 "Is this a job you want? I&B min is looking for 'Digital volunteers'")
The government of India has decided to come up with a new programme to help spread the message about its policies. And where exactly does the government aim to do this? On social media such as Facebook and Twitter and with the help of volunteers.
The programme called “My India initiative: A digital volunteer” hopes to spread some positive cheer via a tweet or a status update. The move was initiated by Information& Broadcasting (I&B) minister Manish Tewari on Thursday, who said, “This initiative is a milestone as it would enable government to disseminate information to citizens specially the youth of the country.”
The government has set up a special blog for this programme as well for people to register. You can click on the link here. Ironically the government has chosen blogspot to host its page for this web initiative, a site that was blocked by the government in 2006.
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The Digital Volunteer programme’s page reads that it is aimed at people who are keen to use their personal social presence on different social media platforms to talk about Government schemes and programmes. It also states that the project is based on the idea of _participative governance_and that via this the government wants to engage with you in _real time_and hopes for a more personalised interaction with the target groups.
Who is the target audience here? Obviously all those angry young men and women who spend a large amount of time on Twitter and Facebook.
Who can apply to be a volunteer for the ministry? It’s sufficient if you have an active Twitter and Facebook account. You also need to be proficient in using Tweetdeck, Hootsuite etc. You must have an active and regularly checked email account and access to a computer or a smartphone. And of course most importantly must be willing to use your personal social presence to help Government spread a word about its policies and programmes.
And how does the I&B expect you to help? You can choose to retweet Government Initiatives from tweets by MIB’s Twitter Handle @MIB_India. You can also share their Facebook Posts (facebook.com/inbministry) or Blog posts (inbministry.blogspot.in) or videos from their YouTube Channel videos(youtube.com/user/inbministry) on Social Networking sites.
It is ironical that the government wants to take the social media to spread messages about its policies, when clearly the mood in most social media groups is very anti-government and filled with anger thanks to the recent police excesses against protesting students, the so-called target group that spends the most time on social media.
Taking to social media might sound like an exciting idea, but the truth is that unless the government chooses to engage with people face to face and not on the basis of Flikes, Digital Volunteer seems like a propaganda tool at best.
Looking at the current anger on social media, Digital Volunteer might just not generate the results the I&B is hoping for.
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