The Opposition and its Communications Challenge
By: Amit Bhushan Date:23rd Mar 2015
That effective mass communications is a challenge in India for non-government leaders, is a well known fact. However, such a fact will be brought to light by retiring leaders from government side is probably a first. So now we have people who would lament that it has 'become' more important for leaders to be seen delivering services, rather than actually delivering them, with advent of 'new politics' to be blamed for it. There is a certain degree of truth, which obviously happens when coming from retiring leaders, and which should be reflected upon. In effect the statement is a huge snide on the current opposition in center as well as those in states on the quality of job they are doing.
One good reason is probably the concocted debated on mass media that comes to mind. To capitalize on the 'current mood', they are held instantaneously and 'leaders' of all hues line up to participate and share their earth shaking opinions; as if the India would loose World War III if their ideas are not assimilated and acted upon. This is unlike social media researchers who may rake up 'metrics' on the some right occasions, economics on others and creativity notes on some others; the mass media is seldom discussing governance metrics or underlying issues/concerns regards performance of government or the lack of it. This is even when they spend hours analyzing the 'victory gatha' regards the electoral performance of parties which may not have much bearing of people directly, and ensure that their competitors for eye-balls such as entertainment channels have a good run in terms of business.
Further, the quality aspect of a delivery of governance is almost never analyzed in context as a systemic measure (& this allows several leaders to continue in business in government, for which at least someone should be thankful); though it may happen by accidents several years later in some adhoc reports. It is also true that if such debates are not held timely then the commercial news media may loose viewership; and for which we may need some reflective debates like what could have been done better in aftermath say one month after the original 'debate' to analyze impacts or bring out new positions of political parties with better research and collation of information from the ground. We had several hoax stories and debates especially in commercial news media so in effect, some element of fairness exists but there might be need to define processes around the same though such an issue will need to be reflected upon by the commercial news media rather than new politics or social media.
That the retiring leaders have failed to point their specific contribution towards this aspect (to monitor government's performance other than shouting) when they were in opposition, for the current genre is a big miss and this may prompt many to ignore the reportage. The changing politics seems to have made the 'Game' of electoral politics a bit more transparent and attempted to link it to delivery in governance as a conscious attempt which is quite unlike the dons in mass media who remain on their own trip attempting to make big impact on elections without any heed to governance.
The commercial news media on its own was a miserable failure on this count (though print media did a much better job) and this can be verified (by those interested) with all new and old political leaders as well as voters. That quite a few states and parties have responded to the new politics by improving upon just the 'optics' has been noted including the welcome of such moves by commercial mass news media. However, bringing out the metrics to media which may impact voters is job of the opposition leaders and mass media on its own has been reluctant to do it due to obvious reasons. This also true about the critique on policy options and choices exercised by leadership in government.
So instead of blaming new politics, the right address of such criticism should be towards the opposition leaders in center and states; that they are unable to absorb this sermon, possibly because of the wrong pointers and address on it besides other reasons.
By: Amit Bhushan Date:23rd Mar 2015
That effective mass communications is a challenge in India for non-government leaders, is a well known fact. However, such a fact will be brought to light by retiring leaders from government side is probably a first. So now we have people who would lament that it has 'become' more important for leaders to be seen delivering services, rather than actually delivering them, with advent of 'new politics' to be blamed for it. There is a certain degree of truth, which obviously happens when coming from retiring leaders, and which should be reflected upon. In effect the statement is a huge snide on the current opposition in center as well as those in states on the quality of job they are doing.
One good reason is probably the concocted debated on mass media that comes to mind. To capitalize on the 'current mood', they are held instantaneously and 'leaders' of all hues line up to participate and share their earth shaking opinions; as if the India would loose World War III if their ideas are not assimilated and acted upon. This is unlike social media researchers who may rake up 'metrics' on the some right occasions, economics on others and creativity notes on some others; the mass media is seldom discussing governance metrics or underlying issues/concerns regards performance of government or the lack of it. This is even when they spend hours analyzing the 'victory gatha' regards the electoral performance of parties which may not have much bearing of people directly, and ensure that their competitors for eye-balls such as entertainment channels have a good run in terms of business.
Further, the quality aspect of a delivery of governance is almost never analyzed in context as a systemic measure (& this allows several leaders to continue in business in government, for which at least someone should be thankful); though it may happen by accidents several years later in some adhoc reports. It is also true that if such debates are not held timely then the commercial news media may loose viewership; and for which we may need some reflective debates like what could have been done better in aftermath say one month after the original 'debate' to analyze impacts or bring out new positions of political parties with better research and collation of information from the ground. We had several hoax stories and debates especially in commercial news media so in effect, some element of fairness exists but there might be need to define processes around the same though such an issue will need to be reflected upon by the commercial news media rather than new politics or social media.
That the retiring leaders have failed to point their specific contribution towards this aspect (to monitor government's performance other than shouting) when they were in opposition, for the current genre is a big miss and this may prompt many to ignore the reportage. The changing politics seems to have made the 'Game' of electoral politics a bit more transparent and attempted to link it to delivery in governance as a conscious attempt which is quite unlike the dons in mass media who remain on their own trip attempting to make big impact on elections without any heed to governance.
The commercial news media on its own was a miserable failure on this count (though print media did a much better job) and this can be verified (by those interested) with all new and old political leaders as well as voters. That quite a few states and parties have responded to the new politics by improving upon just the 'optics' has been noted including the welcome of such moves by commercial mass news media. However, bringing out the metrics to media which may impact voters is job of the opposition leaders and mass media on its own has been reluctant to do it due to obvious reasons. This also true about the critique on policy options and choices exercised by leadership in government.
So instead of blaming new politics, the right address of such criticism should be towards the opposition leaders in center and states; that they are unable to absorb this sermon, possibly because of the wrong pointers and address on it besides other reasons.