Social Media - The Fourth Pillar

Social Media: Reconstructing

the Fourth Pillar

 

Social media permits multiple identities - tribal, feudal, regional, linguistic, national, religious, ... It allows the material impulses/instincts to be satisfied by proxy, in the virtual world. The very nature of the network allows hierarchical and horizontal connections with others

 

Recent technological innovations put the tools of production of media content in the hands of common man. It allows anybody with access to the Net to reach across to millions. It gives voice to erstwhile voiceless. Access to these tools empowers the powerless.  

For the traditional large corporate media houses, however, it has been very disempowering. Grandmothers start chitchatting with their grandchildren on the other part of the world, disregarding their favourite serial - because that is the best time to interact with people on the other part of the world. Young householders living in rented flats are attending to their virtual farms and decorating their virtual houses, fulfilling their instincts and dreams. Young children making up animation stories using applications in iPad... Attracting eyeballs to any mass entertainment has never been more difficult.  

From the traditional mass media point of view, the new media is seen as merely another platform for delivery. But the new media is much more than that. It is a platform for interactions, conversations, searching, creating and sharing. Sharing is a two way process but media delivery is a one way street. The traditional business models for media are not yet really ready for this transformation. 

Challenges to traditional media 

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Challenge of Good Governance

The Challenge of Good Governance in India: Need for Innovative Approaches 

 

The need is to go for ‘million negotiations’ that would ensure that government, market and civil society work together for the poor 

 

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, in his famous Tryst with Destiny speech of 15th August 1947 succinctly put the task before people’s representatives and the services in the following words; “….. to fight and end poverty and ignorance and disease; to build up a prosperous, democratic and progressive nation, and to create social, economic and political institutions which will ensure justice and fullness of life to every man and woman.” These works are still in progress. A deeper look at these tasks would clearly establish that these goals are entirely within the realm of governance. 

Meaning 

There is no accepted definition of governance. There is divergence of opinion about the meaning of governance between the conservatives and the liberals, between socialists and the communists.  

In recent years the word governance has become a very fashionable term and is being used in a variety of ways and that covers a large number of organizations both in public and private domains. 

For our purposes, however, we are confining governance only to public domain. We are concerned here with that form of governance which serves the citizens by safeguarding territorial integrity of the State and securing individual security, rule of law and the delivery of services ranging from education, health to livelihood and food security. 

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