Friday, March 29, 2024
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Re-searching social space

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By Rajdeep Pathak

Social media since the outbreak of COVID-19 has been flooded with various takeaways, ranging from politics to debates, discussions, courses on wellness, mindfulness and so on and so forth. Also, different platforms on social media are offering online musical classes where a learner can experiment with vibrato, scale, pitch, breath techniques, etc.
Then there are those who are offering dance lessons, yoga and meditation techniques; interactive sessions on public speaking and communications — whose branches have mushroomed throughout the country — to those of living masters of compassion and gratitude with their eternal messages of hope.
Many of the offers are free while some come with a nominal price, and there are others which are subject to the choice that is made.
This (pandemic) period has also opened many lost and found treasures of people who had left them behind in dealing with their daily survival strategies.
From old paintings and school-time photographs of friends hanging onto one another’s shoulder to new recipes by newly home-made chefs, to photographers releasing old and new images, social media today is flooded with creative outputs.
There are also those who have created beautiful windows with fabric and acrylic and paid their tributes to leading figures of India’s renaissance and political leaders whose anniversaries we never missed to celebrate, and social space provides an opportunity to everybody.
Amidst all these, there are those who time and again got us back to realising our societal commitments with their posts of being ‘Covid Warriors’, least to say that it becomes very difficult to comprehend the idea of taking photographs while serving the needy!
One more category of ‘warriors’ in their own right and might are the graphic artistes and illustrators whose powerfully crafted images if at one point, have created strong reactions on social media, at other times, they have just made silence more somber.
In all these cacophony of varied and multifaceted ideas and creativity, what is interesting is to glance through research papers, articles (on the pandemic), living sciences, mental and physical well-being, messages of spiritual gurus, inter-faith dialogues and the list is unending.
And last but not the least are those opinionated folks who have been dominating the social space to take their point (read ideas) to an acceptable forum of their likes (or dislikes). The often self-glorification of their on-field demonstration of the work gather wide praises and equally wider criticism, which very ‘generously’ make them famously infamous or vice-versa.
All these are happening at a time when the economy all over the world is on a down swing. The burden is increasing and social media is also reeling under this pressure.
But amidst the crisis in health, financial sector and overall country’s GDP, what can be seen is that the trust in social media stage is increasing globally. Various platforms are being created for wider publicity and outreach of ideas and thoughts. Webinars with internationally acclaimed experts joining from different nations to share their ideas and global visions is the new fad. Videos of acclaimed musicians sharing screen space from the corridors of their homes as sound engineers create magic have crossed over a million viewership within a short span of time of release on the web.
Functioning of the WFH (work from home) model has taken a different dimension altogether with many international companies having their outsourced clients in different parts of the world are taking forward their work from the comfort of their homes.
Many companies have also divided their work groups (read teams) in different categories and made it clear to them to access their office desk only if it deemed outmost necessity.
Dave Kerpen, cofounder and CEO of ‘Likeable Media’ (an award-winning social media and word-of-mouth marketing firm with offices in New York, Boston and Chicago) in his book “Likeable Social Media” writes: “The social media revolution has given consumers around the world the most powerful voice they’ve ever had. It’s also forced companies to think about how they can be more transparent and responsive.”
Kerpen further says: “Social media, along with a global recession, has led companies, organizations, and governments to figure out how to accomplish more with less money — to get their messages out there and talked about…,” adding, “… it’s the new personalisation of the web that matters most in the social media revolution, both to companies and consumers”.
Kerpen goes on to explain this: “It’s Facebook’s ability to show you exactly what your friends and friends of friends like that makes the like function such a powerful tool. If you have a new baby, for example, you don’t care what stroller is advertised on television, and, in fact, you probably don’t care if 50, 500, or 5,000 people like that stroller of Facebook. But if a friend of yours likes that stroller, you are more likely to feel that you can trust the company that made the item and are comfortable buying”.
Content, companies, products and ideas judged likeable by people you know and trust can be easily found throughout today’s internet.
Companies and professionals who are worthy of people clicking their Like button will, in the short term, build trust and, in the long term, win the new Web in their respective categories points out Kerpen.
“Social media”, further argues Dave, “Is like the world’s largest cocktail party, where anyone can listen to others talking and join the conversation with anyone else about any topic of their choice”. But like in a cocktail where there are only few conversations possible, on-line and through social networks, one can have numerous conversations with potentially thousands or millions of people at once. And like a cocktail party, social media is also a mix of likeable and not-so-likeable people.
What is great about this new world of communication is that everybody has a shot. What is necessary is to be authentic on social networks. What we often miss out in this ever-expanding social space is being human and the ability to demonstrate a personality.
As for the present time that we live under lockdown, social media or online social Web has become the most important tool to keep us connected with the world, beginning from our family and friends.
And while photographs of brands selling ‘designer’ masks are already making rounds in the web and many have joined the buyers’ league, there are also these disturbing and horrifying images of hundreds of dead bodies, burial grounds, funeral pyres, merciless police and equally ruthless murderers on streets and thousands of migrants walking scores of miles, as many die on railway tracks or on road to their destination are all flooding the social Web space.
Equally as we celebrate the victory over death, social media has also helped us to recognise and express our solidarity with our soldiers, Covid Warriors for their sacrifice, steadfastness and dedication to save humanity risking their own lives.
What is needed is to establish this social networking more firmly to make it more real and create an authentic humane space, unlike Aaron Sorkin, who in his screenplay for the hit movie The Social Network about the founding of the Facebook and its early days, told Stephen Colbert in a television interview on September 30, 2010 that a social networking is more of a performance than a reality.
We must realize that authentic social networking can
create long lasting relationships with both people and customers, a space that we all want to build.

(The author is programme executive at Gandhi Smriti and Darshan Samiti, Gandhi Darshan, Rajghat)

Illustration: Pinterest

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