Smart Governance: Emerging dimensions
How Social Media can Help Good Governance
Dr. Mrinal Chatterjee
What
is Governance?
The concept of governance is broader than
government. Governance involves government, civil society
and the private sector in managing the affairs of a nation, which means that
the responsibility for managing the affairs of a nation is not limited to government
alone, but includes a wide variety of stakeholders including: union and state
government, local governments; the private sector; non-governmental and
community-based organizations (NGOs/CBOs), the media, professional associations
and other members of civil society. And each actor has a specific role to play
based on its source of legitimacy and comparative advantage[1].
However, government is the major stake holder in governance.
Characteristics of Good governance
Good
governance has major characteristics like participation, rule of law,
transparency, responsiveness, equity and inclusiveness, effectiveness,
efficiency, accountability and strategic vision and consensus orientation. It
assures that corruption is minimized, the views of minorities are taken into
account and that the voices of the most vulnerable in society are heard in
decision-making and implementation. It is also responsive to the present and
future needs of society, balancing between growth and distribution, present and
future resource use.
Role Media can play in Governance
The
role media can and ought to play in governance[2]
closely relate to its core functions and goals: a. providing fair and objective
information, b. acting as a bridge between the government and the governed, c.
keeping a watch on the functioning of different organs of government and
non-government players, d. providing different perspective relating to issues
which helps in deciding a clear roadmap.
What are Social Media?
First
used in 2004, social media mean forms of electronic
communication (as Web sites for social networking and microblogging) through
which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal
messages, and other content (as videosAndreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein define social media as "a group of Internet-based
applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web
2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content. Furthermore, social media depend on
mobile and web-based technologies to create highly interactive platforms
through which individuals and communities share, co-create, discuss, and modify
user-generated content. They introduce substantial and pervasive changes to
communication between organizations, communities, and individuals. A common thread running through all
definitions of social media is a blending of technology and social interaction
for the co-creation of value. )[3]. Examples of social media
are facebook, twitter, youtube, linkedin, etc.
How is it different from Mainstream Media
Social
media are distinct from traditional media such as newspapers, television, and
film as they are comparatively inexpensive and accessible. They enable anyone
to publish or access information. The other differences include quality, reach, frequency, usability, immediacy, and
permanence.
1. Quality:
In traditional publishing, which is mediated the content usually goes through
checks and some form of scrutiny. This is usually lacking in social media. The
main challenge posed by content in social media sites is the fact that the
distribution of quality has high variance: from very high-quality items to
low-quality, sometimes abusive content.
2. Reach:
Both mainstream and social media technologies provide scale and are capable of
reaching a global audience. Mainstream media, however, typically use a
centralized framework for organization, production, and dissemination, whereas
social media are by their very nature more decentralized, less hierarchical,
and distinguished by multiple points of production and utility.
3. Frequency:
Because of its characteristic and the ease provided by the technology social
media content could be posted more frequently than the content generated and
posted by mainstream media.
4. Accessibility:
Unlike mainstream media, social media tools are generally available to the
public at little or no cost for both content generation and content use.
5. Usability:
Mainstream media production typically requires specialized skills and training.
Conversely, most social media production requires only modest reinterpretation
of existing skills; in theory, anyone with access can operate the means of
social media production.
6. Immediacy:
The time lag between communications produced by mainstream media can be long
(days, weeks, or even months) compared to social media (which can be capable of
virtually instantaneous responses).
7. Permanence:
It is very difficult to alter content once created in mainstream media, (for
example, once a magazine article is printed and distributed, changes cannot be
made to that same article) whereas social media can be altered almost
instantaneously.
Social-media technologies take on many different forms including
magazines, Internet forums, weblogs, social blogs, microblogging, wikis, social
networks, podcasts, photographs or pictures, video, etc. Many of the
platforms in use can be integrated.
Why are we talking about it? Is it that
important?
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. 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. Thus more and more people are using social media.
Questions
might be raised about the use and efficacy of social media in India. By 2014 India
has an Internet penetration of just about 19.19%. But the other side is it is
growing fast. In the last one year it has grown by 14%. The growth is happening
all over the world.[4]
Another interesting fact is that in India more and more people are accessing Internet
through mobile phones, which have become ubiquitous. Consider the growth of
smart phones and the people who are using this not only in big cities, but also
in small towns even in villages. A survey conducted in Nov. 2014 by the
students of Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), reveal that in a
small town like Dhenkanal in Central Odisha more than half of the matriculate
youngsters prefer to read from electronic devices like computer, e-reader,
mobile phone, etc. They also want to engage with social media for various
reasons, of which accessing information is a major purpose.
If
that is the case, than it
is but natural that Government agencies across all levels
(national, state, local) can reap the benefits of social media as
it can help in governance in all the ways mainstream can do and probably more.
How can it help Good Governance?
