Social Media and Political Mobilization: Following of Facebook and Twitter Contents Floated by Pakistani Political Parties from 1st June – 30th June 2021

ABSTRACT
Social media is a direct source of communication that tries to connect people across the globe through text messages, video, and audio calling. In Pakistan, the use of social media has exponentially increased during the last decade. More people have access to social media and smart phones. Some network services in Pakistan are even providing free services to some social media platforms such as Facebook. This has made social media a leading channel through which politicians reach the public. They do it for the purpose of influencing constituents’ opinions, recruiting volunteers and donors, and mobilizing voters. This study is an attempt in line with the same proposition. The current research makes use of contents analysis techniques. The study explores how major political parties; Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PMLN), Pakistan People Party (PPP) and Pakistan Tehreek – E- Insaaf (PTI) and their respective leaders reach; Shehbaz Sharif, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and Imran Khan reach the public through their social media platforms to convey their messages. Political contents in the form of Facebook posts and tweets of the three major Pakistani political parties and their leaders during one month period are collected. Responses to the collected posts and tweets in terms of like, share, comments and re-tweets are quantified accordingly. The number of responses to political contents of a particular party and its leaders are taken as efforts towards political mobilization of the social media users. The findings suggest Imran Khan as the better followed leader on Facebook and Twitter than Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and Shehbaz Sharif, whereas, PMLN as political party was followed more than PPP and PTI.