ITV

Tag: New Media Wing

  • MIB proposes to strengthen govt-citizen interface

    MIB proposes to strengthen govt-citizen interface

    MUMBAI: Months after a country-wide uproar and nudges from the judiciary forced the Indian government to shutter a Big Brother-type initiative involving tracking of Indians’ digital footprints, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting is taking another shot to “understand citizen views expressed publicly in print, television, online and social media platforms”.

    The primary stated aim of this new proposal is to help India’s federal government identify areas and issues that concern citizens and also help it in improving the communication system with regard to addressing citizens’ concerns, while creating awareness about various government initiatives, schemes and other important campaigns.

    “Understanding of trends, topics, hashtags relevant to the government related activities; analysis of social media campaigns run by the government; understanding of social media sentiments, with indicators (topic) wise conversations and other references on the worldwide web” were some of the listed deliverables of the project.

    At this juncture it’s not clear whether the new proposal is a watered-down version of the aborted social media hub of the MIB or purely a government-citizen interface to propagate government schemes.

    According to a tender floated on 7 December 2018 by Broadcast Engineering Consultants India Ltd (BECIL), proposals were invited for strengthening of the New Media Wing (NMW) of the MIB by providing solutions, software and services for an “integrated communication solution to include all digital public platforms (social media and online media) making use of existing infrastructure and resources” of the ministry wherever possible.

    BECIL is an organisation under MIB that was set up in the 1990s and provides project consultancy services and turnkey solutions encompassing the entire gamut of radio and television broadcast engineering like content production facilities, terrestrial transmission facilities, satellite and cable broadcasting facilities in India and abroad. It also provides other allied services.

    The tender document, available on BECIL’s website, further states that the successful bidder would be required to “possess capabilities to study multiple public platforms in order to facilitate creating a comprehensive view of various focus areas of the government”.

    Apart from this, the vendor should have relevant expertise and capability to provide communication insights to the MIB on how to improve the government’s communication and to create citizen-engaging content for various media and social media campaigns.

    “Also, it should provide feedback on various government schemes and suggest steps for its improvement…[and] such a system should provide for a comprehensive feedback reporting system to understand various aspects of traditional and social media communication and help formulate strategies for betterment of the integrated communication of the NMW.

    “The setup should be real time and have multi language capabilities,” the tender document states.

    The deadline for finding a vendor is listed as year-end with other pre-bid meetings to be held before that.

    On the issue of the hyped up Social Media Hub, MIB Minister Rajyavardhan Rathore earlier in the year had tried to allay fears on surveillance and privacy violations by the government. Subsequently, a case was filed in the Supreme Court by a politician from West Bengal alleging that the government was set to unleash an intrusive surveillance era. With the apex court questioning the motives, MIB had announced in August it was closing down the proposal.

  • Ministry of Information and Broadcasting introduces ‘New Media Wing’

    Ministry of Information and Broadcasting introduces ‘New Media Wing’

    NEW DELHI: Almost a year after guidelines were framed for the use of social media by government agencies and citizen engagement for e-governance projects, the proposal for establishing a ‘New Media Wing’ in the Information and Broadcasting Ministry for publicising its initiatives through multiple social media platforms has received the official nod.

     

    The move has come even as the government is gearing itself for the general elections next year. Both All India Radio and Doordarshan launched its new series yesterday to highlight the initiatives of the government.

     

    According to the proposal approved by the union cabinet, the new wing to be headed by a joint secretary level officer would address the communication and dissemination requirements of the government on social media platforms. The wing would integrate the communication tools horizontally and vertically through various social media platforms.

     

    The proposal for establishment of new media wing has been drawn on the basis of the experience of the initiative undertaken by the ministry recently, on a pilot basis to position itself on the social media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.

     

    The administrative and operational support will be provided by a unit under the ministry – the Research Reference and Training Division – which would be the new wing.

     

    The expenditure for establishing the wing and the recurring expenditure thereon would cost the exchequer an amount of Rs 22.5 crore during the 12th Five Year Plan (1012-17) which has been approved by the cabinet committee for economic affairs under the development communication and information dissemination plan scheme of the ministry.

     

    In August last year, the government had issued framework and guidelines to enable the various agencies to create and implement their own strategy for the use of social media. The document was to help them to make an informed choice about the objective, platforms, resources, etc. to meet the requirement of interaction with their varied stakeholders.

     

    The official statement had then said, “As more and more projects are getting implemented, an increasing need has been felt for wider and deeper participation of an engagement with all stakeholders to ensure that citizen centricity is maintained in all projects. There is now a consensus that citizen participation and civic engagement are the building blocks for good governance and e-governance is a critical component of good governance.

     

    It had added that, “Media is transforming the way in which people connect with each other and the manner in which information is shared and distributed. While at a personal level, the uptake and usage of social media is gaining rapid popularity, use and utility of such media for official purpose remain ambiguous. Many apprehensions remain including, but not limited to, issues related to authorisation to speak on behalf of department/ agency, technologies and platform to be used for communication, scope of engagement, creating synergies between different channels of communication, compliance with existing legislations etc.”