The Union Cabinet has approved the proposal for establishing a New Media Wing under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to handle government's social media platforms. The expenditure for the new unit and the recurring expenditure would cost Rs 22.5 crore during the 12th Five Year Plan (2012-17), which has been approved by the CCEA under Development Communication & Information Dissemination plan scheme of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. The New Media Wing will handle communications on social networking sites such as YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter and the proposal was drawn on the basis of the experience of the initiative undertaken by the Ministry for a pilot project. Research & training Division will be providing administrative and operational support for the unit. It's not clear whether the government plans to outsource handling the social media accounts to social media agencies or have an in-house team. Social media has become an important means for the government to broadcast news and information (and, occasionally, misleading information) as both citizens and media persons are increasingly turning to social networking sites to get their news. On social networking sites, users expect a two way communication from the accounts they subscribe to, and this is where the Prime Minister's account on Twitter has been particularly lame, although the Ministry of External Affairs has so far done an excellent job. Many government officials and ministers use their social networking accounts in their personal capacity, so we wonder if their usage (if managed by external parties) is…
