Rise of Political Social Media Cells: Urgent need for media literacy programs to counter propaganda

Journalism is in a state of significant flux. In this digital era, it is defined as “history written in a hurry,” and there has also been a tremendous boost in the reach of journalism, social media, and public engagement. Moreover, it gave birth to disinformation and hoaxes. Historically, governments have relied on media to communicate with people, ensuring that they acquire the information that will shape their day-to-day decisions. But, with the development of digital media, they seem to bypass it and start communicating directly to people. As a result, most people, sans a handful, accepted what they saw on social media sites without independently verifying the content. The same case applies to newspapers too. And it is apparent that clarification or presenting what is right or wrong takes time, and people, primarily politicians and political strategists, took advantage of it during election time.
The modus operandi in utilization was exemplified by American political scientist and communication theorist Harold D Lasswell in his book published in 1927 called “Propaganda Technique in the World War.” In the book, he promulgated the ‘Hypodermic Needle Model,’ also known as ‘Magic Bullet Theory,’ to explain how the mass media influences audiences. “The hypodermic or magic bullet theory hypothesizes that a media message can be shot directly into its audience’s brains, who then wholly accepts the message,” Laswell wrote after examining the media and its effects in the First World War.
The recent Manipur polls witnessed various political parties employing this model using social media as the needle, injecting the news about their achievements and rival candidates’ faults into people’s minds to influence their voting behaviors. Even before the election, the last five years saw political parties using social media as crucial components to woo voters. Using the new digital platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and the latest one – Koo- political organizations have unleashed information to influence electorates and counter criticisms mounted against them by rivals as these platforms affect public opinion and their behaviors to a great extent. In addition, organizations or individuals have taken advantage of digital platforms to trick, deceive, abuse others through disseminating fake news and disinformation.
The need of the hour to counter fake news and propaganda is to escalate dialogues and parlays without sabotaging the miracles of digital media. And it is attainable only when the authorities start boosting media literacy among the people. But unfortunately, in the last five years of the BJP-led coalition government steered by journalist-turned-politician N Biren Singh, no media and journalism courses were introduced to the state’s colleges. Only postgraduate programs have been offered in Manipur University since 2005 and some vocational courses at DM Community College. So, in a nutshell, to improve the quality of journalism and ensure people get accurate information, the government needs to equip people with the required skills and knowledge by introducing media and journalism courses in government institutions at par with renowned media institutes like IIMC, AJKMRC, ACJ, etc., which have tended to be islands of excellence in the sea of mediocrity.