Name- Nehil Singh

Roll number- 2020/PSCI/0107

Course- B.A (Hons.) Political Science
Year/Semester- II/IV
Paper- Public Opinion and Survey Research (Skill Elective Course)

INTERNAL ASSESMENT – WRITTRN

REPORT

TOPIC : Contribution of Social Media in shaping Public Opinion

What is Social Media?

The term “Social Media” refers to a computer-based technology that facilitates the sharing
of ideas, thoughts, and information through virtual networks and communities. Social media
is internet-based and gives users quick electronic communication of content, such as
personal information, documents, videos, and photos. Users engage with social media via
computer, tablet, or a smartphone via web-based software or separate applications. While
social media is ubiquitous in America, and Europe, Asian countries like Indonesia lead the
list of social media usage. With the ease of internet access, the number of social media
users in India stood at 518 Million in 2020. Furthermore, the social network users in the
country were expected to be almost 1.5 Billion in 2040.

Where Social Media be encountered?

Social media can be seen in many different places in the digital realm. However, they can be
encountered frequently on different websites. Examples of these sites include Twitter,
Discord, Flickr, Facebook, Instagram, Google Plus, Tumblr, Snapchat, YouTube, and more.
Besides these spaces, social media is also visible in many other places on the internet to
anyone who uses it regularly.
 Some popular Social Media Content
Various messages, comments, links, sounds, etc. on social media, sometimes surfaced on
the internet, sometimes depending on the prevailing sociopolitical scenario or sometimes
even what people care about in their day to day life, what motivates them or just what
interests them. make them laugh. While some social media content comes from viral
images, conversations or videos, created with the aim of entertaining people and
monetizing them. Content about COVID 19 has also become popular in recent days after
people received their dose of Covid 19 vaccine.

There are also times when some content on social media is not able to receive as much
popularity or attention from others as others and therefore is not shared widely. The reason
for this could be the influence of the person who shares it with the people who receive it.
Some social media content may be widely shared or "trending" on the Internet because a
celebrity or "influencer" may have shared or created it, however some content Other
content may not be shared widely as it may have been shared or come from an average
person who doesn't have a lot of social media followers.

Influence of Social Media within Humans and Impact of

Humans on Social Media
Talking about how social revolution affects everyone, we can say that from layman to
politician, from farmer to industrialist, all are influenced by social network. Their
preferences, their inclinations, the product choices they pick and buy, often also their life
decisions, are all influenced by the various social medias floating around the web. webpage.
Cookies are considered to be a big reason behind the influence of social networks on
people. People may be influenced only to retweet or share this social media content with
others under certain circumstances, or may also behave in specific ways after being
motivated or encouraged by the content. content they look through social media they know
in some other case.

Now looking at how people influence the origins of social media, one can notice that it
happens in different ways. Ordinary people belong to different communities, the
circumstances in which they live, their social backgrounds, their economic conditions, their
access to political decision-making, inequality or segregation. The discrimination they face,
the injustices caused to them, the preferences related to certain things, their daily life
choices, etc., all these factors influence the formation of the Social media content differs in
one way or another.
 Is Social Media “APPROACHABLE”?
Different people approach the social media they view in different ways. Some people just
watch it for entertainment purposes, while others are greatly influenced by the content
they encounter, whether on their social media or not while surfing the internet. People
tend to share them with their friends and followers on the apps they find, or they share
links to these content externally and on other apps.

Today, social media is also used for advertising, campaigns and polls for certain reasons.
They are used by the marketing industry to attract people to the products they are trying to
sell to customers and to make their ads look creative and innovative in the eyes of the
audiences they want to please. Social workers also use social media to draw people's
attention to the cause they are working for. They do this so that a large number of people
know about the cause they seek to contribute to, so that those who are generally involved
in this cause, join this campaign with them, influence those other for them to join them and
provide capital in this direction.

Social Media and Woke culture

In the wake of following the trend on social media and for staying so called “relevant”
among other users, people use Social Media even if they do not want to. So as to follow the
woke culture which prevails on the internet and among the youth who consume and fuel
those stuff on it, people take the help of Social Media. People share the content with others
in order to create an impression on them that they are aware of the ongoings in the
“popular culture” and approve of it too.

They i.e., people who do not use social media that much also use it for making others, who
are more rigorous users of the social media, realize that they are not old fashioned and are
as much a part of the virtual community as them. This happens especially with the
millennials and the “Gen Z” who are relatively more active on social media and are also
insecure about the degree to which they and others use social media and other tools
available on the internet.

Is Social Media “RELIABLE”?

Reliability on Social Media is debatable. Social Media cannot always be completely reliable
as they are not subject to thorough scrutiny. It is only when people complain that a certain
post is triggering or attacking to them personally or is hurtful or disrespectful to a
community that the concerned authority checks the content being spread through social
media. This may lead to the banning or taking down of the account of that particular user
but miscreants may make other accounts producing incorrect details. They then can
circulate posts which are sometimes misguiding, obscene, disseminate fake information or
blatantly violate the rights and identity of others, especially of the week and underprivileged
people.

Therefore, it is advised that people should consume a piece of information only after
examining the pros and cons of it. They should also beware of any fake information which
they may come across over the internet. Checking the source of an information is basic and
it should be done by everyone who uses social media and shares some information from
there on any of the public platforms.

Nature of Public Opinion influenced by Social Media

The opinion which people tend to form through Social Media is quick but is not well
informed though. This is because Social Media do not present complete information every
time. They can be biased in their approach. The person who has created the social media
might have floated it keeping specific target audience in mind. It may happen sometimes
that a social media might have been created just for fun or out of sheer ignorance but it may
have grown out to cause conflict among people due to the background they belong to or
due to how they perceive it.

People not always have an informed opinion by following the trends. It happens many a
times that people share some posts without knowing about it fully and the ones at the
receiving end take it at its face value. Thus, they form an opinion which is not based on facts
but rather is a result of hearsay and rumors which might have originated out of nowhere or
might have been framed on purpose for defaming somebody or the members of a certain
community. An informed opinion can only be formed if the people who use social media are
cautious about the information they read, trust and pass on to other people. A social media
should only be posted or forwarded after verifying the authenticity of the information
contained in it.

Conclusion
After analyzing Social Media and the role they play in the shaping of public opinion, it can be
understood that it is the responsibility of all the ‘netizens’ to be critical of whatever
information they are exposed to in the virtual space and they should share the same only
when it is verified through a reliable source. Judging how correct or incorrect an information
is, what effect will it have on the public at large, etc. is of utmost importance and it must be
done before posting anything on one’s account. Only following the trend, doing what one’s
friends or peers do or what is done by people after being inspired by the influencers on
social media, without thinking about the positive and negative effects it will have on them as
well as on others, is not at all advisable. Doing these would certainly not lead to the
dissemination of quality content or the formation of an informed opinion. Contrastingly,
they might cause troubles to both the sender and the receiver of the controversial
information.