With India having the largest number of YouTube users, Indian politicians are choosing to be interviewed by YouTubers instead of journalists and political interviews in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections may see the same trend, a new research paper has suggested.

Authored by Joyojeet Pal, associate professor at University of Michigan, and research associates Sarah Khan and Rudransh Mukherjee, the paper is titled “Influencer collaboration on YouTube: Changing political outreach in the 2024 Indian elections”.

The paper noted that several digital influencers had more interviews with national politicians than most political journalists during the period of the study.

Of the five most viewed interviews, three are from the channel of Ranveer Allahabadia, better known online as Beer Biceps, including his interviews with external affairs minister S Jaishankar, and Union ministers Nitin Gadkari and Smriti Irani. They also include an interaction between Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and Kamiya Jani, whose channel is known as Curly Tales, and Elvish Yadav’s interview of Haryana chief minister ML Khattar.

The paper suggested that the BJP has nearly dominated political interviews online considering the engagement received through interviews with top influencers. Apart from Curly Tales and Beer Biceps, the other top influencers quoted in the paper had only collaborated with BJP politicians. 

Among YouTube influencers whose political interviews received the highest engagement online, the paper shortlisted Vivek Bindra, a motivational speaker with 21.3 million subscribers, Gaurav Chaudhary, whose channel is called Technical Guruji and has 23.4 million subscribers, Elvish Yadav, who has 14.8 million subscribers, Beer Biceps, and Curly Tales.

Last year, Newslaundry had reported on Union minister Piyush Goyal’s meeting with YouTubers in Delhi. The government’s purported outreach was communicated to the influencers through email and social media, after which they were flown into the national capital and provided with accommodation for the meeting.

“We find that the choice of influencer depends on the narrative about themselves that the politician wishes to push. Influencers are known either for domain specialties such as food and travel (Curly Tales), technology (Technical Guruji), business leadership (Vivek Bindra) or for their style of engagement such as earthy comedy (Elvish Yadav), or a mix of contemporary urban lifestyle conversations (Beer Biceps). These particularities in their audience segments allow the influencers to frame the politicians in a specific way that moves away from the typical politician presentation to voters, humanising them and bringing lifestyle rather than political program to the fore,” noted the paper.

“For instance, Minister for Information & Broadcasting and Youth Affairs, Anurag Thakur, otherwise known for his incendiary speeches presents a softer, personable side on Curly Tales, where her channel’s focus on food and travel makes for seamless conversation on the millets program, or the Dharamsala stadium in his home state of Himachal Pradesh.”

“In contrast, Beer Biceps and Elvish Yadav have a very different style which is aimed almost entirely at younger audiences. Beer Biceps uses an informal style with a lot of popular culture references, and approaches politicians with an affective naivete that allows for them to come across as authoritative without needing to emphasise power. Elvish Yadav on the other hand comes armed with an image of a snarky fast-talking Haryanvi, which is appealing to younger working class North Indian audiences, and his vlogging style makes for a casual ‘behind-the-scenes’ look into politicians.”

The paper noted that the BJP “clearly has a massive advantage over other parties with these five influencers, but the spread of influencers in various languages is broad, and these influencers are mostly relevant for national level politics, for the kinds of politicians who have a broad, cross-regional profile”.

“It is also important that the ruling party has a massive advantage by virtue of being a ruling party – an interview with an influencer for a ruling politician can always be presented as an engagement with a government official, rather than with a politician. With formal funding mechanisms for the government to engage influencers, this further advantages the ruling party in presenting its positions while opposition parties would need to spend up front, or cajole influencers to get similar gigs.”

This report was published with AI assistance.