DailyPost 2609
VIDEO DEMOCRACY
As we move deeper and deeper into the Information Age, the Indian democracy keeps on taking twists and turns making it completely unrecognizable from the decade past. The gap between the present and the immediate past has been increasing with every passing year. The political parties have the knack using everything to their advantage. The current technology could not have been an exception. Visual mediums have always enamored mankind, the current video age with all its capability of instant recording/use, high tech enhancement and immediate dissemination has added ultimate dimension of utility of it in both for war and peace and any other purpose you can put it to.
If video is the running currency of the information age communication, the how can political parties be left behind. They need to communicate the most; good, bad and ugly, as all is fair in love, war and politics. They would love to create their genre of video communication and utility, and which they have successfully done. The social media and its reach have added to its potency. The repository of videos is all available on the internet and could be used for the purpose you want. You can create, edit, stitch, add context and stories to it, and circulate. You can create a totally new meaning of it, if taken out of context and given a new one.
Everything on video is believable. And we should miss out on the images. The photos of yesteryears. Digital it has become and hence it serves a much better purpose, than it could have done earlier. The quantum of pics used today have reached enormous proportions. In remains stored for good with you and the social media, even if a relationship turns sour. In a recent controversy, pics of a lady MP was circulating a make-believe story, which people would love to lap. In another controversy in Karnataka, few pics where at the centre of the controversy. A pic in someone’s company is enough to fuel rumor mills. Pics and videos have also become a tool of exploitation and extortion and lots of it keeps coming out from the political circles as well. Its real impact in this manner on Indian democracy remains unknown.
From a sting to a deepfake via the art of creating a social media narrative; true or fake or out the context video clipping, the current Indian democracy seems to the subserving on it. Social media armies are any day more mercenary that the real armies, with no rules of the game. If you have a video of any vintage and of similar geography and same nature of event, then it can put to enormous use, mostly nefarious. The difference between and real and the fake was brought down considerably with the apt arrive, editing and photoshop tricks. The next stage is outright fake, congenitally fake, created only for this purpose. It has already been vitiating the electoral battle with nobody in control. Video has been in electioneering on variety of mediums. Added to that some sting type videos, one which has been circulating about a minister, gives us a clear idea of how videos can be used, against political opponents. Video it its endless formats has become the new currency of democracy.
THE INSTANT MARKET FOR DEEPFAKE IS BASED ON THE UTILITY VIDEOS HAVE PROVIDED SO FAR IN THE POLITICAL ARENA.
Sanjay Sahay
Have a nice evening.