Sreeram
Ananthasayanam writes about this in his essay titled “Social Media for good
governance’[5]:
… “Let us look at the
possibilities from the perspective of Government-to-Citizen interactions:
Social Media can be used by governments as a
citizen lobbyist – a lobbyist for positive transformation thereby helping the
agencies become government for the people
Social media can be used by agencies as a
mechanism to solicit response on policy planning, flaws / drawbacks in
implementations thereby helping the agencies become government for the people
Most importantly, Social Media can be used as
a channel for Government-Citizen communication across various layers of
accountability, responsibility, hierarchy etc.
Jude Hanan in her blog[6],
‘Using social media in government’ offers more ideas:
·
(Social Media) Creates the means to improve
governance. Social media
provides easy publication and rapid spread of information. By doing so,
it creates transparency that can strengthen citizen goodwill towards
government. For citizens, by embedding government information in
social media provides hitherto unimagined access to government and the means to
connect in real time. For government, it offers the ability to rapidly poll
public opinion and perhaps more importantly, forecast broader, societal trends.
·
Opens up access to government and government
officials and
create new possibilities for community driven initiatives. It makes sense for
government to enable and facilitate a partnership culture for this to
occur. (Does this perhaps, mean a new era of Public Private
Partnerships?)
·
Saves time and money. Providing information through social media channels
offers real efficiencies in creating faster, easier and cheaper access to
information, particularly to younger voters who tend use, read and operate in
social media spaces.
·
Creates new ways of working. Online collaboration across
government departments and with citizens could force change on the way
government operates and develops policy.
As the world moves towards greater democracy and
decentralized governance, citizen participation has become even more crucial to
achieving good governance and political stability. Governance improves when
good communication is established. Appropriately designed communication tools
increase awareness, stimulate dialogue, and improve participation between
citizens and local governments.
Social
media can help initiate development changes where actually needed for local
governments. Social media can serve as a systematic listening tool, allowing
not only initiating dialogue, but also to conduct public opinion research,
consulting citizens to design development projects, and share results. The
outcome of this is optimum utilization of limited resources and meeting
people's real aspirations for reforms in a transparent manner, thus directly
ensuring governments to gain better political mileage.
In several developed countries with high
telecom / broad band infrastructure and mobile telephony access social media is
being increasingly used as a tool of governance. In future its use is likely to
increase further for two major reasons. One, the ease and benefit of use of
social media will attract more users and more forms of use. Two, the developing
technology will make it more user friendly[7].
As
former Union Cabinet Secretary TSR Subramanian writes in his opinion piece in
The New Sunday Express[8],
India can use IT (Information Technology) to catch up with developed world
within two decades, if correct strategies are in place. Social media can create
the right kind of buzz. It can increase demand for those services. Language
used to be a problem in this. But with the development of technology,
information could be sent in almost all Indian languages.
Though
not in a large scale, social media is being used in India in several government
departments and offices to an encouraging effect.
Examples of use of social media in Govt.
sector
a. In June 2012, the District Collector of
Madurai, Anshul Mishra, inaugurated a facebook page for the district
administration. According to official estimates, about 30 to 35 complaints and
grievances were sent to the Collector through the facebook page daily.
Unbelievable as it sounds, a majority of the Facebook account holders expressed
satisfaction over the swift response from administrators to their
representations. While civic issues such as non-removal of garbage, encroachment,
non-functioning of street lights or vacancies in government institutions such
as Primary Health Centers were sorted out as soon as possible, grievances
pertaining to Central government institutions or other districts were forwarded
to the respective authorities.
b. The example of Bangalore Traffic Police
embracing Facebook as a medium to communicate has been a resounding success. A
recent post in the Facebook page details the rerouting of traffic due to a
religious procession, which was well received, and indeed proves that this is a
channel for communication that has to be tapped.
c. In Gurgaon, two local
administrative initiatives demonstrated the huge benefits of social media in
improving local governance. The Gurgaon Police page on facebook enabled the
Gurgaon Police to create a crucial link with the citizens. The facebook page
helped in establishing trust and confidence. This was an exemplary step forward
in good governance because it brought a crucial department in the government
closer to the citizens. In fact, Gurgaon Police proactively advertised its
Facebook page as the first point of contact, empowering citizens to connect
with the police without fear or prejudice. Within days of its launch, the image
of Gurgaon Police improved.
d.
A similar initiative was taken by a former MCG commissioner,
R K Khullar, who empowered citizens to click pictures of unclean streets and
broken roads and upload them on to the MCG page. The aim was to improve
accountability of sanitation contractors and allow the MCG to monitor its own
performance in providing civic services.
Caveat
Social
media can help in good governance. But social media or for that any media is
not a panacea. At the end of the day, media is a tool, a very effective one,
but just a tool.
Moreover,
social media because of its ‘ultra democratic’ characteristics can create some
additional problems. Many believe that that social networking encourages protests
by motivating people to participate in them. As it enhances homophily[9] or in many cases ‘over
homophily’ it reduces opportunity of debate and instead creates an atmosphere
where groups with rigid stand on issues often come into conflict.
