DailyPost 2298
BUREAUCRAT’S SOCIAL MEDIA DILEMMA
Social media has transformed the world is no brainer and equally no brainer is the fact that it would transform much more in the days to come. Would even other mass communication mediums be there to fight the battle for media space of future. Individual in publishing and global in reach is the magic sauce served to everyone, with twenty-four hours of attention span and it provides so much data that the companies who run these platforms have gained unassailable power. It was no way the bureaucrats could have kept when everyone was jumping on the platform. Their senior counterparts the politicians had jumped lock, stock and barrel.
To be or not to be has been the bureaucrat’s social media dilemma? How much to be? What would be the content and in which manner? Does it correspond to the work you do? Or beyond the dull and drab, you pepper it with the spices of life; clothes to style to make believe causes, travel / holiday a must? The crux of the matter is whether for a bureaucrat is there any need to have social media profiles? Are the official accounts not sufficient? Should the government’s work end up on sarkari handles and adorn personal ones? The time spend for this purpose is generally not small. Can social media be used during office hours? The purely non-official types.
Is becoming a celerity the name of the game? How much of mechanical work is being transformed into eyeball catching stores, because people don’t know what is your duty. Outstanding work is what the post decides and not what you actually do, and what goes through the official review process. The clincher is whether the social media match claimed deliverables match with actual deliverables, which always remains under the wraps. The politician gets his legal sanctity by winning elections. If bureaucrats and police officers start getting by their presence on social media, then where are heading to?
How much time does it take to create a social media persona? How much time is required on a regular basis to sustain it? The post content has been changing to visuals / videos of a very high quality. Being in fashion helps. Does it lead to addiction which becomes an unseen distraction from work? It is not like playing golf, writing a book or going on a trek. It hangs on you even more than your physical self 24/7. It works even when you sleep. There are many a singhams created by the social media, and people have not place to get it authenticated. Might be we are creating paper tigers, who will bite us in times of crisis. Was Max Weber wrong in talking about a faceless bureaucracy, where only expertise and official position mattered. What about large bureaucratic population of non-singhams, people who are not influencers, have no followers and subscribers? They also serve who wait and watch. From the vast variety of bureaucrats social media presence it is very difficult to decipher a distinct social media policy for this influential class. Is bureaucracy in a social media mess of its own making.
BUREAUCRATS SOCIAL MEDIA DILEMMA CREATES An INCONGRUOUS PUBLIC IMAGE OF GOVERNANCE.
Sanjay Sahay