SOCIAL MEDIA IN POLITICAL UPRISING

Q.1. what are some examples of uses of social networking technologies for political campaigns in india?
Campaigning plays a very important and crucial role during elections. It showcases the party profile, their goals in near future and what the public can expect from them. In short, campaigning has a very strong effect on how the elections turn out. The usage of social media in politics in India is continually growing, with an increasing number of politicians in the country taking advantage of the medium to communicate instantly with thousands of people. Social Media describes websites that allow users to share content, media, etc.Common examples are the popular social networking sites like Twitter :excels in short message bursts, event updates, blog post pushes, and breaking news. It allows a campaign to instantly send a succinct message to 1000s of followers and also lets the campaign interact with other people in a one-on-one manner. .Facebook: is comprehensive and allows you to post pictures, add videos, send detailed mass messages, publicly interact on Walls, and more. YouTube: is purely a video medium. However, its reach cannot be underestimated. The services search engine is second in use only to Google! This staggering number of searches makes it essential to own your candidates name for search on this platform Photobucket, Flickr: should be used to publish campaign photos. With more than 4 billion images and over 30 million monthly visitors, its an important place to be and exposes your campaign to an important network. Depending on campaign's message and target, other networks could also prove to be very useful. For a candidate with a strong business background, LinkedIn is a logical choice. For campaigns that are targeting an edgy or urban crowd, Myspace can still be a viable and effective network. There are dozens of other networks out there, with niche focuses ranging from veterans to volunteers. Social media is such a broad term that it covers a large range of websites. But the one common link between these websites is that one is able to interact with the website and interact with other visitors. Some of the social media websites are,

 Social Bookmarking- Relating to people by tagging websites and searching through websites bookmarked by other people. Social News- Interacting by voting for articles and commenting on them. Social Networking- Adding friends, commenting on profiles, joining groups and having discussions. Social Photo and Video Sharing- Interacting by sharing photos or videos and commenting on user submissions. Wikis- Adding articles and editing existing articles. Blogs- A type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. And these websites are not the only social media websites. Any website that invites you to interact with the site and relate with other visitors/users falls into the definition of social media. Social media like other forms of media has its own importance and use. For example, a voter can view a politicians profile on their partys website or else he might read his blogs comment his views or ideas on the blog. This helps the voter understand what he is expecting from the future government and accordingly vote for the same this correlation is illogical. People have not yet identified the power of social media and how it can be used to reach out to millions of people at the same time. Here are some Indian politicians who use social media: Sushma Swaraj is one of the few female politicians in India who have established an online presence on social networking sites such as Twitter. Facebook:Though Sushma Swaraj does not have an official Facebook Page, she has more than 53,000 fans on her Facebook Community Page. Twitter: Again, Sushma Swaraj is among the few female politicians on Twitter. She has more than 3 lakh followers but does not follow anyone, not even her peers. While she does interact with her followers, she posts less frequently than others, around 2-3 tweets every 2-3 days. She tweets about topics related to her professional life. YouTube: Swaraj does not have her own YouTube Channel, but has a separate playlist of her selected speeches. There are 33 videos in the playlist, with a collective duration of 16+ hours!

Narendra Modi He has a website and a YouTube channel, and with the advent of social media, has also started actively using Facebook and Twitter. He is the first politician in India to use Google plus. Facebook and Twitter: Modi joined Facebook and Twitter in 2009. He has a million strong followers on both these platforms. His updates mainly target the youth, consisting mostly of inspiring quotes from Swami Vivekananda and the scriptures, as well as updates on his recent activities. Also, stories of Gujarat and its development are extensively shared. The content from his Facebook Page is replicated on Twitter. The engagement level from fans on posts is high, with many people commenting, liking and sharing each post. YouTube: Modi joined YouTube way back in 2007, and has more than 1500 videos on his YouTube Channel and more than 15,000 subscribers now. He uploads videos of public rallies, functions and events that he has attended. These are some of the examples of use of social networking technologies for political campaigns in India.

