At an average age of 60+ years, our expectations about social media activity from the union cabinet are pretty low. While a few ministers like Sushma Swaraj and Suresh Prabhu have set a role model for their collegues in proper usage of social media for connecting with the citizens, we are not sure whether their collegues have taken the message to heart.
The number of daily tweets by a minister are an indication of the adoption of this medium of communication. Some Ministries have not tweeted even once in the past year While others handle hundreds of tweets daily. See at the end for a special analysis of how the railway’s handle their twitter account.
Any social interaction consists of
- Talking (Original tweets)
- Listening and responding (replies and quotes)
- Endorsing someone’s viewpoint(retweets)
- Taking a stand on an Issue (Hashtags)
As a whole, the group
- Made 100811 total tweets, of which
- 64429 were original tweets
- 9026 were replies
- 36382 were retweets
Looking at median group activity we see,
- Daily tweets.
- 56.7152 % Mann Ki Baat.
- 33.8059 % Un ki Baat
- 1.7717 % AAP Se Baat.
Unlike older methods of communication where the politician used media to only broadcast his thoughts, Social media enables two way connection. The type of tweets are an indicator of the level of interactiveness:
We classify interactiviness as
- Mann ki Baat: Where the politician uses twitter to express himself by boradcasting his thoughts .e.g. Nitin Gadkari, Dr. Harsh Vardhan, Rajnath Singh, Narendra Modi, Ananthkumar, Arun Jaitley Predominantly use the Mann Ki Baat mode of communication. It is the most popular form of communication with 56.7152 % of the tweets being of the Mann Ki Baat variety.
- Unki Baat: Where the politician uses twitter to retweet the views of others. e.g. Nitin Gadkari, Dr. Harsh Vardhan, Rajnath Singh, Narendra Modi, Ananthkumar, Arun Jaitley also favor Unki Baat mode of communication
- Aap Ki Baat: Where the politicians use twitter to interact with the citizen and respond to their needs. This is a difficult form of communication as it needs to be backed up by action on the ground the minister who have mastered this form of communication are Ministry of Textiles, Vijay Kumar Singh, Radha Mohan Singh, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Sushma Swaraj, Kalraj Mishra.
The Union Ministers evaluated in this study are (click on the links for detailed analysis per minister)
| Twitter.handle | Name | Analytics | Description | Followers | baat | dailyBaat | MannKiBaat | AAPKiBaat | UnKiBaat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MoHFW_INDIA | Ministry of Health | Details | This is the official twitter account of Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India | 482964 | 3246 | 11.0 | 60.29 | 0.4313 | 39.279 |
| TexMinIndia | Ministry of Textiles | Details | Official Twitter account of Ministry of Textiles, Government of India. RTs are not endorsements. https://t.co/FkkTjAANtb | 126988 | 3244 | 5.0 | 11.84 | 79.5006 | 8.662 |
| HRDMinistry | Ministry of HRD | Details | Official Twitter Account of the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India. | 786062 | 2157 | 2.0 | 35.19 | 2.1326 | 62.680 |
| HMOIndia | HMO India | Details | Office of the Home Minister of India | 1400328 | 2974 | 3.0 | 73.54 | 0.3026 | 26.160 |
| CimGOI | CIM India@GOI | Details | Commerce & Industry Minister, Government of India | 273753 | 3206 | 4.0 | 58.36 | 1.5908 | 40.050 |
| manojsinhabjp | Manoj Sinha | Details | Minister of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of Communications, Minister of State in the Ministry of Railways, MP from Ghazipur, Alumnus of IIT-BHU | 58490 | 3204 | 15.0 | 49.00 | 12.0162 | 38.983 |
| Rao_InderjitS | Rao Inderjit Singh | Details | MP Gurgaon. President #Paralympics Committee of India. MoS (I/C) for Ministry of Planning and MoS for Urban Development and Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation | 25752 | 2275 | 3.0 | 47.34 | 3.6484 | 49.011 |
