KUMAR ANSHUMAN

 

Tweet time
- By Kumar Anshuman

Story Dated: Friday, February 22, 2013 17:44 hrs IST 

 

Governments are often lampooned for not understanding the pulse of the people. So the information and broadcasting ministry’s first live Twitter conference came as a pleasant surprise. The overwhelming response from the Twitterati proved that, for once, everyone was on the same page, maybe webpage.

The live Twitter conference scheduled for half an hour on February 8 went on for more than an hour, and received about 200 questions on different aspects of the community radio programme, the theme of the conference. Though the I&B secretary could immediately respond to only 45 of them, the triumphant smiles on the faces of the officials showed that the experiment was a success.

“The ministry will continue to do such exercises on other issues in the near future,” said a delighted Uday Kumar Varma, I&B secretary. “The conference had provided the ministry the medium to understand the perception of the people in the social media space.”
The idea of using social media to connect to people had been in discussion ever since Manish Tewari took charge of the ministry. The minister is an active tweeter. Though National Innovation Council chairman Sam Pitroda had earlier organised a Twitter conference, it elicited only a moderate response.

The I&B ministry formed a social media cell last September with the intention of promoting and popularising the good work of the ministry and the government. It started with a YouTube channel, INBMINISTRY. In collaboration with Doordarshan, the channel shows ten-minute news bulletins twice a day. Some rare documentaries and famous speeches have also been posted on the channel. The ministry has a blog and a Facebook account in addition to the Twitter handle. Four officers in the social media cell work in rotation to maintain the accounts.

Twitter was chosen for the interaction because it was the only medium where the audience can interact in a live conference-like environment. Many interesting questions and suggestions came up during the discussion, like introducing community radio at school and using it in Naxal-affected areas. Someone even wanted to know about making it a viable business option.

The I&B ministry wants to take it to the next level and has started a digital volunteer programme called My India Initiative. It aims at disseminating the development messages across social media platforms by registering citizens as volunteers. “This initiative is a milestone as it would enable the government to disseminate information to citizens, especially the youth of the country,” said Tewari. “It is a programme rooted in the principles of participative governance leading to real time engagement through social media tools.”