In attempt to influence media further, Ministry okays appointment of social media executives

The Ministry of Information & Broadcasting (I&B) on Monday approved the hiring of 716 social media executives, one for each district of the country aiming at a sharper communication of the government's message to the voters.

The executives are envisaged to analyse local news media and help the government adapt the message according to the responses to it.

The executives will bear the task to “monitor local editions of newspapers, local cable channels, local audio channels and important local social media handles for important local developments”.

On the converse side, they will also have the responsibility to analyse the news to assess the positive or negative responses to the government's messages. This is part of the Ministry’s outreach programme for smaller cities and rural areas. “Till now, the government has largely reacted to opinions based out of the capital, giving a very lopsided view. It is a first-time effort to hear closely what people are saying on the ground beyond the big cities,” a senior Information and Broadcasting official explained.

In the new media outreach programme via the social media, the executives will be virtually run a structured campaign to highlight the Modi government’s achievements.

The new media wing is being set up by the Broadcast Engineering Consultants India Limited (BECIL).

As a case in point, the Ministry recently did real-time monitoring of public online conversations around the word ‘Budget’. All online conversations on open forums like Twitter, public Facebook pages, blogs and so on were closely watched by a small unit set up by I&B Minister Smriti Irani.

Based on the analysis of the group, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley was told to change the message. His budget speech had a neutral message that there was no change in personal income tax slabs. Though that was strictly true, there were items in the budget favourable to certain income tax slabs that were missed by the public, thereby affecting the popular response.

“For example, there was much uproar when Mr. Jaitley prefaced his announcement for the standard deduction of Rs 40,000 on health and transport expenses to salaried classes with the phrase that he would make no changes in personal income tax slabs. Mr. Jaitley’s speech was misunderstood but by the time he gave his press conference, he cleared the air based on our monitoring of the responses,” said a senior Ministry official.