DailyPost 396
A TWITTERATI WORLD?
If Trump would ever be treated iconic for, it would be for his reckless use of Twitter, at all times, for all topics, as if the US govt. media machine has come to a standstill. Unadulterated as it is & damaging to the core to the Presidency & the nation, from a media point of view, has Twitter become the prima donna of the media world? Personal & official utterances on Twitter on one side and hacks on the other; Wikileaks to Panama Papers, these are the only two faces of information staple in the world today.
All the three main prevalent forms of media; electronic, print & social, with different objectives for their creation & existence seem to have been converted into one . The narrative & the talking points emanate either from Twitter & the Hacks & the mainstream media laps it as their own. One single tweet can send whole mainstream media in a tizzy. Where is the existence of the mainstream media? Can they match with the 11 million Panama papers or the hundreds of tweets by the big & mighty, which define our narrative day in & day out.
It seems to be impossible to imagine of the pre-Twitter world, as if it never existed. Can a social media platform, cryptic as it is, in its format, be allowed to be the sole news dissemination vehicle? Can’t governments devise better ways of communicating in the changed environment rather than getting engulfed by it? Can’t mainstream media reinvent itself to prove its utility? These questions have to be answered otherwise the future of well thought out governance & the watch dog fourth estate, would be in question.
Whether real world institutions matter or Twitter & can decide our fate is the moot question. It’s high time this change has to happen. The preoccupation with this medium but for the business enterprise is helping nobody, with immense time & energy being wasted the world over. With every body playing the Twitter Tune, Twitter becomes the Pied Piper of the digital world & its netizens & beyond. Just hope this is transient. Sanity would finally prevail, so will our institutions.
TWITTER DRIVEN AGENDA CANNOT REFLECT THE COMLEX REAL WORLD.
Sanjay Sahay