In Tamil Nadu, cinema serves a role beyond entertainment — it significantly influences and merges with the political sphere. The digital expressions of Tamil cinema fans on Twitter have illuminated a compelling dialogue between filmic content and political engagement. As movie stars with political aspirations make the leap from acting to political roles, their fan bases hold the potential to transform into potent political entities. The extensive activity of such fans on social media is notable owing to their ability to influence public discourse. The appointment of a hitherto online personality who had a case filed against him by a senior journalist as a spokesperson of the Tamil Vetri Kazhagam party founded by actor Vijay is a case in point. This article delves into the narratives that the fans of popular Tamil movie stars subscribe to on social media.
We use Twitter to study this as it is a representative platform suitable to gauge the effect, albeit it may not give the exact picture of the magnitude. By analysing trending Twitter topics related to Tamil cinema and politics, we explore how fans utilise their devotion to film stars and cinematic stories to participate in and influence politics, showcasing a distinctive fusion of cultural loyalty and political activism.
This research was jointly conducted by the Social Media Networks and (Dis)information Research Group at King’s College London and the Populous Empowerment Network India, a research organisation based in Chennai. We systematically collected the top five Twitter hashtags trending every half-hour within the ‘India’ geography from November 26, 2018, to December 17, 2022. Each day, hashtags were ranked based on their duration of trend, and a descending order list was compiled to determine the top hashtags for further analysis. Out of the total 6,138 hashtags collected, 342 related to Tamil Nadu were specifically identified and further classified into political (115) and non-political (227) themes. This section of the study, encompassing accounts and hashtags, is confined to Tamil Nadu, and all percentages and numbers are to be interpreted within this regional context. Detailed tweet data — including usernames, engagement metrics, timestamps, IDs, and URLs — associated with these hashtags were extracted using the Twitter API for academic purposes.
Segregation of accounts
To better understand the relationship matrix between fan accounts and the political hashtags, we grouped the fan accounts into groups, namely — ‘Anti-Ajith’, ‘Anti-Vijay’, ‘Pro-Suriya’, ‘Pro-Ajith’, ‘Pro-Dhanush’, ‘Pro-Kamal’, ‘Pro-Rajini’, ‘Pro-Simbu’, ‘Pro-Sivakarthikeyan’, ‘Pro-Vijay’, ‘Pro-Vikram’, and others. Likewise, we grouped the political hashtags into ‘Pro-NTK’, ‘Pro-INC’, ‘Pro-DMK’, ‘Pro-BJP’, ‘Anti-NTK’, ‘Anti-INC’, ‘Anti-DMK’, ‘Anti-BJP’, ‘Anti-AIADMK’, ‘Anti-State-Govt’, and ‘Anti-State-Govt-from-May-21’.
Fan accounts were mapped using actor hashtags that they frequently interacted with. These fan accounts were then studied for their interactions with political hashtags. To compare the influence of certain ‘fan bases’ in the Twitter political trends, let us take a look at how the movie fan accounts of different actors share the Twitter space based on their interaction with certain hashtags.
Pattern of engagement
The structure of engagement among fans of different stars, when deductively categorised into dominants (with the most reach), fans (intermediary users with moderate reach), and regulars (those with the least engagement) highlights how some actors, like Rajinikanth, have a broader organic reach directly to fans, compared to others who rely more on intermediaries to amplify their message. This suggests differences in how fan clubs and communities form around each star and engage with political content on Twitter.
Among the political hashtags that trended in the study period, the hashtags that supported the DMK showed the highest number of occurrences. It was close to 24% of the total number of political hashtags. Tamil actor Vijay had the most number of fan accounts during the study period.
Movie fans contribute significantly, representing 55.12% of total participants in political hashtags. The two largest participants per hashtag in our study are those that are aligned with the BJP — ‘Pro-BJP’ hashtags, and the hashtags that are against the DMK — ‘Anti-DMK’ hashtags. This observation suggests potential external funding. While on the other hand, the hashtags that favoured the DMK —‘Pro-DMK’, and the hashtags that were against the BJP — ‘Anti-BJP’, showed very low participants per hashtag.
Since the DMK-led State government assumed power in May 2021, the participants per hashtag number for the anti-State government trends went up by 35.43%. This could indicate the presence of funding by other parties that do not align with the DMK. This also suggests dissatisfaction among the people with the governance of the State government regardless of the ruling party (AIADMK and DMK). But judging by the sheer scale of the participants per hashtag, it could be a funded effort by parties that are not in favour of regional/State powers.
Dominance of critics
The data seems to suggest there is a dominance of anti-Party tweets, for both the DMK as well as the BJP. This shows the substantial presence of critics on the platform. This is followed by the strong presence of supporters for each party — an active base of supporters. The discussions/trends are also heavily focused on parties other than the DMK and the BJP, including the AIADMK, the NTK, and the INC.
While the data collected is spread over a large timeline, it is important to consider external factors such as ongoing events and political developments that have an influence on Twitter trends.
Our observation on the prevalence of political messaging and the participation of movie fan bases in the political world show a very balanced picture. Upon drawing out standard deviations of actors’ fan bases across the various political trends, we find the variance to be minimal. Nonetheless, the following insights were particularly intriguing: 14.78% of politically interested (interacted with political hashtags) Kamal fan accounts participated in Pro-DMK hashtags — this is the highest amongst the major actors fan accounts, closely followed by Ajith fan accounts (14.57%). On the other hand, a remarkable 17.95% of politically interested Rajinikanth fan accounts participated in Pro-BJP hashtags. This participation is huge, overshadowing the second place contender, which has only single-digit representation.
During the period of study, cinema surpassed even politics as the most discussed subject. The aforementioned findings provide a slightly clearer answer or response to the frequently asked question or prevailing perception regarding the political success of movie actors in Tamil Nadu, as observed from the perspective of fan activity. Amidst the vibrant film and celebrity fan base in the State, their political involvement is an extension of the broader political ethos of dissent and debate that is pervasive in Tamil Nadu and is mirrored in the State’s cinema.
But, it is pertinent to note that while social media metrics such as hits, likes, and clicks certainly help create a narrative or build an opinion, elections are still primarily fought at the grassroots level — such as booths. It might be premature to ascertain the extent to which an active social media following would actually translate into votes. However, as argued elsewhere, control over discourse, access to resources, and a motivated cadre of personnel are crucial for electoral forays and political success. This requires vision complemented by political labour.
Vignesh Karthik KR is a postdoctoral research fellow of Indian and Indonesian politics at the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies. Ajay Chandra Vasagam U is a researcher at the Social Media Networks and (Dis)information Research Group, King’s College London. We acknowledge the support extended by Regan K and team.
