The Rise of Social Media Influencers: Explore the phenomenon of influential figures like Dhruv Rathee shaping political narratives with viral content.
Analyzing Political Discourse: Delve into the debate surrounding the effectiveness of short-form social media content in shaping public opinion versus traditional analytical discourse.
The most popular social media influencer, the maker of the video containing scathing attack on Modi titled " Is India becoming Dictatorship " ,Mr Dhruv Rathi has become a sensation and garnered millions of likes. Quoting him in an article in the Hindu, one Mr Ashwin Ravi, a data analyst said that such media content which can be splintered and spread out of context to influence the gullible voters immensely and also wrongly. Mr Ashwin has also referred to an article "Accelerating dynamics of collective attention" published in the magazine, Nature, which explained why people are being attracted towards the social media other than detailed factual analyses in newspapers. The article pointed out that attention span of the people has reduced from 2.5 minutes two decades back to 45 seconds today. No wonder that people watch social media for information and knowledge and for opinion forming rather than read detailed articles published in influential papers like the Hindu EPW and other vernacular and English newspapers where the scholars write quoting historical and analytical facts. It must be understood that the social media content by the likes of Dhruv Rathee have become so popular that even the political parties are using them to their advantage or to the disadvantage of the their opponents. The point is, is this short social media content to influence the people a better option? The contents of the social media are full of suggestive videos and pictures and deliver the content so effectively and so speedily that they attract the attention but fail to pin down the focus of the watchers for analytical grasp which alone can lead to correct opinion formation. So without any doubt, it has to be considered that the social media which was very widely used by the BJP and is now being used by every party and even other types of organisations like corporates and NGOs are here to stay as major attention grabbers rather than opinion makers. It has to be considered that opinions formed by such social content cannot be relied upon.The claim by many that social media content is influencing the people in making their choices of the political parties does not wash. People will not totally depend on the information they receive through different communication channels like print media, electronic media and social media. They are influenced by the conditions created by the party in power or the promises made by the opposition in so far as they have affected their living conditions or fulfill/ed their expectations. It must be remembered that the Arab Spring revolution caused in the Middle East and the North Africa by social media had fizzled out very fast in a short time exposing the fact that the influences the social media produces very fast will also disappear with equal speed. If indeed social media is having such a great impact on the people then no political party would be spending hundreds of crores of rupees in conducting huge road shows and public gatherings. There is a point which needs to be noted is that the social media content produced by the political parties do not always succeed as could be seen from the fact that enormous amounts spent on producing such political content in social media by the BRS did not bring in the results. Despite the BJP's social media army's efforts, BJP could not win in Punjab, West Bengal, Delhi, Orissa and all the southern States So the inescapable conclusion is that the social media may tittilate the people for a short time but cannot make them vote against or in favour of any party only based on its content. On the contrary certain social media posts mainly on YouTube, particularly relating to knowledge dessimination, health, commerce and training in various fields and particularly those based on research are definitely helpful and also contain content that is not completely reliable and yet taken seriously despite the disclaimers preceding or following them. Still there is no mechanism to separate the chaff from the grain among such content and hence the vulnerable groups are still falling prey to unreliable content. Social media has become another necessary evil. Their impact on politics is a far cry when compared to other fields.
Dr M H Prasad Rao
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