Transcript
Research last year estimates nearly half of Fiji's population is using the internet and social media.
Tait Brimacomb who's been studying the issue from the University of Adelaide says that number's continued to rise with Fiji's relatively low internet costs and high internet speeds.
"We're seeing a kind of generation of activists and of users in general who've been somewhat marginalised in mainstream media channels or perhaps haven't had the same opportunities for political dissent or dialogue in the traditional media platforms."
Almost half of the people questioned in a recent poll said they were getting their information on the elections and parties from social media and one in five said it was their main source, unsurprising with more than half of the registered voters under the age of 40.
The launch of government-sponsored free wifi in towns around Fiji has continued in the run up to next week's elections broadening access even further.
"Bula vinaka Fiji, I am Shanal Sivan. Now I'd like to tell you one of the reasons for standing for the National Federation Party is for the dialysis patients ..."
Election candidate Shanal Sivan says with his small budget, the country's tight electoral laws and a mainstream media he claims is biased, social media is the way to go.
"For me personally I do not have a bigger budget to advertise about my campaign on television or on big billboards like the ruling party has, so my target audience is young people and there close to 500 thousand social media users in Fiji."
The National Federation Party candidate says he's watched how politicians overseas were successful using Facebook and Instagram to attract votes and he's using his skills as a former TV journalist to get his message across.
"I see people responding to me via messages. They're also calling me directly saying 'I've seen your video. It's heart-touching and these are the issues we want politicians to talk about.' I'm reaching to them directly at the palm of their hands."
Most parties are live streaming campaign meetings or simply, like HOPE's Tupou Draunidalo, talking to voters via the camera.
"Good evening everybody. We're making another live video this evening and we just wanted to talk about in more detail ..."
There are slick video campaigns like this from Fiji First.
"When I grow up I want to be a doctor and Fiji First is making it possible for me.
"And I will continue to vote for FijiFirst because of the firm leadership..."
But social media use comes with a warning from the elections supervisor Mohammed Saneem who says the onus is on political parties to ensure their streams are clear of racial and religious vilification and other hate speech.
"We are promoting that all parties quickly design and adopt social media guidelines for the individual members of the party who are working for the party. We cannot monitor social media. It is a very vast environment, however we are trying to promote the use of social media for good."
Shanal Sivan says he has a team of ten people helping him to monitor his accounts for feedback which might contravene electoral laws.
"Yes, the Electoral Commission, the Elections Office is very closely monitoring social media and how we do our campaigns and we are aware of that. It does place extra pressure on us because we do not know what's on the minds of the people."
Mr Sivan says his team is doing its best to delete comments on his feed which may be deemed illegal.