Banners and graffiti seeking votes for the candidates on one side; candidates who do not miss a chance to personally seek votes from every class on the other. This age-old picture of the college union election campaigns across the State have had a dramatic change in the recent times with the advent of the social media. A quick look at the novel campaign methods in the colleges in the city on the eve of the College Union elections under Calicut University has brought up some interesting facets.
“Voice clips,” said Lins Thomas, a M.Com. student of St. Joseph’s College, Devagiri, “are the trending these days.” The elections were over in Devagiri earlier this month, as the college is now autonomous. But the election trends are one and the same. “The posters are shared through Facebook. There are also videos in which the candidates seek votes personally,” Lins explained.
“Facebook was being used for campaigning for some years, but the WhatsApp campaigning is novel,” said Sruthi P., B.Sc. Mathematics student of Malabar Christian College. “There are groups that support each party. The images and texts are circulated mostly within the groups,” she says. But the age-old class-to-class campaigning has not completely disappeared. The banners, posters and graffiti are still strong and add to the ambience of the colleges during elections. In fact, the student outfits in Zamorin’s Guruvayurappan College are yet to embrace the possibilities of social media to a large extent, says Adithya Jayaram, a B.Sc. Physics student at the college.
The campuses are where every revolution begins. So it’s no wonder they have adapted well to the modern times in terms of campaigning.
