Role of Social Media in Enhancing the Social Movements

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ABSTRACT

In today’s digital world, one just have to get connected with internet to get a bunch of information in their hands. With the developments of new communication technologies, people have experienced a big transformation in communicating and sharing the information in their daily and social life. This sharing of information over social media platforms such as facebook, twitter, instagram, etc leaves a big impact on people’s mind. Content shared in social media can be spread quickly to a large number of people. This extensive use of social media can play an important role in enhancing the social movements among the people. One of the instances in which social media certainly played a major role in enhancing a social movement is Me too movement. The main objective of the research is to find how social media plays an important role in enhancing the social movements now a days? All the definitions of social movements reflect the notion that these social movements are directly related to the social change.

Today’s youth is exposed to all type of media and technologies. They are actively engaged with social media through apps, e-paper, Social Networking Sites, etc which connected them to the world. Therefore structured questionnaire was the tool of the research and descriptive research design was used.

INTRODUCTION

Communication plays a pivotal part in enhancing the social movements/campaigns and after the initiation of social media it has played a main role in creating awareness and disseminating the information. In today’s sceneario the social campaigns/movements have stretched their horizon from print, television and radio to social media.

Social media has reached each and every corner of globe because of the rapidly growing internet facility, which has direct access to information and communication. Social media is the form of electronic communication through which user create online groups or communities to share information, ideas and other content. After the introduction of social networking sites(SNSs) such as facebook, twitter, instagram, whatsaap and many more, people integrated these sites in their daily practices. If we consider the two most powerful tools of social media, facebook and twitter on which people spend most of their time. The trending topic on facebook and twitter leaves a great impact on people’s mind. Social media is a powerful tool that had the ability to be used to coordinate and unite millions of people under one cause and incite positive and lasting change.

In past few years the usage of social media has increased dramatically and this increment in usage of social media has influenced the success/failure of social movements/campaigns. There are many case studies of social media influencing the outcome of social movements/campaigns. However, only four of them will be discussed here. The ‘Me Too Movement’, ‘Digital India’, ‘Make In India’ and Swachh Bharat campaign.

CASE STUDY 1: #MeToo Movement

The #Me too movement in India was a manifestation of international Me too campaign against social harassment and assault. Women across the globe opened up and share their stories about abuse by men. It was began in October, 2018 with actress Tanushree Dutta accusing Nana Patekar of sexual harassment while shooting of the film “Horn Ok Please”. After Tanushree Dutta, many actresses including Kangana Ranaut, Priyanka Bose came with their stories of sexual abuse on social media with the hashtag #MeToo.

It was not just the men who were at target point of #MeToo. Kaneez Surekha(comedian) accused fellow comedian Aditi Mittal of sexually harassing her during a comedy show in Mumbai.

The #MeToo movement spread virally as the use of the hashtag on social media platforms. Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites(SNSs) facilitate the communication of local issues to a global audience. Due to this easy access of world news and information, visibility of social issues and movements has increased.

CASE STUDY 2: Swachh Bharat Campaign

Just after the election of 2014, a campaign was launched by Prime Minister of India which a huge popularity in the audience. The main aim of this campaign is to influence people to make their surroundings neat and clean, clean up the streets, roads and infrastructure of Indian cities, towns and rural areas. Cleanliness was very close to Mahatma Gandhi therefore it was launched on his birth anniversary. Social Media has a great influence on Swachh Bharat mission. In the starting PM Modi give the statement that “I have invited 9 people and asked them to come to public places and work towards a clean India. I ask them to invite 9 more people too.” After that people started tagging their friends by using many hashtags such as #SwachhBharatMission, #MyIdeaofSwachhBharat and a most trending hashtag which brought a big change in people’s mindset is #MyCleanIndia.

CASE STUDY 3: Digital India

Digital India is the beginning of digital revolution. It is the dream created by Indian Government to ensure that each and every government services are made available electronically to citizens. It is a vision to transform India into a digitally empowered society. The three key areas on which this campaign has focused are digital infrastructure, Governance and services on demand and Digital empowerment of the citizens. Under these three key areas many programmes were launched for the success of this campaign

Public Internet Access Programme – National Rural Internet Mission
Universal access to phones
E- governance – reforming govt. Through technologies
E- Kranti – Electronic delivery of services
IT for jobs
E- aadhar
Digilocker

Digital India campaign was launched on social media also and social media has a big hand on its success. Digital India’s official facebook and Twitter account are very active. Social media is playing a crucial role in helping India evolve into its digital form, But it seems a long way to go.

CASE STUDY 4: Make In India

It is a campaign which covers 25 sectors of the economy, launched by Government of India in 2014. The primary goal of Make in India campaign is to encouraging both multinational as well as domestic companies to manufacture their products in India. Make in India has introduced multiple new initiatives, promoting foreign direct investment and developing the manufacturing sectors. Make in India campaign was launched on digital platform also, in which physical files were replaced to online. A web portal was also released which provide all the information about the projects, policies of the campaign.

