Social media in today’s technology – driven world encompasses whole range of tools facilitating electronic communication through which people form online communities to exchange information, ideas, personal messages and a lot more across global internet system, which not only has converted the vast expanse of the earth and the ocean into what can at best be described as small hamlet expanding the horizons of knowledge in social, personal, financial and political spheres through free flow of information to the farthest and the widest possible extent, around the whole of globe just at the click of the mouse. Social media has brought out virtual interactive and associative communities with distinctive identities and is thus creating avenues for people to come together on a single platform. The alliance after alliance of people of diverse religious, ethnic and cultural backgrounds are being forged on the basis of new common interests in term of profession, business and shared vision and values; and helping in shaping and reshaping people’s attitudes and ways of life.
The role of social media which had earlier been restricted to societal interaction and exchange of friendship and love has catapulted to more challenging levels which include, from affecting the volatile moods of the market in determining the fall or rise of the prices to building public opinion in favour of political parties contending for the power or presidential nominees aspiring to get elected to the coveted post of the president. The way euphoria created in special media circles like twitter, facebook and other numerous mediums was best reflected in Lok Sabha General Elections of 2014, when we saw the full force of social media being applied in building public opinion in favour of Narendra Modi. More recently, in US Presidential elections in which Donald Trump trounced Hillary Clinton on sheer strength of his campaign run through powerful tools of social media.
What astounds us most about the emergence of this powerful platform is its widespread ubiquitous presence. Once a piece of information goes through the social media through a speech or an announcement, it runs thick and fast to reach every nook or corner of the world within moments. The phenomenon of contents or websites “going viral”, are the contents posted by any user which are shared and re-shared until that create shaking effects on the minds of the people on big scale. In other words, anything curious that captures the imagination, is immediately posted on social sites, drawing huge response, which in social media terminology is called ‘goes viral’, even something that otherwise is considered unknown or obscure, gets popular. Once the social media platforms like facebook and twitter are used for its spread, a cauldron of debates and discussions come into existence, now blowing hot and next moment blowing cold, giving rise to a spectacle of global unity in diversity in views and projections of situations and enable people hear one another’s voice with tolerance. No other medium can match, in spreading information at this vast scale, up to quality, reach, frequency, accessibility, usability, immediacy and permanence as the platform of social media does.
The social media has thus turned itself into such a formidable force of knowledge which is binding people together through the uninterrupted stream of information and giving rise to a new global well-informed community who love to live by this medium.
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