Critics
also point out that, social media lack the rigour and check and balance
mechanism of mainstream media. It is easy to spread a canard or disinformation
through social media (the exodus of people from North Eastern States from
Southern cities following spread of rumour in social media is one recent
example).
However, behavioural theorists do not
consider it serious. In an article, "Small Changes: Why the revolution
will not be tweeted", published in New Yorker, Malcolm Gladwell writes[10]: "Social networks are
effective in increasing participation - by lowering the level of motivation
that participation requires." While
members in a social network may participate in a protest, there is often very
little real motivation behind that participation to sustain it. There can be
occasional protests for small goals initiated through Facebook, for example a candle-light
march, but protests for long-term change happen only when groups of people are
ready to make sustained "high-risk" sacrifices.
Of course, like any tool social media too has the potential to do
damage if consciously used for the wrong purposes. This, however, does not
diminish the greater value of the tool to do good, the primary purpose for
which it was developed in the first place. History is witness to the fact that
dialogue is a starting point for resolving conflicts. Social media offers this
space for dialogue. It is good for citizens, and even better for governance.
What is needed?
As a Times of India report titled ‘Social media good for citizens, even
better for governance’ says[11],
“What helps is that social media allows government servants to own up to things
that make a difference to citizens, and this owning up gives a sense of
purpose. Social media is now proving to be the spark that ignites the
collaboration between citizens and the currently “unnamed government servant”,
who wants to contribute and is seen as contributing. What is required to
sustain this fire is linking quick response to public praise of departments,
their employees and the politicians who fund them.
The challenges are known, and a strong
policy/political will can help tackle these. The most important one is the will
to engage, both from the polity and the bureaucracy. There is also the
challenge of creating a structured mechanism with clear demarcation of roles
and responsibility on who from the polity or bureaucracy will communicate on
what issues. Once this is taken care of, then there is a need for constant
continuous engagement and acting on the request and inputs that come from the
citizens. Else there is the threat of this becoming yet another initiative on
paper. Only a sustained effort from both the sides will propel this to a self
sustaining model.
Conclusion
Social Media for Government-to-Citizen
interaction is just a beginning. It needs to be taken forward to the next
level. Social Business additionally encompasses Government-to-Government,
Government-to-Employee and Government-to-Business interactions. Social Business
uses collaboration tools like wikis, blogs, instant messaging etc and makes the
business of government efficient and effective. Some of the very clear benefits
include moving to the agenda of open government where various agencies can
collaborate seamlessly on a common denominator at the level of an individual
citizen.
Sharing of information across agencies,
faster communication, less red-tape, improved search resulting in faster
retrievals, records for posterity etc will make decision making faster,
transparent and help improve accountability.
That will augur well for governance.
***
9 Dec. 2014
(Published in Journal of Indian Institute of Public Administration, Vol xvvi, 2015, Indian Institute of Public Administration, Odisha Regional Branch, Bhubneswar)
[1] V. K. Parigi, et al, Ushering in Transparency for Good Governance, Nov. 2004
[2] The relationship between media and good governance was the 2005 theme for the UNESCO World Press Freedom Day.
[3] http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/social%20media
[4] Around 40% of the world population has an internet connection today. In 1995, it was less than 1%. The number of internet users has increased tenfold from 1999 to 2013. Retrieved from http://www.internetlivestats.com/internet-users/ on 8 Dec. 2014.
[5] http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-miscellaneous/tp-others/social-media-for-good-governance/article4480396.ece. Posted on 6 March, 2003. Retrieved on 8 Dec. 2014
[6]http://blogs.worldbank.org/publicsphere/9-2013-using-social-media-good-governance. Posted onThursday, 26 Dec. 2013; Retrieved on 8 Dec. 2014.
[7] The IT (Information Technology) is entering what is known as the third platform era. Simply put, the new IT era is uniting key trends, including the social media, mobility and cloud storage. While the first platform served only the experts with mainframe computers and the second PCs was occupied by early adopters and teen agers, the third has ushered in the democratic age of information technology. It is no longer that intimidating (or so it seems) to general public. That level of ease in use is a definite plus point.
[8] Subramanian TSR, India Can Use IT to Catch Up With Developed World Within Two Decades, New Sunday Express, 7 Dec. 2014
[9] Homophily is the tendency for friendships and many other interpersonal relationships to occur between similar people. Thelwell, Mike 2009, ‘Homophilly in MySpace’, Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, vol. 60 no 2, pp 219-31
[10] http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/10/04/small-change-3. Posted Oct 4, 2010. Retrieved on Dec. 8 2014.
[11]http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/gurgaon/Social-media-good-for-citizens-even-better-for-governance/articleshow/23478607.cms Posted Oct 4, 2013. Retrieved Dec. 8 2014
No comments:
Post a Comment