Soumitra Bose
New Delhi (The Hawk): “Yes. they interfere. They raise questions. But why,” Jaishankar said. “Because we have let them do this for years. When you shut this down or when someone does commentary and you respond to it, you will see this getting reduced. The window through which people interfere is closing and this should have happened way before.”
In the run-up to the Rajasthan assembly polls, the state Congress government too has woken up to the significance of social media marketing. Besides, giving out ads to influencers and employing more than 2,000 Rajiv Gandhi Yuva Mitras or contractual volunteers to take the government schemes to the people through videos on social media, the state government is organising a month-long video contest to popularise the state’s welfare schemes – with cash prizes ranging from Rs 1,000 to Rs 1 lakh. Read about it here.
Murky scheme of gifts, payments
In Gujarat’s Ahmedabad, over 250 bloggers met with chief minister Bhupendra Patel and state BJP chief CR Paatil at Taj Skyline Hotel in Ahmedabad on May 29. During the meeting, the state cadre put up a presentation on Modi’s achievements, spanning from the government’s domestic schemes to Modi’s “lofty” global repute – with visuals of the Papua New Guinea prime minister touching his feet to some other leader welcoming him with folded hands, and another calling him “Boss”.
The interaction had prominent local faces, including actors such as Mayur Vakani, expressing their gratitude towards the government for “recognising their voices”, and making “progress through its schemes”. At the conclusion, the influencers attending the event were given an American Tourister bag, a bluetooth speaker, a pen, and a laptop bag.
Meanwhile, influencer Ranveer Allahbadia, who has interviewed at least four BJP ministers for his YouTube channel BeerBiceps, carried a disclaimer with some of these videos: “co-presented to you by @mygovindia”. But on the question of whether it was a paid collaboration, Allahbadia told Newslaundry that he was approached by a representative from MyGov, who suggested the interviews, but he did not receive any payment for it. He, however, received proceeds for the expenses on his stay, travel and logistics related to the interviews.
Vivek Bindra, one of India’s most followed YouTubers – with nearly 21 million subscribers, who also interviewed BJP ministers Nitin Gadkari and Kiren Rijiju, and party leader Manoj Tiwari over the past months, said there was “no political agenda or monetary exchange”.
These interviews were part of the channel’s ‘Bada Bharat’ series, which “featured people who have put India on the map”, Bindra’s business associate Ishaan Goel told Newslaundry. He asserted that they were not paid for any expenses related to the interviews.
“People think that there is a political agenda here, but that’s not the case. We choose people on merit. The politician has to be one with a clean image and no controversies,” said Goel, exemplifying that they interviewed Nitin Gadkari, whose work for the country “cannot be debated”. He added that similarly, they were trying for the interviews of union ministers S Jaishankar and Smriti Irani. From the opposition, he said they are keen on Congress leader Shashi Tharoor.
“There were some chief ministers who wanted to come on the show to clean their image - but we have no political agenda. We are not okay with them speaking about their manifestos and we discuss this beforehand… none of these involve monetary exchanges. Even if you start taking a rupee from someone, you are under their deck. It can be easy to get corrupted but Dr Bindra used to be a monk, and does meditations daily, he has always been very grounded,” Goel said.
Meanwhile, YouTuber Keerthika said she is also in talks with a politician for her podcast. “Collaborations are beneficial for both parties, but even more for the influencer. If it is paid, of course it should be mentioned, but if it’s just a collaboration with no money involved, what’s the need to mention?”
Influencers vs TV news
The increasing engagement between social media influencers and politicians became a hot topic in May, when Ranveer Allahbadia began interviewing the BJP ministers for his channel on YouTube – the platform which is increasingly becoming the preferred medium of news among internet users in India.
The platform topped as the most popular source of online news, with at least 93 percent of internet users turning to it for news updates, according to a recent Kantar-Google report. The other popular sources of online news included social media, preferred by 88 percent of internet users; online chats popular among 82 percent; search engines drawing 61 percent users and news apps and websites pulling in 45 percent of internet users. The audio news platforms reported a footfall of 39 percent of internet users, and OTT or connected TV 21 percent.
In a battlefront with TV news, YouTube is popular among the internet users of both liberal and the right-wing sphere. Popular channels such as Ajeet Bharti and String, which have 290k and 1.38 million subscribers, respectively, pander to those on the right-side of the divide, while on the left, Akash Banerjee aka The DeshBhakt with 3.24 million subscribers and Dhruv Rathee with 11.9 million subscribers are some of the most popular Indian YouTubers.
The increasing popularity of YouTube comes at a time of depleting trust in traditional news sources. The 2022 Reuters Institute Digital News Report stated that consumption of traditional news has declined in nearly all the 46 countries surveyed for the report. It further highlighted that India is a “strongly mobile-focussed market”, with more and more people accessing news on their phones, especially YouTube and WhatsApp.