Social Consciousness of Youth in India: Role of Social Media in the Era of Neo-populism

This entry analyses the process by which major neo-populist political parties have been using social media platforms to influence the consciousness of the population and how in turn the youth within uses the same platforms to defend their critical consciousness. Twenty-first century India is witnessing an emergence of neo-populist tendencies in the realms of the country’s polity. In an effort to influence the psyche of the masses, a wave of neo-nationalism and neo-liberalism is being propagated and appealingly marketed by the ruling political parties. Social media is one major tool that has been chosen to efficiently propagate these ideas. Social media is a platform that appeals greatly to the larger masses. However, youth of the nation also views it as a platform that provides an opportunity to assert their autonomy and take control of their agency. They have transformed it into a medium to express and deliberate on ideas, wherein they too could engage in critical discourses on social and political issues. The current political scenario and covid restrictions mean that its appeal is furthered as one of the few remaining avenues to critically respond to political powers. Enforcing social conformity using popular platforms to win over the mass psyche is a major tactic in this age of neo-populism. Hence, social media is used today to create a magical consciousness or fake consciousness among people. The aim of which is to mold the social consciousness of the society in line to certain vested political interests. It is in this context that youth within the society is confronted with a challenge to retain their autonomy and agency over their critical consciousness. It is not an exaggeration to say that social media becomes a battlefield between “propagating magical consciousness” and “defending critical consciousness.”