Paper short abstract:

In last few years,Social media platforms have been quite influential in shaping political space in India. It is an attempt to ethnographically situate the digital political space in India on Facebook and analyse its impact on the actual political space in India.

Paper long abstract:

This paper is an examination of digital political space on social media, its generation, dynamics and impaction on actual political space. Digital political space not only mirrors the actual space, but has become a source of power itself to shape the political space across the nation. With over 200 million users, Facebook has become a digitized routine social activity, especially among youths. Social networking has people inventing their virtual selves for a public gaze, often dissimilar from their physical selves. The observations, both qualitative and quantitative, reflect an anthropological gaze on visible online data in public domain only, in order to avoid the noise between virtual and physical worlds. Four strands of political activities have been analysed in the paper 1). Using Identities (such as national, subnational, religious, caste etc.) for uniting and dividing 2). Propagation of Fake news to disseminate a false rhetoric 3). Differing political narratives of same event, as per their leanings on left-right spectrum. 4). Sharing 'Offensive' media to generate tensions. Combinations of methods are used to generate momentum, which often leads to changes in actual political space. In January 2016, a scuffle over freedom of speech between the state and student ricocheted in the digital political space, leading to protests across the nation. In July 2016,a case of atrocity on lower caste members over beef, lead to escalated online protests, which ultimately resulted in a pan-India anti-caste movement across the nation.