for bringing change in many countries in recent past and this time it is the turn of Pakistan to see the change through the face book+election within a few months.

No change is expected due to the boom of social media.Facebook was responsible for"Arab Spring"...but in Pakistan where literacy rate is extremely low,people are still unaware about the proper usage of social media..Political parties are using facebook for degradation of their political rivals instead of manifestation of their vision and future policies,besides this people also unable to comprehend the real motives of the various posts.They blindly share various posts which later on prove false or edited.In this scenario,Social media has also become like electronic media which is only spreading sensational news these days.......the crux is that,social media wont change the mindset of the Pakistanis.
Regards

[skyheights]

Aoa.
the social media may effect the up coming elections, but not upto much extent.
the reasons are as follow:
1. the electoral system in Pakistan is bases on caste/bradri system.
2. we start rushing after the political parties without any analysis.
3. all the parties are working and promoting their ideas on social media, like FB.
3. the entire youth is not loyal to IMran Khan. there are a large nubmer of youngsters who are attached with PML(N) as well.

Let's see, what happen.