36. Dynamics of Social Media Networks in the Post-Truth Era

The post-pandemic times witnessed a spurt in digitalisation in the whole of South Asia. Augmented digitalisation has resulted in disrupting almost all facets of human life there. In India, everything kickstarted in 1995 when the telecommunications company VSNL (Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited) unravelled the first internet service in India—in the metropolitan cities of Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi and Kolkata. Even in the digital era, social media is in a transitional stage. The global social mediascape is overwhelmed by wikis, blogs, micro-blogs, social networking sites, instant messaging, podcasts, widgets etc. The whole ambiance is beset with bits, bytes, lights and sounds of media. Manual Castells  called this social media community a ‘networked society’. Social Media users in India reached 448 million as per statistics in January 2021. In China this comes to 999.95 million in 2021 as compared to US with 295.48 million. China, the country with the biggest population is also the largest global social media market ahead of India which comes second. In this cyber era, social media pervades all facets of human life. Nonetheless, the digital divide has widened between the information-haves and have-nots. Truly, societal development of a country is determined by internet penetration, mobile phone subscriptions, press freedom enjoyed by journalists, news organisations and citizens of a country. High income countries exhibit greater penetration of digital technology as compared to less developed countries. The torrential winds of industrialisation, commoditisation, monopolisation, corporatisation and market and quality. While legacy media  produces linear content, social media reverberates with multi-vocality and interactivity.