NEW DELHI: International Yoga Day, Smart Cities, Digital India. The Narendra Modi government clearly takes events seriously. And, it’s begun tracking the effectiveness of its communication strategy assiduously by keeping a close watch on coverage by television channels, print and social media.
In the first time such an exercise has been conducted, the ministry of information and broadcasting (IB) has prepared a comprehensive dossier on how the media reported International Yoga Day, reporting that social media took a mostly “neutral view,” while a third of the comments were positive. When it came to TV, the 300-page document compiled by the ministry used the term “defaulters” to describe channels that ignored the event, among them Sun TV and Public TV.
The report documents every activity undertaken by government media units in advance of the event and includes a study of how it was received nationally and internationally. Approved by the Prime Minister’s Office, the document is being sent to ministers, an information ministry official said. The ministry has also sent a report comprising 900 news clippings to the PMO on what Indian and international media had to say on the government completing its first year in May.
Aseparate ‘Compliance Report’ on International Yoga Day shows that more than 130 TV channels were monitored for five days leading up to the June 21 event, which included a recordbreaking demonstration of the discipline led by the PM in the capital. The list of “defaulters (poor show/ no show)” shows four channels that showed no spots on yoga day. It also listed 14 channels that carried “less number of spots than spots allocated them for airing.” Urdu and Northeast channels were special categories by themselves and were almost in 100% compliance.
“Most of the monitored channels gave wide coverage to the event with most showing more promotional spots than promised,” the report said.
The document said the TV debates on June 21 night mostly centred around the controversy sparked by BJP member Ram Madhav tweeting about Vice-President Hamid Ansari not attending the event. It even listed the panelists in the debates and what they said. The 80-page compliance report includes headlines and contents of newspaper articles about yoga day. It suggested that the response to the event, especially on social media blogs, was high but slightly lower than what it was for Swachh Bharat.
In its social analytics report, the ministry listed “top influencers”- those who tweeted content that influenced internet users on the event.
The impact, it said, was 33% positive with most “appreciating Modi for taking yoga to the world and for creating a world record.” Sixty percent remained neutral while posting pictures but 5% of posts were negative, it said, adding, “Some people commented that it is a mere publicity gesture and government should focus on governance.”
The analysis started a day before and ended a day after the event to arrive at a broad picture.
“When the social media analytics was done on yoga rehearsal day, 23% posts were encouraging, while some said the government was trying to steal limelight from important issues,” a senior official said. “But slowly the momentum picked up and we have over 2 lakh posts on yoga day alone and the sentiment was largely positive or neutral.”