In today’s scenario everyone has internet access and almost everyone are socially active therefore Make in India also have their official Facebook and Twitter pages which provide the information about the live projects and events. Even Make in India Campaign has their own youtube page also which give all the important videos of the events under it. This campaign used social media in a very good way for their promotion and marketing.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

There are many studies at National and International level , which has been conducted by different scholars which reveals various results on social media enhancing the social movements/campaigns. Study on the usage of social media in stimulating the social movements has begun to surface in the last decades. Most of these studies has focused on particular case studies such as the study of a social movement in middle east- Arab Spring, Me Too Movement which was founded by Tarana Burke but began as a much needed social phenomenon in October 2017 as a hashtag by American actress Alyssa Milano who shared her story of sexual assault against Harvey Weinstein.

Consumption of different media, especially social media is increasing day by day. Youth using internet and mobile phones very much as compare to other media and they are more aware about the movements/campaigns.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

Through analysis-survey based research this research paper will examine the role of social media has played in social movements by exploring the social movements/campaigns of past five years in India. With the help of this research paper, the researcher tried to verify the role of media in promoting the intention to participate in social movements/campaigns.

For the purpose of the research paper, a survey method was used by the researcher as tool for data collection. Since youth are the main consumers of social media, so in the age group of 18 to 30 were chosen for the study. They were asked to fill a questionaire prepared for the purpose of study. Random sampling method has been used for the study.

DATA INTERPRETATION AND ANALYSIS

A survey has been conducted by random sampling, the age group of the selected people is between 18 to 30. The result was collected from the homogenous audience.

The question was asked to know how much time youth spend on social media and we concluded that 50% people spend around 3-4 hours on social media whereas 32.5% people spend 1-2 hours on social media which shows that youth is quite active on social media. However 7.5% people spend around 5-6 hours on social media whereas 10% people spend more than 6 hours on social media.

55% responses were for reading the posts whereas 10% spend their time in liking the posts which shows that people are interested in reading about the social issues and gathering information. However 30% people responses that they spend their maximum time chating on social media with friends and other people whereas 2.5% people spend their time in commenting others posts and 2.5% people response in the favour of sharing the information with people. It shows that maximum people spend their time in reading the content on social media sites and sharing it with other people by posting and chating.

As we discussed previously that there are multiple campaigns launched by government of India in past five years while touching many social topics like Swachh Bharat Campaign, digital India, Make In India and movements held like Me Too Movement. So to evaluate which campaign/movement has highest recall value so again responses were taken from the mixed set of audience and it was analyzed that 62.5% responses for Swachh Bharat campaign claiming the highest recall value whereas 20% responses for Me Too movement and 12.5% responses for Digital India and Make In India which was the famous campaign just got 5% responses from the audience.

Medium is the most important platform through which audience gets to know about various campaigns/movements. Even at one end majority of the government departments have put up web portals to create direct interface with the public. They are also using social networking sites(SNSs) for conveying their message and getting their feedback. Therefore to know the source which helps to create highest football is a matter of analysis so there are four major sources i.e. Social Media, Television, Radio and print media. 66.6% chosen social media over the other medium for information whereas 25% people chosen television over print and radio. However print media was chosen by only 8.4% people. Social media is recently getting trending and an important tool for the dissemination of information to large no. of audience.

At the end it is concluded that social media has a greater reach in compare to other medium.

Last year a movement was manifested from the global campaign against women harassment and assault by the men at working place and other places also. This movement was on trending for a long time on social media by using hashtag #MeToo. Through this question the research wanted to enquire the awareness of the people towards this movement and recall value attached with it. 78.9% responses were in favour of the statement that they know about this movement in India whereas 21.1% are not yet expose to it.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched a campaign in 2014 which immediately got attention with the name “Swachh Bharat Campaign” which was launched with the mission to motivate citizens of India to keep their surroundings neat and clean. This question to know that how much audience know about this campaign as they spend around 3-4 hours on social media. 97.5% responses were gave right answer that Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched this campaign in India whereas 2.5% responses are not yet know about this campaign.

These figures somewhere support the statements that Swachh Bharat Abhiyan was the most successful campaign of the government and it has the highest reach to people. Social media also plays an effective in the success and the reach of this campaign. This campaign has the reach to urban as well as rural people.

As it was discussed previously that people spend around 3-4 hours in using social media now to test the effectiveness of social media in creating awareness about social movements/campaigns, responses were taken and it was evaluated that 56.1% responses agree that social media helps in creating awareness about the campaigns whereas 34.1% reponses were strongly agree with the given statement. However 7.3% responses neither agree nor disagree and 2.4% responses were disagree that social doesn’t play any role in creating awareness about the social movements/campaigns. Majority of people reponses that social media is very important tool through which people get to know about world issues, movements and events.

CONCLUSION

This research paper focused on social media helps in enhancing the social movements/campaigns. Social Media has a great impact on social campaigns in past few years. All the movements/campaigns which were held in last five years has a great reach to the audience through social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Whatsapp. Social Media used as a biggest tool for the dissemination of information in a higher pace. Mostly people spend their time in reading the content which shared on social media, it helps them to bring a change in their thought process and mindset. Social media is a tool which can unite millions of people on one cause and can make them to bring a positive and long lasting change in the society.

This survey results are completely in the favour that social media helps in enhancing the social movements/campaigns. These campaigns/ movements have a way to go in educating the people and engage them to make their positive contribution in sustainable development and growth of humanity in the society.

REFERENCES

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