When the mass gets social…

While there have been many negative reactions to the way the media handled the recent Mumbai events, I came across a few interesting ones that were a direct attack on the brands involved.

One is a Facebook group demanding that Barkha Dutt be taken off air. At the time of writing this, I can see 1666 members in the group, and some pretty angry outbursts on the Wall. The photos are quite expressive too. The others were this post, and this, which talk about the Lead India campaign by TOI, and ask very pointed questions on where the winner is, and about collective responsibilities. Since news is a daily commodity, and has a way of affecting the audience more than say, the toothpaste used everyday, the media’s relationship with the audience is at a different level altogether, and that’s a double edged sword, as the examples above show.

It set me thinking on the evolution of media brands, and also a service like Twitter. Mass media and social media have (among other things) one point in common – they’ve both been built on a certain amount of trust. I read a newspaper/watch a channel because I trust them to verify the content they give me, provide analysis and take outs and give me enough objective information to form a perspective. They’re filters. A service like twitter works on trust, among peers, and can be a wonderful filter, but only on very few occasions does it provide original content. Though the trust factor weighs heavily in favour of twitter, the difference in scale (of content) makes a comparison quite premature. But meanwhile, social media, by its very nature, is more or less transparent. Vested interests will come out sooner or later, the system has a way of bringing it out. Somewhere down the line, mass media has failed on this count.

In an era where news has become a commodity, media brands have had to differentiate themselves somehow to remain relevant. One way to achieve this is through packaging, which, these days mostly amounts to sensationalism. Another way is through specific properties that people identify with. In some cases, this would be the same as packaging, and in others, it would mean creating something new – like a campaign. However efforts on both counts have perhaps resulted in the erosion of trust, and a negativity towards the excesses of coverage. And that’s where an instant journalism friendly tool like Twitter stepped in, whenever the situation was conducive. And this is not going to go away.

So what I’m wondering is whether the first brands to feel the effects of a connected social world (in India) would be media brands, as opposed to say a toothpaste or a cola brand, or even a service like banking/telecom, simply because while other product categories can use social media as a tool,  media brands instinctively start looking at the twitter brand of reporting, as competition. I’d say that twitter has always been giving news to me, at the thin end of the long tail. This time, the information was such that  it interested the massive head of the long tail, and the aggregation was something no single channel could possibly do. The interesting part of the MSM vs Twitter journalism debate is that while all those who use Twitter can comment on MSM and its excesses, there are very few in MSM who can and do speak of the pros and cons of Twitter. 🙂

To me, mass media has to handle itself on two levels. One, at a product level, it means that mass media have to get back to the basics -making sure that it provides the reading/viewing audience all the facts required to make an informed opinion, and then going a step further than the regular ‘SMS your views’ concept, and making sure that they take a stance that’s in alignment with the audience’s views. On a brand and communication level, they’ll have to walk the talk, roll out campaigns that don’t just pay lip service to issues that the audience cares about. Social media could help on both counts. But MSM has to do this now, when its brand equity and reach is far far more than social media. I can see some action already – Eyes and Ears, and A Billion Hands.

until next time,  reporting vs journalism