Politics served with concise social media content

 Politics served with concise social media content

The popularity of concise social media content has the potential to impact political outcomes

unregulated digital  social media 

क्या है खास बातें सोशल मीडिया को लेकर 

In India, growing social media use in the vernacular / देशी भाषा  languages, combined with a largely unregulated digital space and a highly competitive, polarised political environment, necessitates vigilance to manage disruptive misinformation.

‘Going viral’ as objective

औसत कितना समय हम दे रहे ?

human attention spans

Recent studies such as “Accelerating Dynamics of Collective Attention” 

which was published in Nature, highlight  decline in human attention spans — from 2.5 minutes two decades ago to just 45 seconds today. 

This decline is mirrored in the popularity of concise / short social media content

 i.e., short videos of less than a minute and ‘articles’ that span less than 200 characters. 

Shorts कंटेंट की ख़ास बातें ?

Short and snappy content is easier to produce. The focus is on the potential of the content to go viral rather than the content itself.

 Such content, which is much easier to produce and designed for ‘viral spread’ rather than depth

Social media algorithms 

increase this by promoting viral content, which often drowns out more substantial, factual narratives.

it means unsound content travels around the world several times faster before rebuttals can even be thought of.

BJP vs Congress social media uses

राजनीति में इसका कितना असर है ?

1 . In India, it is assumed that t (BJP) has a much higher and more effective social media presence than the Congress.

2  In fact, many analysts on both sides of the political spectrum attribute the BJP’s political dominance since 2014 to a significant first mover advantage. 

3 While the Congress relied on rallies and long-winding speeches, the BJP switched to new age media, dominating Facebook, Twitter (now X) and WhatsApp.

 4 It is only since the 2019 general election that the Congress has invested significantly in social media. 

5 Analysis of follower counts and engagement statistics across platforms prove that the BJP still has the edge.

An inversion of roles

Viral political content / बड़े वीडियो को छोटा करके दिखाना 

१ is a strong indicator of how quickly political narratives can be set and propagated.

२  As an example, a recent video by vlogger Dhruv Rathee, titled “Is India Becoming a Dictatorship”, went viral, becoming a topic of discussion on several forums.

 ३ This is significantly larger than any video posted by the political Opposition. 

४ But the content was designed to go viral — different parts of the 30-minute video can be easily edited into simple one-minute sections and tailored to appeal to shortening attention spans.

लेकिन इस प्रकार से shorts से क्या होगा ?

Such context free splicing of content did happen — arguments were shortened, facts were pushed aside and context was ignored.

 Hundreds of ‘shorts’ taken  from the main video resulting in a narrative firestorm / fire that BJP sympathisers struggled to keep up with. 

This article is an illustration of how algorithms and low attention spans allow specific types of content to organically propagate at an astounding / high rate.

What is unique about this case 

is that the narrative was set by an apparently independent content creator and then amplified by political parties.

 This is a marked inversion 

from earlier when politicians delivered the talking points and other agents took on the role of amplification.

 This ‘inversion’ of roles is becoming more apparent in the social media 

strategies of the Opposition – a reliance on supposedly independent social media influencers to generate ‘viral’ content followed by an amplification powered by political leaders.

Analysis is more difficult now

This ‘inversion’ of roles is bound to have a significant impact. The checks and balances in the media, which have already eroded significantly, will continue on their path to irrelevance. 

Democratisation of content creation and algorithms that seek to capitalise on shrinking attention spans has resulted in a truly level playing field, where large pockets for social media spends matter less than having content that is tailored to gratify instantly. 

source the hindu