The Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) and the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology has approved two important frameworks for use of social media by government agencies and citizen engagement for e-Governance projects. Here are some highlights from both the guidelines: Download Guidelines: Social Media Framework | Citizen Engagement in e-Governance Use of social media by government agencies - On using social media: The framework notes that social media should not be used by Government agencies just to broadcast information but also to undertake meaningful participation from the public to formulate public policies. Government agencies can use social media to receive feedback from citizens, re-pronouncing public policy, conduct general and issue-based interactions, spreading awareness and educating citizens on various National Action Plans and its implementation strategies and for brand building. - Platforms: Government agencies can make use of any existing social media platforms which includes social networking sites, social bookmarking sites like StumbleUpon; e-commerce platforms like Amazon and eBay and self publishing media platforms like YouTube or create their own communication platform. - In case of existing platforms, government agencies should identify and choose one or two key platforms to start their interaction and later expand to other platforms based on their objective and response received. Agencies should choose the initial platform based on the duration of the engagement (ongoing or time bound), consultation type (public or a specific group), consultation period (hourly, daily, weekly and bi-weekly), and compliance to existing laws which includes compliance to data protection, security, privacy, archiving…
