Political communication is an essential aspect of any democratic society to allow political parties to communicate their ideas, policies, and visions to the public. In the context of Pakistan, political communication plays a crucial and critical role in shaping public opinion and influencing political outcomes. Similarly, narrative building is a vital component of political communication, which refers to the formation and dissemination of a story or message aiming to shape public perception and beliefs about a particular issue or event. Contemporarily social media has become the most potential source of political communication and narrative building among politicians. Quraishi (2022) acknowledged the popular use of social media by politicians and political parties of Pakistan by stating that almost all the political parties in Pakistan profoundly rely on narrative building through social media to create a positive image of their party, its leaders, and its policies among the general public.
Social media has incredibly revolutionized the traditional style of political communication, social interactions, agenda setting and narrative building in the world. Hinchman (2001) defined narratives as communication discourse which connects certain ideas, facts or events in a sequential and meaningful way. These narratives offer certain insights, inferences for people who are the target consumer of those narratives. Crow and Jones (2018) stressed that narratives are used as tools for promoting ideas and influencing political environments.
Contemporarily when social has gained immense popularity among masses and it has become an integral part of life among general public. Social media is used as the most potential source of narrative building. Harper (2010) claimed that social media has given people choice and freedom in terms of consumption of news and information as well as the freedom to express and give feedback as active consumer. Social media has given ordinary consumer the rights to have dynamic communication and interaction with the influencers and opinion leaders of traditional media.
A popular notion establishing today is that the trend of setting public agenda and narratives by opinion leaders at mainstream is overpowered by social media because now these public opinion leaders are realizing that their influence would be even stronger at social media. So majority of them have active social media accounts and they share their opinions without any restriction at the SNS platforms. The social networking sites are significant source of public opinion formation because they provide direct and multidimensional interaction between voters, journalists and political leaders. Fazekas et al (2021) acclaimed that the active interaction between politicians and their public on social networking sites (Facebook and Tiwtter) have significant effects on the voting behaviours and political participation among users.
Golan et al (2019) acknowledged the significance of social media by stating that the upsurge in this popularity of social media has encouraged scholars and researchers from arenas of Media and communication, political sciences, sociology, national and international affairs studies to conduct numerous studies on usage of social media by influencers and consumption by people. Scholars and researchers of communication and media, political sciences, sociology and international affair have conducted several research studies on dynamic aspects of social media and politics to explore the transformation in political communication among politicians and general public and impacts of this social media consumption on elections and voting behaviours of people.
As Public opinion is considered to be the foundation of democratic system and contemporarily when social media have assimilated all the powers to influence public mindsets the agenda setting and narrative building have got even more interesting. Journalists rely more on social media to reflect popular opinion among public. This over reliance upon social media particularly Twitter has created Hybrid flows of information between social media managers, journalists and public as consumers (McGregor, 2019). Now people have ease of access to the top political leaders, journalists, and experts of any fields.
Calderaro (2018) highlighted significance of of digital media for political communication and its dynamic spheres by stating that digital media has provided social networking through social media which has created new and advanced channels of communication for politicians, media professionals and general public. These modern ways of communication have dramatically revolutionized and transformed the traditional flow of information among people. Social media have global reach and a single message can be transmitted to billions of people by just a single click. It can have access to people across borders from diverse demographic, socio-economic, political, cultural backgrounds
The trends of political communication and narrative building through social media is increasing each day whereas currently about 71 million Pakistani users are active consumers of social media in Pakistan. As per the statistical figures of Digital Pakistan (2022) and Statista (2022) the Facebook users were 43 million at start of January 2022 and have currently reached to 50 million. Digital Pakistan (2022) also reported more than 3 million Twitter users at the beginning of the year 2022. Pakistani political parties, their leaders, journalists actively use Facebook and Twitter and thus have significant effects on their consumers (Ejaz, 2013).
Ittefaq and Iqbal (2018) have inferred that social media have dynamic effects on Pakistani politics. Pakistan is considered to have the second highest young consumers after Yemen, who have active social media accounts and it has created a huge impact in shaping their political efficacy and participation. Pakistani politicians have realized the fact that now their popularity depends on their social media usage so they hire specialized media professionals, journalists, influencers and social media experts for their political narrative building and to keep themselves in mainstream for their political image.
According to the recent studies, keeping in consideration the popularity and frequent use of social media by Pakistani political leaders, and journalists as public opinion leaders and public as consumers for political communication. The present aimed to explore the role of social media as agenda setting and narrative building tool among politicians and their followers. There are strong implications of social media on Pakistani politics (Ali, 2013). The popularity of social media among Pakistani political and media influencers as well as in public clearly demonstrate that now political scenarios are being shaped and transformed by using social media as weapon to fight digital wars in political spheres.
