The Influence of Influencers — Social Media and Its Role in Democracy
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A classic example of how social media and its influence, if channelized productively, holds the potential to fuel and transform citizen interest in matters of civic importance

In March 2020, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change published the Draft Environment Impact Assessment Act, 2020 (EIA, 2020) seeking feedback from citizens. This Draft Bill was proposed to replace the original Draft EIA policy that was legislated in 2006.

The purpose of the Draft was to propose a new set of rules to be considered during the process of issuing environmental clearances to industrial projects. Given the nature of the bill and the current global debate surrounding environmentalism and industrialism, one would have expected a huge and immediate public outcry to the proposed Draft, when Civis published this consultation on its platform on 30th March 2020. However, it was not until July’20 that the number of Citizen responses on Civis’ platform started gaining traction.

What prompted this sudden spurt in citizen reactions?

The emergence of an increasing outpour of opinions across social media by well-known celebrities and influencers could very well be handed the credit for arousing citizen interest in the given bill.

A quick analysis of Google Trends indicates the initial three months since the Draft Bill became public, to have evoked maximum interest from states such as Delhi, Uttarakhand, Meghalaya, Haryana, and Assam. This trend saw a pronounced shift in subsequent days, with Tamil Nadu and Puducherry emerging as the regions with the maximum interest generated by way of their activity across the internet and validated by the responses that Civis received on its platform.

In unprecedented citizen activity, 133 responses from Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, were recorded by Civis in July’20 alone. This, compared to the 5 responses gathered from these states across the whole of March-June’20 indicates the impact that social media had on public psychology when it came to matters of governance and national interest.

It was on the 26th of July’20 that Padma Priya, a well-known YouTuber from Chennai put up a public video voicing her views about the Draft EIA. This was followed by more such videos in the coming days along with other movie stars from Tamil Nadu being vociferous with their opinions on social media.

On the heels of the social media buzz generated by influencers from Tamil Nadu, the state of Kerala too picked up steam and on the 9th of August 2020, merely two days away from the Consultation deadline, a spoof video on EIA was published by an Instagram influencer from Kerala. This was followed by a very public and strong statement by Malayalam actress Parvathy on the 11th of August, addressing the Central Government.

In August 2020, Civis saw Kerala having overtaken its Tamilian neighbour with 45 responses, higher than any other state.

A timeline of the social media events and their subsequent impact on the citizen responses can be seen below:
['Divya Pinge']
['Eia', 'Social Media', 'Democracy', 'Influencers', 'Citizenship']