The current statistics about the presence of technology and social media in Mauritius seem to make a clear case for their use as a form of political communication and this even more so as the country prepares for its 11th post-independence general election. The Mauritian political landscape has always had a close association with media although its relational power has evolved over time - oscillating between that of supporter, watchdog and lapdog.

Elections are important moments in the life of any democracy as it offers the opportunity to its citizens to exercise their role and obligation by voting in or out their preferred party/parties, leaders and candidates. For a long time, elections were considered as the most important feature in the democratisation process. However, in recent times we have seen a real increase in the number of elections being held across the world. In fact, what we should be attentive to is not the quantity but the quality of these elections. In a recent book entitled How to rig an election, Nic Cheeseman points to the fact that an increasing number of authoritarian leaders are holding elections as a means to legitimise their political presence.

So the question is how to make elections meaningful, relevant and in sync with the demands and expectations of the citizens. A number of experts felt that this would happen through a more participatory / deliberative form of democracy which was made possible with the advent of technology. Scholars such as Diamond referred this to ‘liberation technology’. This saw the accelerated use of social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and others as a means to increase engagement and elections were seen as crucial moments to up the ante. Recent elections held in the US, India, Ghana and others have been coined as 2.0.

The Mauritian Information Ecosystem

What about Mauritius? How is the current information / communication ecosystem faring less than 10 days before pol- ling day? A quick cursory look indicates that social media platforms are awash with the presence of political leaders, individual candidates and political parties vying for the attention of citizens who are connected to popular social media sites such as Facebook and others. Another interesting trend is the creation of online and offline information sites that have literally sprung out of the woodwork with many of them bearing rather folkloric names! A recent count put them at sixteen with a number of them with a lifespan that might not go beyond the forthcoming election. In addition to that there is the traditional media - print, private radios and the state broadcasting station - the MBC.

A number of questions ensue from what certain might call a vibrant and lively infoscape which others might term as crowded and messy infoscape. Does quantity equate to quality? Is the rigour of good, credible and balanced journalism respected? Is sensationalism reigned in to the profit of fact checked information? Is it simply white noise deflecting us from the real issues and causing unnecessary information fatigue?

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

One must note that the 2019 general election is not the first time that social media is used as a platform for political engagement. In fact, the general election of 2014 was an exploratory experiment with political leaders and parties timidly using social media to post or most often repost their existing political messages. Five years down the line, the number of social media users (especially Facebook) in Mauritius has practically doubled and as per the most recent statistics stand at above 800,000. No doubt, this offers a lucrative market for all those in the business of influence, persuasion and manipulation.

Politics in Mauritius has its own folklore with its public meetings, door to door engagements, talking heads and other political party baz. What we are witnessing in this general election is how social media is bringing it closer to us. All meetings, events and other political activities are now live streamed at times letting through unfiltered and potentially offensive comments. Our social media feeds are littered with sponsored political posts and political advertisements that keep popping up when surfing the Internet. In addition to that we get a daily fare of video clips ranging from the serialisation of scandals to video footage showcasing the broken promises and contradictory discourses of politicians. All this continuous and concentrated chatter creates a sort of echo chamber that might weigh in on our understanding of a particular political discourse. Whether this will influence the manner Mauritians will vote is yet to be ascertained.

In a recent report, Nathaniel Persily - Professor of Law at Stanford University makes the bold statement that “previously heralded as a boon to democracy, the Internet is being blamed for its demise”. Persily identifies a number of features that according to him exacerbates the unique dangers of the new communication revolution namely velocity, virality, anonymity and homophily. In fact, in a number of recently held elections across Europe and of course the 2016 presidential election the above mentioned features were responsible for a highly vitriolic and charged political discourse. For many observers the advent of fake news can be attributed to the combined power of these modern day ‘Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse’. In fact, this escalation has moved up a notch with what is called deep fakes. Deep fakes are seriously starting to affect politics with a number of political leaders falling prey with the most recent case being Matteo Renzi - the former prime minister of Italy. Speaking about deep fakes, Vidya Narayanan from the Oxford Internet Institute has this to say: “where written fake news was the hallmark of the most recent election in the US and UK, images and videos are increasingly the new focus of propaganda”.

Politics of Ideas instead of Attack Dog Politics

Coming back to the case of Mauritius, we heard most of the political leaders speak about the need for political renewal and develop a new political rapport with voters. Is this really happening as we gear up towards polling day? As mentioned earlier all politicians contending for the 7th November election are on social media. What is the nature of their political messaging? Are we witnessing a greater level of participatory and deliberative exchanges? Are political leaders really tackling the issues that matter to the citizens? What about the media, is it setting the tone to the electoral conversation?

Findings from the 2014 general election pointed to what can be termed as ‘old wine in new bottles’ syndrome when it came to the manner in which social media and more specifically Facebook was used. Political messages were essentially a one way communication, about self promotion along the familiar lines of ‘vote for me and I will change your life’ and derogatory comments that were bent on mud-slinging their political opponent. What seemed to matter was more the number of followers than actual and genuine engagement. Have matters evolved five years down the line? As mentioned earlier, the online infoscape is extremely crowded. In fact, one can note the convergence of all sources of information on Facebook bringing to significance McLuhan’s now legendary statement - the medium is the message. Both media professionals and a plethora of content producers are vying for the spectator’s eyeballs. The spectrum of content varies from pure sensationalism, to comic relief, to hard core propaganda to newsworthy information. One may consider this situation akin to the Wild West with little or no filters and thus quite difficult to evaluate whether social media is helping in creating a more informed and engaged citizenry.

Mention was made earlier of the tone of an election and who actually provides the necessary guidance and orientation in shaping it. It is important to note that the professional media through the different media houses have developed their own respective election programme grid and offer a quite expanded choice. However, these programmes operate in a sort of siloed /standalone manner where each media house is positioning itself to capture the highest audience ratings. Perhaps it would have been more valuable for the Mauritian media to have developed a common and coordinated agenda as to what are the key issues of the 2019 general election. In fact, this helps to minimize that serious and newsworthiness issues do not get swallowed by the chatter of sensationalism, mud-slinging and derogatory information. As polling day nears, we will no doubt see social media go further into overdrive and it will be up to us to be more discerning, more selective and less gullible in what we choose to watch and subsequently endorse what seems to be a limitless source of information.