In the context of political communication and narrative building role of social media, this research has critically reviewed, explored and analysed the narrative construction strategies employed by political parties in Pakistan’s public sphere. The study has analysed how political parties use different mediums such as traditional media, social media, and public gatherings to create, fabricate, and disseminate their narratives. Moreover, the research further examined how these narratives are received and perceived by the public and its impact on political outcomes.
The dynamics of Political communication, narrative building and agenda setting in Pakistan have undergone technological transformation. This is the era of digital war when youth remained digital warriors of Imran Khan setting (#AbsolutelyNot) to US, (#SurpriseDay) to India’s fabricated flag operation top trends of Twitter. Social media managers of PTI, Imran Khan, government and journalists kept propagating Imran khan’s narratives and set public agenda in his favour making him hero of the nation. At the same time the digital warrior and social media managers of opposition kept trying their best to keep their narrative popular among masses in order to gain success in the coming elections Jehangir (2022).
The governing political party with majority of provincial and national representatives, coalition acquaints, establishment support was dethroned and ousted by PDM, Pakistan Democratic Alliance. The contemporary time frame was the most perfect time to conduct this study as the new government of PMLN (Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz and PPP (Pakistan People’s Party) has been facing hard times due to deteriorating economic crisis and immense pressure of new elections by PTI (Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf). Since the ECP, Election Commission of Pakistan have declared that the earliest time frame required for elections are October 2022 (Cookman et al, 2022).
So the above mentioned arguments have clearly narrated the statement of problem that political parties and journalists use powerful potential of social media to build narratives among people which eventually set their agenda. This agenda setting later on played an important role in elections and voting behaviours of people. So in the current fiasco of political scenario in Pakistani politics there was a strong need to investigate the usage of social networking websites especially Facebook and Twitter to propagate their narratives and get popularity among masses.
1.1 Purpose of the study
The research study has been conducted as a deliberate effort to explore the influence of popular social media by political influencers to manipulate and gain support among masses for their success in elections through their political communication and narrative construction. The study has opened new domains of knowledge and information about the concerned research area as it has opted intensive interviews from journalists and social media managers of political parties to analyse the strategic approaches used by these public opinion influencers through intensive interviews. The collected information has been analysed using qualitative approach and it has provided valuable information for media researchers, academicians and students for a better understanding of multidimensional interaction of interplay between opinion leaders as influencers and consumers as influenced audiences.
1.2 Background
Anderson and Auxier (2020) claimed in a study conducted under The Pew Research Center that approximately 55 percent of social media consumers have affirmed in the US that they are “worn out” by the extent of political posts on social networking sites. Due to the advancement of modern technology and upsurge in the consumption and popularity of SNS (Twitter and Facebook) the number has already been increased by almost 16 percent since the presidential election of 2016. This indicate that social media content of political influencers have significant effects on voters.
Social media has transformed the whole game of political narrative building, agenda setting, campaigning, publicity and advertising in national as well as international context. It has enabled an active, prompt and dynamic interaction allowing general public and their political leaders and representatives to communicate directly about their political manifesto to policies and plans for governance. Twitter has become the most popular medium among popular political leaders. Barack Obama was among the first political leaders and presidential candidate, who used social media impressively. Donald Trump surpassed effective and efficient usage of social media and Twitter particularly for his political gains by expressing himself on daily basis without any filter or censorship of traditional media. Perloff (2018) acknowledged Trump for his political communication and narrative construction in 2016’s election by stating that he rewrote history of American politics by his media management. The style of political narrative building and communication have been transformed phenomenally in the last decade. Social media have broadened the scope of political communication, now political campaigns are not just limited to constituencies only. Now social media play a significant, decisive and imperative role in shaping political agendas and eventually determines the outcomes of elections for both new comers in practical politics and traditional politicians. It has become the most indispensable part of political communication and practical politics (Yildrim, 2020).
Social media have been extensively used by influencers from the domains of politics and media both to set narratives among masses. The narratives are deliberately promoted on SNS to make people believe in the political agendas of parties. Kumpel et al (2015) inferred that the social media presence and political communication of politicians regarding their image. Pakistani political parties and journalists have used their Twitter and Facebook platforms to stay connected with the common citizens and this hyper connected atmosphere provided users with an interactive relationship with their opinion leaders. Trends are set at Twitter and Facebook by influencers to build and strengthen their narratives in the public. The top trends set by Pakistani politicians included #Absolutelynot, #Surpriseday, #NotaBot, #PakistanNeedsElection, #MarchAgainstImportedGovernment, #VoteKoIzzatDo and many others which were initially set by political influencers and media professionals and later became a popular trend among Pakistani public. The influence of social media have been evident in the elections of Pakistan in 2013 as well as 2018 and is foreseen to be very important in the coming elections of 2023.
