Role of Social Media in

Politics

Prof. Dhruva TrivedyChief Intervener & Promoter – PERCON

Country Head – Hubert Ebner India Pvt. Ltd (Pioneers in Road Safety)

Recent Happenings - 1

• Technology has played a major role in politics for the past few decades.

– Digitally processed Voters’ Identity Cards

– Use of the electronic ballot machines– Debates, interviews and discussions on

the electronic media

Recent Happenings - 2

• Use of platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+ etc.

– Transition from Orkut to Facebook • Generation X and Generation Y• Proliferation of opinion• The population factor

– The use of Blogs and Blog writing– The emergence of Google+

Distribution of an opinion poll in the US

Some facts

• Just a couple of years ago, Indians represented 20 per cent of all Orkut users globally, but behind Brazil and the United States

Some facts (cont’d)

• Internet is mainly used by the salaried class and students in India

• Students mainly used it for social networking and watching and downloading audio-visual content

• The salaried class mainly used it for communication activities such as e-mailing, messaging, etc.

Distribution of the Facebook population of India

Some facts (cont’d)

• 52 per cent of Indian businesses successfully used social networks to get new business

• 32 per cent of the firms set aside a proportion of marketing budget specifically devoted to social networking activities (PR or branding activity for the firms)

Some facts (cont’d)

• Political communication in India is essentially election communication.

• Traditionally, political parties always come out with their roadmaps, ahead of the polls, for an incumbency lasting five years

Some facts (cont’d)

• Success stories of political protests raged in Tunisia, Egypt and even in India (against corruption)

• Canvassing through the social media was observed in the recent West Bengal polls.

Questions that we need to ask - 1

• Why can the Political Parties not corporatise themselves?

• Why can we not consistently use Social Networking for party PR and not only before ?

Questions that we need to ask - 2

• Why do we need to have multiple pages or blogs for our party on the same network?

• Why can we not structure (and strategise) our approach on different networks?

• Why can we not distinguish between pages for national issues, regional issues and local issues?

Questions that we need to ask - 3

• If we are targeting the younger lot, are we keeping to their expectations – both content and design?

• Are we laying down and organising our future plans and bringing in transparency to highlight them, so that they become aware?

Questions that we need to ask - 4

• Are we creating that edifice that our youth is looking forward to –the Vision and the Mission of the party?

• Are we configuring a way, by which at least the urban youth has clarity and zest to promote the cause of the party so that the rural youth may follow suit?

THANK YOU VICHAR GOSTHI!!

TIME FOR INTROSPECTION!!