2017: Social Media (SM) and Political Mentoring of Gen Z
Move over millennials ! That’s what Gen Z ( those born after 1996) would have said as the clock of 2018 started ticking . During the year many will cross the Rubicon, that is, attain 18 years of age, marking both an end and a start - the end of their political incubation and the first feel of empowerment in very many ways, not the least being the Vote . Increasingly their voices will reverberate in all fortresses of decision making.
It is a generation quite distinct from its progenitors, not merely computer savvy but dwelling in the virtual world. Gen Z derives its substantive experiential learning from online interactions in virtual communities and chat chambers across various social media platforms, e-mails ,SMSs....Hence SM has a disproportionately greater influence on their lives,maybe even more than their parents. So it’s crucial that the ’normals’ in this digital world be in sync with mores and values in their literal geographies. These impressionable minds ,flexible and non-opinionated, need exposure to all points of view and shades of opinion to enable healthy attitudes and views to crystallise. Their making informed political choices is pivotal to the fate and direction of our democracy. And obviously, such fodder must be made available where their mouths lie , namely , the social media.
But first a word about the nature of the two stand-out social media in the country , FB and Twitter. To borrow a term used by Nancy Gibbs, their business model is “Echo chamber construction”. The algorithms subtly nudge users seamlessly, noiselessly and with stealth into ‘chambers’ populated by ‘friends’ with kindred views and proclivities. In a manner of speaking, these chambers are virtual homesteads of clans, consanguineous ,not by blood, but ‘common interest’ . SM transforms connectedness into polarised subsets of society. These solidarities get further boosted by that basic human frailty-confirmation bias, tendency to only look for evidences or associations confirming one’s beliefs and ignoring others. Thus reinforced it becomes an unshakeable self-belief that admits of no contrarian arguments. For the ‘converts’ Mr Modi an ‘avatar of Lord Krishna’, or ‘RG a Pappu’.....is ‘irrefutable’.
Then there is the echo effect. A view expressed in a ‘chamber’ echoes ,amplifies and may build up to a crescendo that resonates across many other chambers. Also ,the impersonal nature of its interactions and the shroud of obscurity that it affords emboldens users to speak fearlessly. With internet users base expanding exponentially SM is fast emerging as THE dominant influence on the national psyche , for good or evil.
Its potential for good is best illustrated by actor, Alyssa Milano ‘ s , USA tweet on 15.10. 2016 seeking out women sexually harassed at workplaces to reply under the hashtag #MeToo. Within 24 hours 32000 replies poured in and the ensuing storm uprooted offenders from petty restaurant owners to Senators. In 2017 the hashtag #TIMESUP strengthened its momentum into a category 5 hurricane. Serial sexual harassers, once too-big-to-catch, now find their reputations besmirched, assignments withdrawn and defending multi-million dollar suits for long forgotten sexual misdemeanours. Such tarrred ‘rainmakers’ who used their positions to seek sexual favours include Harvey Weinstein, Hollywood filmmaker, Charlie Rose , TV journalist ,Travis Kalanick, Co-founder of UBER..... The list is long. As a tribute to the unflagging courage shown by these whistleblowers TIME collectively named them ‘Person of the Year 2017’ .
Our nation with much bigger challenges in its socio-political domain presents ample opportunities for such activism on SM. Sadly , in 2017 SM failed to espouse any cause that snowballed into a headline social or political movement of reform and uplift. The positive face of SM remained hidden.
Rather, negativity it hyped in galore. An MP labled Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma marrying in Italy not India an ‘anti-national’ act and the hyper active nationalist chambers set social media ablaze ; a Sonu Nigam tweet “ I am not a Muslim and I have to wake up by Azaan in the morning. When will this forced religiousness end in India.” ( how azaans in earlier phase of his life were not such a pestilence , he missed to explain ) that ,thankfully, was not followed by a Hindu-Muslim riot ; a Youth Congress meme tells PM, Modi ‘Tu chai bech’ and Mani Shanker Aiyar calls Modi a ‘neech kism ka aadmi ‘ are illustrative of the dark buzzes heard in 2017.
The capacity of SM to pulsate a negative narrative ,more so those posted by influential persons, runs a real risk of finding traction with the young. That can’t be a good learning experience for the generation-in-waiting.
What’s more FB, Twitter, and even more WhatsApp peddle discomforting levels of fake stuff. For instance, an MP paid tribute to Indian army men at Siachin glacier by showing photos of Russian army men posted by Russia way back in 2013. An alleged fake FB post of a fake Pak general was good enough for PM to claim Pakistan wanting to make Ahmed Patel Gujarat CM . Another went beyond demonising Nehruvian legacy to character assassinating the man himself as a womaniser by posting photos of Nehru hugging two women. The pictures were real but the implied narrative was fake as the women hugged were his sister and niece. Understandably, ideological compulsions may lead to muting Nehru’s contribution to nation building, but distorting his persona is sordid iconoclasm.
Besides, all the noise generated on SM may not even be human. A Twitter audit claims more than 60% followers of PM, Modi and RG are non- humans , that is ,bots ,computers programmed to tweet responses. So even the turbulence that political biggies generate maybe faked.
Political discourse ,as heretofore , aimed at shouting down contrary voices , shooing off dissenters instead of proffering competing arguments. Disputations invoked past sins and creative history, innuendos , half truths ,even outright lies. The anonymity afforded by the media continued to embolden political evangelists to abuse, hate, orchestrate misogyny and threaten. ‘Human of Hindutva’ deleted its FB page after its admin received threats to his life. His parting words “ no desire toend up like Gauri Lankesh or Afrazul Khan . Congratulations Hindutva for winning this David vs Goliath fight” , haunt. Cyberspace suffers a severe ‘sub kucch chalta hai’ syndrome; a virtual mobocracy that spills onto streets at its worst or a Tower of Babel with indecipherable uproar at its benign best . If we have a cyber police then it must be on the ‘missing persons list’ for none of the toxic trolls ever get hauled up.
One reason could be that troll regiments wage a proxy war for political parties and its fraternal groups. As an example, Nikhil Dadhich ,a ‘Hindu nationalist’, who tweeted soon after murder of Gauri Lankesh “ One bitch dies a dog’s death all the puppies cry in the same tune.” mentions ‘proud to be followed by Narendra Modiji’ in his profile. A batch of honour or a protective shield, perhaps ? Thousands of venomous trolls are indeed followed by the PM which can only spur them to greater heights of vileness and weigh down law enforcement agencies to lower troughs in policing.
All this presents an existential dilemma before GenZ . In the earthly domain it sees netas meeting each other without daggers drawn, trolls living a normal life and observing social codes , bigots not preying on non-believers ,fringe elements not patrolling streets with guns blazing at heretics and apostates , though some dastardly murders have been linked to them and cow vigilante groups. So, what is real ? That’s the dichotomy new generation has to increasingly grapple with.
All in all , 2017 has not been a worthwhile year in the political education of Gen Z through social media. One hopes 2018 changes it all .
“ There never was a night or a problem that could defeat sunrise or hope”
