#SocialMedia...The 5th Pillar Of Democracy Is Replacing A Crumbling 4th

#SocialMedia – The 5th Pillar Of Democracy Is Replacing A Crumbling 4^th

Indian democracy is said to rest on the venerable four pillars of the legislature, the executive, the judiciary, and the media.

In brief, we have:

· A legislature epitomized by a non-functioning Parliament

· An executive whose power is centralized within few individuals & groups

· A judiciary that is outdated, backlogged, blind and corrupt

· A Mainstream Media, which is sold out and has become TRP war room & fish market.

India has become a nation where self proclaimed corrupt individuals have become intellectuals. For me these are people who have been educated more then their intelligence. At any time you will find these pseudo intellectuals sitting in TV studios with some of most insipid journalists passing judgment without knowing that on other side Social Media is exposing them.

Social media has been broadly defined to refer to 'the many relatively inexpensive and widely accessible electronic tools that enable anyone to publish and access information, collaborate on a common effort, or build relationships.'

Just as television turned a nation of people who listened to media content into watchers of media content, the emergence of social media has created a nation of media content creators.

“A disruptive innovation is an innovation that creates a new market and value network and eventually disrupts an existing market and value network, displacing established market leaders and alliances.”

According to 2011 Pew Research data, nearly 80% of American adults are online and nearly 60% of them use social networking sites. More Americans get their news via the Internet than from newspapers or radio, as well as three-fourths who say they get news from e-mail or social media sites updates, according to a report published by CNN.

The survey suggests that Facebook and Twitter make news a more participatory experience than before as people share news articles and comment on other people's posts. According to CNN, in 2010 75% of people got their news forwarded through e-mail or social media posts, whereas 37% of people shared a news item via Facebook or Twitter.

In Indian context it’s interesting to note that as of December 2015, India has 410 million internet users out of which 70% have access to Social Media and 80% of these users access social media via mobile devices. By 2019 this figure will be close to 800 million.

As Disruptive As IT Gets ….Social Media vs Indian Mainstream Media

Social media is becoming an integral part of life online as social websites and applications proliferate. Most traditional online media include social components, such as comment fields for users.. Social media is the collective of online communications channels dedicated to community-based input, interaction, content-sharing and collaboration. The availability of social media makes anyone eligible to voice their opinion. Another interesting truth is that while a print media life is not more then few hours, digital world is 24x7 open. People use search engines to pick up stories which most of us have forgotten.

In the recent years, we have witnessed social networks blossom. Social networking reshaped worldwide communication significantly increased the speed of news spread, and connected the world stronger than ever.

Abhishek Singhvi CD scandal brought into focus the increasingly confrontational relationship between social media and mainstream media. When a court order kept the mainstream from broadcasting the CD, social media took center stage in spreading it online and keeping a buzz about the scandal for days. Many termed it as a "victory" for social media. Others slammed social media users as "eternal voyeurs" and wondered why they seemed to be above the court order. In return, blogs went as far as to title a post, "Why the Indian MSM (mainstream media) Wants Social Media Dead".

Offline outrage about online steam-letting is simple. In India, leading English news channels has fewer than few million viewers where as my own handle, which has about 52000 followers, has more than 25 million tweet impressions per week.

The real dramatic change is the manner in which social and online media have made traditional media more accountable. Editors and TV anchors are routinely named and shamed if they wander off the straight and narrow. Prejudices are ruthlessly exposed, political affiliations closely scrutinized and slanted articles hoist on their own petard - in real-time.

In the last 2 years there had been number of misreporting by main stream media (MSM) which were ruthlessly exposed by Social Media within minutes. The latest example was Home Minister comment about Hindu Prime Minister & before end of day the publication had to issue an apology.

A simple google these days search will throw 100s of such cases where a news or information was intentionally twisted for someone political mileage or due to personal bias. Misreporting on front page and then publishing an apology in some corner of last pages was ruthlessly exposed by Social Media.

TV anchors who use Twitter hashtags to build audiences for their programmed quickly realize how sharp this double-edged sword is when negative hashtags start trending.

“The rich and powerful piss on us and the media tells us it’s raining”

During 2014 Lok Sabha election I coined a term PIMP for these MSM journalists, which means “Paid Indian Media Professionals”. The chat below, which is circulating on whatsapp explain why MSM is losing its strong ground to Social Media & I am quite sure in next 3 to 5 years 50% of News Channel & publication have to shut their shops.

