Actor Rishi Kapoor’s comments on twitter on co-stars, politics and himself are making a buzz for various reasons. People find them sarcastic, witty and humorous. His wife feels that he should stop tweeting as it would miff a lot of people; he feels that he will keep on posting as he is “not tweeting to please people.” He says he tweets because he wants to. For some time now, people have been talking about how careful one needs to be while communicating on social media? There are debates on free speech, accountability and where to draw a line while communicating through this medium. Different people have different opinions. Celebrated Mussoorie-based writer author Ruskin Bond when recently joined micro-blogging platform Twitter said he will prefer to be “very careful” while tweeting. There are people who strongly feel that the basic principles of law should be applicable to this new form of communication called Social Media Communication.
Humans are social being, surviving on the abilities to interact and influence others. In the past, people communicated with the sign language, they drew pictures to inform, inspire, influence and incite. Slowly they evolved and started using sounds and words to communicate. They meet each other, talk and interact. They like to know the good, the bad, and the ugly side of the people. In fact being social is a desirable trait and it connotes something good. Although communication is and has always been a two- way process, with the advent of modern technology facilitated by media, its method, form and shape have changed dramatically over recent years.
Till twentieth century, reporting and publishing was done by the professionals who decided what to publish and how the public should see it. We might still have publishers but technology has allowed everyone to publish, write, evaluate, and be a critic. Though it has given a lot of power to common people; the resulting communication issues have multiplied as well. It has been felt that while communicating we may have the meaning clear in our mind but it might be perceived differently by the receiver. So the question is, should we express ourselves openly on the media platform? If so, how much? Is there any rule that defines where we need to stop?
While there are many success stories to talk at length about the power of social media communication; Justin Harman, Elle.com Features Editor thinks that ” it’s the death of an actual civilized conversation.”(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/social-edia-makes-you-socially-awkward_n_5512749.html?section=india ) What is common is the fact that like face to face communication, everycommunication on media also is subjected to interpretation; the difference is the speed, technology, audience and varied perceptions. Variance in perception is considered to be one of the most important reasons for miscommunications that happen. People do not always perceive the world in the same way and so identifying another’s communicative intention is not a simple task. That is why when our Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed President Obama by his first name, many found it strange. Some felt that it was a deliberate gesture where Modi went overboard to show the press and the people his closeness with the world’s most powerful person. There was another group that shared an extended interpretation stating that though Mr. Modi addressed Obama many times with his first name, the gesture was not similarly reciprocated. People experience the world from different favourable points, and the totality of each individual’s experience is unique to the particular stance he or she occupies. To accommodate discrepancies in interpretation, communicators must take each other’s perspectives into account when they formulate and interpret utterances.
It is important for us to remember that communication on media is a collaborative rather than an individual process. Technology has changed the way communication was understood earlier. Pace, perspectives, judgements, interpretations and a large number of audience have made communication process on such platforms very challenging. Although it is emerging as a powerful tool, we may not forget that if taken lightly or underestimated, it can also create an irreparable damage. This reminds me how Mr.Tharoor, a member of the Indian National Congress Party, author of 14 best-selling books in English, became embroiled in several scandals following the conversations he had in public on his twitter account. We may also not forget how underestimating the power of communication on media may lead us to a situation like the one faced by Rahul Gandhi in his 80-minute-long interview with Arnab Goswami. There were many interpretations shared afterwards but the crisp one line interpretation by The New York Times, “Mr. Gandhi fumbled, stared with a blank expression and a tilted head and looked wounded at times.” said it all. Our conversations are under scrutiny and at times they can proof to be detrimental. An apology which the Education Minister Smriti Irani sought from the national school board over spelling mistakes in a letter sent on her behalf, which was flagged by a teacher and further became viral on social media, is another example to quote.
While communicating we should remember that though the dictionary definition of speech is limited to the written or spoken words, people listen, they talk and they evaluate not only what is spoken but also what is not spoken. When Modi went to US and worked his charm on everybody from Mark Zuckerberg to Elon Musk, people discussed at length on how his blue shirt, khakis and an ivory waistcoat indicated east meeting west, and how his blue pocket square added ‘just the hint of a world leader who is comfortable visiting leading tech campuses in the world but is still Indian at heart.’
With respect to the social dimension of Social Media, the concept of self-presentation involves both, the challenges and the opportunities. No matter how much we deny, the desire to control the impressions other people form of us is always there. Usually, such presentations are done through self-disclosure; that is, the conscious or unconscious revelation of personal information (e.g., thoughts, feelings, likes, dislikes). This self-disclosure is a critical step when applied in the context of Social Media. We often think that others are more in synch with what we’re thinking than they really are. Psychologist claims that most of us suffer from a syndrome called signal amplification bias due to which we often communicate less information than we think we are. Receivers, lacking contextual cues often hear it too late, making a communicator realise that he thought it was obvious or feel that he didn’t think he needed to spell that out.
Yes, technology is expanding new channels of communication but it is also opening new problems that never existed. With this medium, we have become more influential than we realize, but that can work both for and against us. With time, this will keep on changing the status of speaking and writing and will lead to a number of communication nuances. Free speech comes with consequences. All of us know social networking web sites does not include privacy. What we post is immediately there for any and everyone to read, interpret and comment. We do not have to cry ‘victim’ when our own words come back to bite us. In this new media world where many of us are literally learning, sense and sensibility are the need of the hour. It is advisable to be mindful and don’t let the medium colour your message.