Q.2.Do you think government is fair in banning social networking sites for public viewing in a riot environment?
Social networking shouldnt be banned. Social networking may have accelerated the pace of information travel, bringing groups together faster, but it did not put bricks and fire bombs into the hands of the looters. It did not create the anger or sense of powerlessness against authorities. It did not create the heightened emotions of the group, crowd leaders, the adrenalin that comes from a sense of danger and risk, the lack of empathy for others, or the sense of no consequences. Emotion may be contagious, but social media is not. What social networking does do is change the sense of agency - how people view their ability to interact with the world. It changes how we expect to give and get information. Most importantly, it makes us aware when others take action. When we focus the blame on social media and think about "shutting it down," we are not only willing to sacrifice individual rights, but we are shutting the door to the powerful positive resources that social media tools can deliver. Real time information in times of crisis or emergencies is valuable to all of us, not just looters and rioters. Blocking social networks only seeks to muzzle the expression of outrage that is sometimes entirely justified.organizing power of social networks serves to get people engaged,motivated,and visible.the government should not seek to stop

that.They should seek to prevent protest and demonstration from spilling into violence.Blocking access to social networks will not aid in that endeavour.

Q3. What are the ill effects of social networking via internet and mobile(i.e.blackberry/whatsapp)on general people?
Social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace allow you to find and connect with just about anyone. Browsing these sites can make you feel connected to a larger community, but such easy, casual connection in an electronic environment can also have its downside. Following are the ill effects of social networkin: A FALSE SENSE OF CONNECTION CYBER-BULLYING PRIVACY IS DISTURBED NO FACE TO FACE COMMUNICATION WASTAGE OF TIME

WHATSAPP OR BLACKBERRY

These expressions were invented to reduce the number of keystrokes required to convey a message. However, some people who use this slang language cannot use proper spelling and grammar when formal writing is required. They've become so used to this informal language, that they cannot write formally when they need to. if the general population continues to use informal slang more than formal English, it will slowly become the standard. We dont meet our friends as we use to meet before we just message them on whatsapp or bbm.

Q4. What are the advantages that social networking offers you when there is political instability in the country?
Social networking must work hand-in-hand with an ability to mobilize citizens. Social media allow organizers to involve like-minded people in a movement at a very low cost, but they do not necessarily make these people move. Instead of attending meetings, workshops and rallies, un-committed individuals can join a Facebook group or follow a Twitter feed at home, which gives them some measure of anonymity (though authorities can easily track IP addresses) but does not necessarily motivate them to physically hit the streets and provide fuel for a revolution. At the end of the day, for a social mediadriven protest movement to be successful, it has to translate social media membership into street action. The Internet allows a revolutionary core to widely spread not just its ideological message but also its training program and operational plan. This can be done by e-mail, but social media broaden the exposure and increase its speed, with networks of friends and associates sharing the information instantly. YouTube videos explaining a movement's core principles and tactics allow cadres to transmit important information to dispersed followers without having to travel. Social media can also allow a movement to be far more nimble about choosing its day of action and, when that day comes, to spread the action order like wildfire. Instead of organizing campaigns around fixed dates, protest movements can reach hundreds of thousands of adherents with a single Facebook post or Twitter feed, launching a massive call to action in seconds. The situations in Tunisia and Egypt have both seen an increased use of social networking media such as Facebook and Twitter to help organize, communicate and ultimately initiate civil-disobedience campaigns and street actions. social media simply made it come faster. It did so by playing a role in two main dynamics:

Organizing protests Before Egypt shut off the Internet and mobile phones, before it even started blocking Twitter and Facebook, those tools were used to coordinate and spread the word about the demonstrations. Without these mass organizing tools, its likely that fewer people would have known about the protests or fewer people might have shown up, and the Egyptian authorities might have more easily dispatched them. Shaping the narrative In situations of chaos, the upper hand goes to the group that can shape a narrative and get it to stick. History is written by the victors, after all--now, even in real time. a New York-based Egyptian blogger interviewed by CNN, suggested as much. She appealed to the media to not fall for what she described as a Mubarak regime plot to make the protests in Egypt seem like dangerous anarchy, according to the New York Times blog The Lede. I urge you to use the words revolt and uprising and revolution and not chaos and not unrest," she said. "We are talking about a historic moment. The narrative was reset. Soon thereafter, CNN changed its on-screen headlines from CHAOS IN EGYPT to UPRISING IN EGYPT. Did social media make all this happen? No, of course not. Did it bring everything to a head much sooner than it would have, had Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube not existed? Absolutely.