Importance of Facebook as a means of a platform to connect to the government bodies

Social Media use is not a luxury thing now, it is a common aspect of life. Even school students now use social media on a daily basis. So for any Government to connect with their citizens, they need to have a full presence in social media. But in this case proliferation of Government bodies was late. Things have rapidly changed and the Government bodies understand the importance of communicating with their citizens in a new open way.

“I know the overall importance of reaching out through the social media because I have 31 grandchildren and they are on all of these things,” said U.S. Rep. Buck McKeon, R-Calif. “This is mostly a young person’s game and I’m an old person, but I’m young at heart … the only advice I’d give is ‘get involved’ and then use it in the right way.”

Social media particularly Twitter has become a regular political drama in the USA. Besides Hollywood, politicians have a great influence there. In fact, Republicans have been encouraging their members to get on social media with a friendly contest called the New Media Challenge, run by the House Republican Conference. Republicans are also using social media to reach out through initiatives like Youcut, a crowdsourced platform where the public can debate and vote on how to lower the national debt. “If you ignore [social media] and you just keep doing things the way you did when I first came to Congress, you do so at your own peril,” McKeon said.

In Canada, we can encounter the influence of politicians in a broad range. Glen Murray is the Minister of Research and Innovation for the province of Ontario. Murray and two other ministries created a crowd-sourced wiki to help create an official policy paper.

“We are adjusting and trying to get ahead of the curve of a generation of social media users who more and more see social media as a way of affecting social change,” said a spokesperson for Murray’s office. “People are engaging with social policy in a way that they haven’t before and the government will either adjust or be adjusted.”

Obama’s campaign employed 100 individuals to run his digital presence. At that time Facebook had over 20 million users and received over one billion page views per day, so Obama’s campaign on social media gave him significantly more reach. Frontrunners Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump both prioritized social media as a primary means for engaging the public.

Social media is making easier for us to give our opinion on the official matter.  It has become our voice now. We can talk about our rights and Government cannot ignore hearing those. In Bangladesh, the young generation has taken a lot of steps for the benefit of our country through social media. Like recently we have seen how the university students raised their voice and connected with each other on the decision of imposing vat on private education institution. The students argued and debated unitedly and created awareness among all the citizens.

Government bodies also give post describing on the essential and debatable topics. People share their opinion also. Even the opposition leaders are now criticizing the acts of the government bodies and asking for a concrete explanation. The general public is seeing all these and judging whom to elect in the future. So for choosing the right leader for the future, social media is now playing the most important role.

At the time of crisis communication among government bodies and citizens is very crucial. The devastating wildfire that ravaged the northern Canadian city of Fort McMurray in May 2016 is a great example. The fire engulfed close to 600,000 hectares of land and quickly destroyed thousands of homes and valuable economic resources—ultimately forcing the evacuation of over 80,000 residents from their homes. The unpredictable wildfire posed enormous communication challenges to local government officials to maintain public safety. At that moment social media played as a lifesaving method to evacuate the large pool of a population from the danger.