The Bharatiya Janata Party's online campaign and citizen involvement in India's 2014 election

The impact of the Internet on politics and electoral campaigns is the focus of considerable-and, as yet, unsettled-debate. This article focuses on the manner in which the Bharatiya Janata Party-which became the first party since 1984 to win an absolute majority in India's parliament-engaged citizen supporters in the party's successful social media campaign. Employing data from interviews with party functionaries and volunteers, we examine the extent to which interaction with supporters represented an effort to shift away from the traditional top-down model of campaigning toward a participatory approach.