Skip to main content

The blurring lines between mass and social media

Yesterday I shot with the host of a TV food show for an episode of her show.

The episode is going to centre around a couple of food bloggers. The idea of the show apparently came up when the host realised that she was increasingly using blog posts to decide on where to eat rather than mass media reviews.

This evening in The News Hour on Times Now Arnab Goswami suddenly looked at the camera and exhorted the audience to go viral and protest against police performing odd jobs for politicians or something like that. 'Go to Facebook and twitter and register your protest' said Goswami.

Incidentally while Times Now has a twitter handle, Goswami doesn't.

A bit later I was watching Barkha Dutt chat with Salman Rushdie and Deepa Mehta and their conversation suddenly turned to twitter.

Rushdie pointed out that for him twitter is the fastest way of finding out what's happening around him.

Barkha herself is on twitter and unlike other big TV journalists on Twitter, such as Rajdeep Sardesai, actually engages with folks on twitter.

The issue of mass media versus social media is becoming increasingly irrelevant if you ask me. Lines are blurring. The empire is striking back with mass media coopting social media rather than trying to ignore it, fight it or try to bludgeon it.

The lines definitely are blurring. Blurring a lot faster possibly in the world of news media than in brand marketing. Marketing efforts on TV, press, radio and social often seem to be discrete.

Every brand is 'doing' social media these days.

What they need to realise is that social media marketing can't be 'performed' or 'executed'.

It should flow naturally.



The broadcasters of news have got that. Question is when will the custodians of brands get this too.

Comments

mumbai restaurant said…
barkha dutt is one of the best and most down to earth journalist in the country today
8 February 2013 at 06:04
Anonymous said…
Barkha is agressive as a reporter and certainly one of the best in the field. Though I disagree with her at times, no one can deny her qualities. Today, social media has taken over print media and one has to push the envelope further to survive.
Vishal
www.vishalbheeroo.wordpress.com
9 March 2013 at 05:49
PR Management Agency said…
Every brand is 'doing' social media these days to get an edge over others. Social media has power to reach to mass with little amount of time, everything goes viral. And it doesn't cost much.
17 February 2014 at 04:02
WOW CABS said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
1 April 2014 at 03:21
WOW CABS said…
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
1 April 2014 at 03:22
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The importance of being 'Nyaka'

'Nyaka' is a Bengali term which beats translation. It could mean coy, coquettish, scheming, la di da. There is no one word which captures it. The term is used in a pejorative context and has a sarcastic tone to it. Used a bit more for women than for men. Has a feminine context when used for men. I posed the challenge of translating 'nyaka' into English to fellow Bengalis in Facebook. Here's a sample of the answers that I got. I have removed the names and kept the statuese as is, hope it's not too difficult to read Bong man 1 Coy.....but that does capture the essence 14 December at 14:37 · Me No ...not entirely. A colleague just suggested precocious. Maybe its too intrinsic a Bong trait to be translated :) 14 December at 14:50 · Bong woman 1 kol-lan, difficult to get a english / hindi word for nyaka. 14 December at 15:11 · me that's the point 14 December at 15:15 · Bong woman 2 oh, i think the essence of the word 'nyaka' will be lost in translation. ...
12 comments
Read more

The impotence of middle class morality

We studied George Bernard Shaw's 'Pygmalion' in school. I remember a character, Mr Dolittle (not sure of the spelling), who made a compelling argument against what he called middle class morality . The crux was that the rich can do whatever they want, the poor are desperate and therefore have no standards to match up to. It is the middle class who get screwed (I am paraphrasing heavily here) because they have to live up to certain norms of morality without the means to do so. Closer home was this serial called ' Wagle ki duniya ' which used to come on telly in the eighties . This was about a middle aged, middle class man, Mr Wagle , and his struggle for existence. There was an episode where he had to give a bribe to a government official. Nothing new about that. But the twist was that straight laced Mr Wagle had no idea about how to give a bribe! I remember our then school principal, Mrs Kapper , gave that as an example of how all of us should be good, honest,...
16 comments
Read more

Just another day in India

I went to Hearsch Bakery near Holy Family Hospital after ages to pick up a burger for breakfast this morning. I saw an elderly gentleman, possibly in his mid sixties, standing opposite Holy Family in the alley. He was simply dressed like middle class folks of his genre, white bush shirt tucked out, grey trouser. He had a red and white jhola , the sling bag favoured by folks of his generation. He had round glasses, was slim and probably looked the way my grandfather would have looked twenty years back. A typical, middle class gent in the early years of his retirement. And he had his hand stretched out asking for alms. I remembered seeing him when I had come to Hearsch's months back. I was very puzzled even then. I wondered what his story would be. Was he abandoned by his children? Was he laid off? He did look in good health. Didn't look particularly poor. Yet, there was a strange mix of serene desperation on his face. What would have driven him to beg? Should I offer him some ...
11 comments
Read more