Political process and Small Parties
By: Amit Bhushan Date: May 22, 2014
The dependence of political parties on various tools of media as well as social media went up to an entirely new level in the ensued elections. The various tools of communications were successfully exploited by newbie party to scale up the growth of the party in a short span, a promising start. However, over dependence on tools of mass media is showing up the limitations of such tactics. Basically, mass media is driven by ‘operators’ called as journalist. The operator takes a view of the situation and then presents the view to public. Off course in the process, the operator also stakes his own reputation and is sort of co-owner of the view and therefore a participant in the political process. The operator survives on by continuously creating views which should be bought by public and once his views are bought by public regarding an entity, pressure gets build to continue to pour views. In such a process, views continue to be produced which are either positive or negative, however it cannot be balanced since a balance is seldom treated as Hot News by public. Mass media is off course more glued to Hot News rather than sundry political careers unless such careers are yielding some benefits.
Thus over reliance on mass media exposes political parties especially smaller or new ones to huge risks besides giving ‘operators’ a hand to intervene in the programs of the political party. In such a scenario, if the thought process of the party is not detailed out and clear; and also there is adhocism coupled with leaders indulging in loose talk and hearsay, then chance of mobilization of people fizzles out. A newbie party is a good example. Basically, during elections at state level, the party managed to draw up elaborate plans and a tight knit communications strategy using all kinds of media whether mass media or social media. This helped in mobilization and the party could scale up very fast. However, when the party tried to scale up nationally, the detailing was missing and the communication strategy wasn’t so well chalked out. This coupled with loose talk and hearsay by important leaders led to electoral fizzle out. Nevertheless, it did manage to change a few rules in the rule book in the polity of the nation. In fact to some extent, a clear mandate for the current ruling party is because of the high decibel anti-corruption pitch which got focused attraction from media by the newbie which moved masses away from the old ruling dispensation. The anti-corruption stand had more sharp edges then that of the old opposition although its dependence was on floating votes alone which seldom accrue to one party alone. A factor that the party lacked a clear governance agenda but was only clamoring to be a ‘vocal opposition’ alone, didn’t quite gel with people other than those from a state where people were looking to rid themselves from corruption of both national parties.
A curious question is that why political parties with strong anti-corruption charter faces almost total lack of support from other political parties who is some way claim to be against corruption as well at least in their manifestos. So way do they not align their anti-corruption programmes. Off course one of the error made by newbie party is to ‘not take support or give support’ under assumption that ideological support would and should also definitely have a quid pro quo involved; instead of just being loyal to pushing the agenda of the party. Instead of having a policy against quid pro quo for or against political support to other parties, the attempt was to banish such mechanism. This obviously puts limitations since it means either having all by oneself or not having any support mechanisms. This again is mass media driven since the mass media requires a clear differentiator to make a story about how an entity stands out and clearly differentiates itself from others in the same ilk. Let’s see how promising political party move from here and how they impact the political thinking in India further…..
By: Amit Bhushan Date: May 22, 2014
The dependence of political parties on various tools of media as well as social media went up to an entirely new level in the ensued elections. The various tools of communications were successfully exploited by newbie party to scale up the growth of the party in a short span, a promising start. However, over dependence on tools of mass media is showing up the limitations of such tactics. Basically, mass media is driven by ‘operators’ called as journalist. The operator takes a view of the situation and then presents the view to public. Off course in the process, the operator also stakes his own reputation and is sort of co-owner of the view and therefore a participant in the political process. The operator survives on by continuously creating views which should be bought by public and once his views are bought by public regarding an entity, pressure gets build to continue to pour views. In such a process, views continue to be produced which are either positive or negative, however it cannot be balanced since a balance is seldom treated as Hot News by public. Mass media is off course more glued to Hot News rather than sundry political careers unless such careers are yielding some benefits.
Thus over reliance on mass media exposes political parties especially smaller or new ones to huge risks besides giving ‘operators’ a hand to intervene in the programs of the political party. In such a scenario, if the thought process of the party is not detailed out and clear; and also there is adhocism coupled with leaders indulging in loose talk and hearsay, then chance of mobilization of people fizzles out. A newbie party is a good example. Basically, during elections at state level, the party managed to draw up elaborate plans and a tight knit communications strategy using all kinds of media whether mass media or social media. This helped in mobilization and the party could scale up very fast. However, when the party tried to scale up nationally, the detailing was missing and the communication strategy wasn’t so well chalked out. This coupled with loose talk and hearsay by important leaders led to electoral fizzle out. Nevertheless, it did manage to change a few rules in the rule book in the polity of the nation. In fact to some extent, a clear mandate for the current ruling party is because of the high decibel anti-corruption pitch which got focused attraction from media by the newbie which moved masses away from the old ruling dispensation. The anti-corruption stand had more sharp edges then that of the old opposition although its dependence was on floating votes alone which seldom accrue to one party alone. A factor that the party lacked a clear governance agenda but was only clamoring to be a ‘vocal opposition’ alone, didn’t quite gel with people other than those from a state where people were looking to rid themselves from corruption of both national parties.
A curious question is that why political parties with strong anti-corruption charter faces almost total lack of support from other political parties who is some way claim to be against corruption as well at least in their manifestos. So way do they not align their anti-corruption programmes. Off course one of the error made by newbie party is to ‘not take support or give support’ under assumption that ideological support would and should also definitely have a quid pro quo involved; instead of just being loyal to pushing the agenda of the party. Instead of having a policy against quid pro quo for or against political support to other parties, the attempt was to banish such mechanism. This obviously puts limitations since it means either having all by oneself or not having any support mechanisms. This again is mass media driven since the mass media requires a clear differentiator to make a story about how an entity stands out and clearly differentiates itself from others in the same ilk. Let’s see how promising political party move from here and how they impact the political thinking in India further…..