Digital Political Communication in Emerging Democracy: A Comparative Study of Indonesia, India, and Brazil

Abstract

The victory of right-wing political parties in democratic countries worldwide has garnered significant attention and presented unique challenges. The structured and widespread use of social media platforms is alleged to play a crucial role, enabling these parties to actively shape influence, attract voter sympathy, and mobilize support on a broad scale. Using the evidence from the presidential and parliamentary elections in Indonesia, India, and Brazil, this research examines how the populist candidates in these major democracies effectively utilized appealing patterns and styles of political communication on the social media. Through a comparative analysis of the 33 articles published in the International journals between 2019 and 2023, the findings have revealed some similarities in the digital political communication patterns and styles among the victorious populist figures. This study specifically highlights the facts that these figures employ digital communication strategies centered on two key aspects, namely: (1) promoting populist narratives through the social media and (2) crafting personalized self-images. These strategies are shown to be instrumental in securing election wins for the populist leaders concerned.