WhatsApp Channels | A new digital megaphone is used by Indian leaders
Given that India is expected to have over a billion smartphone users by 2026, the new broadcast feature on the messaging app owned by Meta may end up being one of the most effective mass media to reach voters.
The Channels feature of WhatsApp is one of the most direct ways for political leaders to reach voters, at least those who own smartphones, a group whose size is steadily growing. | Photo credit: iStockphoto/Getty Images
Political figures are covertly developing a presence on WhatsApp Channels, a one-way broadcasting tool introduced by the messaging app here in September. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's official account debuted shortly after the launch and has amassed around 9 million followers so far.
The function is one of the most straightforward methods of communication for political leaders, not least to the rapidly growing percentage of people who own cellphones. By 2026, Deloitte predicts that there will be 1 billion smartphone users in India, the majority of them will likely have WhatsApp installed.
The WhatsApp page for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Others in the Bharatiya Janata Party moved quickly to create their own channels. The addition of the capability shows how WhatsApp has developed from a tool for political outreach—through special groups and forwarded messages, particularly before elections—to a fully-fledged medium in and of itself, where leaders can directly and instantly contact audiences.
Joined by ministers and opposition leaders
One of the other newcomers is Home Minister Amit Shah, who has 17,000 followers. Smriti Irani, Minister of Minority Affairs and Women and Child Development, has 2,000 followers Rajeev Chandrasekhar, minister of state for electronics and information technology, has 22,000 followers. Although these leaders have not publicly announced their WhatsApp Channels, their following is constantly expanding.
Leaders of the opposition have likewise quickly built up their support systems. On September 19, the same day as Mr. Modi, Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge launched his channel, and former Congress President Rahul Gandhi followed suit the next day.
Promotional tool
The first image that Mr. Modi posted on his channel was a photo of him working at a desk in the new Parliament structure. He swiftly made it obvious that in addition to Prime Ministerial themes, party messaging would play a significant role in his participation on the platform. On September 30, he wrote on Facebook, "People of Chhattisgarh are tired of the mis-governance of Congress." coupled with images from a rally in Bilaspur. Elections in the State are scheduled at the end of this year.
Soon after, Mr. Modi began posting tweets in Hindi as well, criticizing the Congress party for amplifying its calls for a caste census. Using his channel, Mr. Gandhi has shared images and videos of his travels to gurdwaras and of him standing with railroad porters to seek pay raises. On Thursday, he tweeted a link to a video Mr. Modi had posted on X (previously Twitter), alleging him of being against those who live in poverty.
State policy
Ministers also discussed their jobs and promoted the government's aims via their platforms. The IT Ministry's Mr. Chandrasekhar blogged about the notices submitted to YouTube, X, and Telegram to limit content containing child sex abuse. On Thursday, Mr. Shah shared a link to a piece on X about the anti-terrorism meeting he chaired.
Yogi Adityanath, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, has been particularly active (3,83,000 followers), and the channel managed by the chief minister's office frequently posts not only information from his other social media accounts but also the entire text of press releases released by the office.
Meta's change
In the upcoming months, political leaders and their outreach teams will determine which tactics work best on this new medium as they determine the actual impact of messages from leaders directly reaching millions of phones. A cautious recalibration in strategy has already been made with the launch of channels in the interim how political content is handled by Meta, which is the parent corporation of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and other platforms.
The business declared in 2021 that it will lessen the amount of political content on Facebook's news feed, which is still widely used in India even if Instagram has begun to overtake it. Then, Meta declared that it intended Facebook content to be based on "understanding what is educational, valuable, and
However, there was a high demand for a broadcast option, so Meta tested WhatsApp Channels in Colombia and Singapore in June before making it available worldwide in September. The company had previously stated in a blog post published last month that "building channels is a big step our users have asked us to take for years." "We believe the time is now right," it continued.
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