With the advent of current technology, human life has become extremely comfortable and cozy. Things that were once difficult have become very effortless due to the growth of information and technology. This technology is also shaping the voting behavior of the citizens to some extent and their opinions concerning day-to-day politics in India. The ordinary masses are engaged by politicians via various technological tools, and they are influenced by this. We notice how politicians disclose their thoughts on Twitter frequently and engage with people on social media platforms.
Coming to the theme of social face disfigurement and how it works; an attempt has been made in the passage on this. Social face disfigurement is the predominant technique used by governments to swamp their opponents, critics, vocal voices, and sometimes institutions when they feel that these are contradicting their policies and opinions. Or feel a threat to their political power. In the modern-day, age of communication and technology, this instrument of social face disfigurement has been extensively in use, and it has proved very effective in politics from the grassroots level. Through this tool of social disfigurement, the government absolutely or partially disfigures the social face of the target person in public with the help of modern technology like social media, Twitter, and as well as print media and attracts people towards them. This tool of social disfigurement was also used during the early times, but it was not very effective due to the lack of reach to the masses and the absence of social media.
However, in modern times, with the blessing of this technology, just one post of the politician goes viral within seconds and people show reactions within no time and act accordingly at the grassroots level. We witness how politicians announce their programs and engagements with people on Twitter. Hence, in the presence of social media, which has reached the last mile, at this time the tools of emotional politics have proved very effective and fruitful for politicians to shape public opinion in their favor. Oftentimes, with the help of this social face disfigurement, politicians make personal pessimistic remarks about their opponents to thwart their influence on the masses. Also, politicians label rivals with hatred and negative tags like “anti-national” friend of the enemy, “corrupt” etc. This is only done to eliminate or disfigure his or her face in society and to reduce his or her popularity in the same society. It was made famous and became the food of primary news media debates because some slogans were associated with the well-known university. The politicians endeavored to disfigure the institutions in the eyes of the people to create a feeling of hate towards these institutions among these people.
Furthermore, this technique of social face disfigurement is also used for prominent names and famous personalities whose ideology does not match with the party in power, like how the in vain queries were frequently raised, the reason to make people away from the influence of that person’s ideology and influence. One of the reasons that the Congress party is going into a crisis and facing tough days is because of this social face disfigurement. The same position is with other small national and regional parties. People are going away from these parties and are heavily influenced by this tool because they were tagged with negative names. To make this tool of social face disfigurement more energetic, the political parties created special cells called “IT cells” to propagate their ideas and counter the opposite ones. The same social face disfigurement instrument is noticed in Jammu and Kashmir. Besides in politics, this social face disfigurement tool is, periodically, used by different politicians on specific groups to swamp their social uniqueness for their political interests.
The author can be mailed at farooqmajeed19@gmail.com
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