Social Media: Prospect and Challenges

The term social media is being used quite often by everyone and has become a popular topic of conversation, debates and controversies.

“The social networking phenomenon continues to gain steam worldwide, and India represents one of the fastest growing markets at the moment”.

This reflects the emergence of social media in India in upcoming time…so here is presenting a brief article on social media: prospects and challenges.

Introduction
What is social media?
Types of social media
Implications and uses
Challenges before social media
Prospects of social media in India
Concerns about privacy
Way ahead

Introduction:

Social Media is the latest form of media available to the audience of varied groups. It is a form of electronic communication through which users share information, ideas, personal messages, videos and pictures and other content through it instantly.
The major reason behind its popularity is that the users are given a free service to create a virtual social world where they exchange photographs, play games, become friendly, fall in love, split, fight, argue and quarrel at many times without having met physically.
But, on the other side it is an encroachment to someone’s privacy which can lead to different type of illegal activities by using the information such as name, location, and email addresses.
Social media provides us a platform to express ourselves without any restrictions which is becoming a major challenge as it may infringe the fundamental rights of privacy of a human being.

Various forms of social media

Social Networks– Services that allow you to connect with other people of similar interests and background. Usually they consist of a profile, various ways to interact with other users, ability to set up groups, etc. The most popular are Facebook and Linkedin
Bookmarking Sites – Services that allow you to save, organize and manage links to various websites and resources around the internet. Most allow you to “tag” your links to make them easy to search and share. The most popular are Delicious and StumbleUpon.
Social News– Services that allow people to post various news items or links to outside articles and then allows it’s users to “vote” on the items. The voting is the core social aspect as the items that get the most votes are displayed the most prominently. The community decides which news items get seen by more people. The most popular are Digg and Reddit.
Media Sharing– Services that allow you to upload and share various media such as pictures and video. Most services have additional social features such as profiles, commenting, etc. The most popular are YouTube and Flickr.
Microblogging– Services that focus on short updates that are pushed out to anyone subscribed to receive the updates. The most popular is Twitter.
Blog Comments and Forums – Online forums allow members to hold conversations by posting messages. Blog comments are similar except they are attached to blogs and usually the discussion centers around the topic of the blog post. There are many popular blogs and forums like RSS Feeds.

Implications and uses of social media:

Social media serve as a superior medium to stay connected with friends and family, to meet new people, and make new friends.
It seems to be the most effective form of communication as feedback is instant.
It is like a boon to introverts as they find a safer zone to initiate conversations.
It is an upcoming media to integrate people and follow the principle of many voices one world.

Effect on Function & Performance of government

Accountability and transparency in Government
Various deals, decision by representative are Instantly getting shared on Social media
It is helping people decide that what things are actually done by Government
It is also causing swift actions by government
Making representative more closer through Digital interface
Democratising effect

Effect on Governance and Institutions

It is providing voice to the people
Office delays, and Bureaucratic red tapism, absenteeism has been affected.
Recent protest on free speech has also caused judicial activism thus prudent judiciary in even of infringement of rights
It also helps political leader during election campaign for propagating manifesto
Cost of dissemination of information, expenditure of government has been reduced Vis a Vis to other forms of Information.

Challenges before Social Media:

The misuse of one’s personal information, hacking of accounts, morphing of personal photographs, addiction of social networking sites, spam and viruses are most high-flying problems faced due to social media.
Some other prospective challenges are illiteracy, reach and accessibility of internet, lack of censorship on social media, need of regulatory body to govern the social media.
The most worrying aspect to the social media is the fact that it cannot be controlled and therefore it goes without saying that its consequences can also be dangerous and uncontrollable for all those who use it recklessly and in an irresponsible manner.
Frequent networking on sites like Facebook could also generate negative feelings like inadequacy, envy, jealousy or even aggressive behavior.

Concerns about privacy:

Most networking sites do not really protect an individual’s privacy. A simple example is that of photos being posted on such sites without taking permission from all the people concerned.
There is no authenticity of the data posted nor can everything be taken on its face value.

Prospects of social media in India:

There has been a remarkable increase in the internet connectivity in India. There has been successful penetration of personal computers even in the small cities and towns in the country. We all witness the intense mobile penetration in all nooks in India.
Seeing the high number of youth in the country who are tech friendly, it can be said that there is a bright prospect of social media in India.

Way ahead:

Social media in India has to meet other challenges apart from illiteracy, reach and accessibility that are revenue generation.
There has been a rapid increase in social networking sites, microblogging, media sharing and bookmarking sites. India is lucrative market and social media is certainly gaining opportunities to deepen its roots resulting into a strong foothold in India.
There is need to regularize the social media. Some agency must be deputed to monitor the anti-social activities taking place on virtual world of social media. Laws relating to cyber crime should be made more stringent. There should be a separate policing department for cyber crimes.
There is a need of extensive research study for finding ways to regularize crime against social media.

Social Media, with all its benefits and the potential for more, is definitely a boon, however misuse or irresponsible usage can have negative effects on individuals and society, especially the young impressionable minds. We need to guard against the negative impact of the social media, which ought to be used in the correct manner for creative or productive purposes so that it is progressive to mankind and society at large, rather than regressive.

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