Tag: mobilization

Go slow on the social media

In a matter of months, India will overtake the US as Facebook’s largest user-base. According to various sources, the social media site is currently adding about 40 million users from the country per year while the US adds some 5 million at the same rate. Such growth is not likely to leave Facebook much enthused as the Indian horde is worth only about $400 million in ads, but for the impending Lok Sabha polls, the Californian giant spells many possibilities of varying efficacy for propaganda.

Almost all our political parties, including the Congress, BJP and AAP, are active on Facebook and Twitter. Among them, the BJP and AAP are the most active, if only because their anti-incumbent and evangelical content, respectively, is highly viral, reaching millions within minutes and, unlike with TV, with a shelf life of forever. Although 5.5-11.2% of all Facebook accounts, and 32-64% of Twitter profiles of the followers of Indian political leaders (according to a rudimentary analysis by The Hindu), are fake, that still leaves space for tens of millions of users to be swayed by opinions disseminated on the web.

However, this is also why whether the social media will inspire direct mobilization is hard to say. Even though most of India’s 18-24 year-olds could be on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, we know little about how articulation online translates to action offline quantitatively. This is why surveys showing how certain constituencies harbor more Facebook users than the margins of victory in previous Assembly elections are only engaging in empirical speculation. The 2014 Lok Sabha polls could be our first opportunity to understand this influential mechanism.

(These inputs were provided for a piece that appeared in The Hindu on March 17, 2014.)

The notion of the Nobel Prizes

Some points generated during a discussion with a friend:

  1. The Nobel Prizes used to be definitive of the orientation of scientific research in the past; however, staying on top of all recognition now is impossible as fields of research have diversified beyond Alfred Nobel’s, and the foundation’s, understanding and comprehension, respectively
  2. The media’s attention on the prizes has rightly waned: with the diversification of research-investments worldwide, that a single institution’s decision on a $1.2-million prize is monumental is a naïve thought; even though putting together a consortium of institutions countermines the possibility of quick, consensual decisions, the Nobel Prizes are still only running on historical momentum
  3. The time between conception and mass-production for various entities on the market are being reduced – this holds true for ideas as well; because of the delay between recording a “significant contribution” to humankind’s well-being and rewarding a Nobel Prize for it, the Royal Swedish Academy does nothing to add to the recognition of the recipient’s research efforts and all that it has made possible in the interim period
  4. Before the Fundamental Physics Prize was set up by Russian billionaire Yuri Milner this year, the Nobel Prizes were the most lucrative academic prizes in the world; however, the average age of the laureates when they’ve received the prize is between 50 and 54 (for different prizes), by which time they already have established their retirement posses and on their way to concluding their institutional affiliations. Consequently, the question is what do the Nobel Prizes really get to mobilize? Of course, it is never too late, but…
  5. Why have so few women received the Nobel Prizes? Is the gender-gap among laureates simply reflective of the gender-gap present in academic institutions and research labs? Or, prompting more cause for concern, is there a disparity between how many women-researchers publish significant papers and how many women are recognized by the institution?