Intellectualism is no more propriety of few powerful & famous journalists. The Dadri incident has exposed Mainstream Media beyond repair.

The digital world is ruthless and not for the faint heated. Gone are those days when in front of public you oppose your opponent and at comfort of home you have a good relationship. In case of politicians and celebrity journalists, their egos get punctured the moment they go online. That is why not a single member of dynasty family Gandhi’s has dared venture onto any Social Media platforms. May be they are present on SM with some dummy name. Even, Rahul Gandhi twitter handle is managed by his team and 90% of his followers are only following to get idea for next joke.

The famous “Church Attacks” across India during Delhi State election in early 2015 have been reported by MSM as "attacks on Christians". Where as Social Media even before police investigation reported that these attacks, as subsequent Police Investigations have proved, were isolated acts of petty criminals, not communal incidents. 

The gang rape of a 71-year-old nun in West Bengal was similarly misreported as a communal attack on Christianity by right-wing Hindus whereas later investigations showed the culprits to be Muslim youths. Even in case of Dadri Incident and the one in Faridabad where Dalit kids were burnt to death, I tweeted on day 2 that it’s neither electoral or caste politics but a love triangle.

These are some of example to understand why slowly Social Media is replacing Mainstream Media as prime source of Information and news. Social Media is by individuals who are not funded by anyone but report from ground to spread a word.

Such irresponsible reporting by MSM with minimal editorial errata issued - is picked up by other news outlets, including international media, without cross-checking the facts. The result: where there is no communal tension, it is created by journalism of vilification.

Alert social media is an unforgiving critic of such chicanery. It spares no one - individual journalists or media organisations with political agendas. Some marquee names have been outed. More will follow.

Felix Salmon, a US-based media writer, warns: "If Facebook continues to grow as a trusted news source in its own right, then the result could be an existential crisis for news organisations with old-fashioned things like editors and fact-checkers and clear ethical guidelines. Those things are expensive, and it's far from clear that Facebook's readers particularly value them. The risk is that they'll just get disinter-mediated away."

Will Oremus, writing in the online news magazine Slate, once owned by Microsoft, is equally worried: "Facebook has made it clear that newspapers who sign on early will see huge growth in their Facebook reach. If that proves true, others will scramble to follow, even as it becomes clear they're seeing diminishing returns. Meanwhile, the holdouts would see their Facebook audiences wither and die, as Facebook's algorithms gradually downgrade posts that link out to third-party websites."

Social media has certainly taken a toll on mainstream media, and has sort of left it far behind in its tracks in a lot of ways. People's first front of information seems to be social media, and I don't see this changing anytime soon. Today I decide what news I consume & how I consume. The time for pushing news or imposing opinion is history. Now it’s all about involvement & interaction.

Journalism is dead, and I feel what we see today are paid representatives who have outstanding command on grammar and are mouth piece of Political parties and corporate. Whereas Social Media bring out reports right from source faster than any other medium.

Today mainstream media is in state of insecurity and it's real, however in place of taking corrective measures, they land up labeling people as trolls who dare to question their motives or misreporting.

Few recent activities like the “intolerance” & “Award Wapsi” debate have demonstrated power of Social Media over Mainstream media and you like it or not but Social Media is here to stay. A country, which has more, than 65% population under 35 years doesn’t waste time on Mainstream Media and reject those who believe that they can use social media as their notice board. It’s Social Media and more importantly interactive Social Media where people participate in decision-making and recent example is “No Cricket with Pakistan”. It’s time for Politicians & Journalist to fall in line or fall out.

Intolerance has to do nothing with religion. It's a reaction by Elite Class, when Ordinary Citizen challenge their Monopoly .. 

Indian mainstream media wants Social Media dead because these media houses & journalist have lost credibility beyond point of no return, where the 4th pillar of democracy is crumbling and 5th pillar is taking its place in Democracy.

I did say it in 2013 and I repeat it again. During 2014 Lok Sabha elections 156 seats were affected by Social Media & Mobile. 

In 2019 more than 319 seats will be affected by SM & Mobile. hence 2019 general election, The SM will play king maker role & main stream media will be virtually DEAD. It's a very bold statement but goinf by past record, my statement were proved correct in due course of time.