| DVSBJP | Sadananda Gowda | Details | Official Account of Minister of Statistics & Programme Implementation, Govt. of India, Former CM of Karnataka, MP Bengaluru North D.V. Sadananda Gowda | 233612 | 3219 | 5.0 | 42.99 | 8.1392 | 48.866 |
| shripadynaik | Shripad Y. Naik | Details | Union Minister of state for AYUSH (independent charge) & MOS Health, Govt of India | 10784 | 1069 | 2.0 | 36.11 | 0.2806 | 63.611 |
| rsprasad | Ravi Shankar Prasad | Details |
Law & Justice, Information Technology Minister of India #DigitalIndia |
1264678 | 3205 | 8.5 | 40.31 | 26.8331 | 32.855 |
| RadhamohanBJP | Radha Mohan Singh | Details | Minister of #Agriculture & #Farmers Welfare, Govt of #India. Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha, Purvi #Champaran. | 101562 | 3250 | 10.0 | 58.83 | 32.5231 | 8.646 |
| arunjaitley | Arun Jaitley | Details | Minister of Finance & Corporate Affairs, Government of India | 6401486 | 1691 | 2.0 | 79.07 | 9.8167 | 11.118 |
| dpradhanbjp | Dharmendra Pradhan | Details | Minister of State(Independent Charge) Petroleum & Natural Gas(https://t.co/xZHg7AlClI). Views personal. RTs not endorsement | 263460 | 3213 | 25.0 | 61.22 | 14.4413 | 24.339 |
| Gen_VKSingh | Vijay Kumar Singh | Details | Minister of State for External Affairs,Govt. of India| MP from Ghaziabad| Former Chief of Army Staff, India | 816268 | 1973 | 2.0 | 47.03 | 33.2489 | 19.716 |
| MVenkaiahNaidu | M Venkaiah Naidu | Details | Union Minister for Urban Development, Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation, Information & Broadcasting | 386227 | 3220 | 10.5 | 77.27 | 2.0497 | 20.683 |
| umasribharti | Uma Bharti | Details | Minister of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, Government of India, INDIA | 90607 | 660 | 3.0 | 53.03 | 0.9091 | 46.061 |
| rajnathsingh | Rajnath Singh | Details | Minister of Home Affairs, Government of India, INDIA | 4338519 | 2353 | 2.0 | 91.25 | 1.7850 | 6.970 |
| PiyushGoyal | Piyush Goyal | Details | Minister of State with Independent Charge for Power, Coal, New & Renewable Energy and Mines in Government of India l Office https://t.co/rtkTy2atHH | 946847 | 3208 | 23.0 | 64.21 | 1.0287 | 34.757 |
| PrakashJavdekar | Prakash Javadekar | Details | Minister for Human Resource Development, Government of India. | 764662 | 3225 | 6.0 | 52.03 | 1.2403 | 46.729 |
| tourismgoi | Ministry of Tourism | Details | Official Twitter account of Ministry of Tourism (Govt. of India) | 59598 | 3198 | 5.0 | 26.70 | 0.0625 | 73.233 |
| jualoram | Jual Oram | Details | Union Minister for Tribal Affairs, Govt. of India https://t.co/M7hjjZXxMC | 53900 | 3215 | 7.0 | 33.59 | 2.2395 | 64.168 |
| PMOIndia | PMO India | Details | Office of the Prime Minister of India | 15294812 | 3243 | 9.0 | 72.06 | 0.3392 | 27.598 |
| KalrajMishra | Kalraj Mishra | Details | Union Minister for MSME,GoI. MP(LS) Deoria.Former BJP Nat’l Vice President. RTs are not endorsement. | 121563 | 3228 | 17.0 | 41.17 | 14.4981 | 44.331 |
| AnanthKumar_BJP | Ananthkumar | Details | 6th Term BJP Lok Sabha MP from Bengaluru South. Union Cabinet Minister for Chemicals, Fertilizers & Parliamentary Affairs. | 216610 | 2228 | 2.0 | 79.58 | 1.3016 | 19.120 |
| PIB_India | PIB India | Details | Press Information Bureau. Nodal agency for communicating to media on behalf of #Government of #India. Follow for official #GoI updates https://t.co/271KONMLYj | 1105861 | 3234 | 129.0 | 29.84 | 0.0000 | 70.161 |
| SushmaSwaraj | Sushma Swaraj | Details | Minister of External affairs | 6933108 | 3244 | 3.0 | 69.57 | 26.3872 | 4.038 |
| DrJitendraSingh | Dr Jitendra Singh | Details | Union Minister of State (Ind Charge) for Development of North Eastern Region. MoS PMO, Govt. of India. Diabetologist, Columnist and author of 8 books. | 62272 | 3240 | 10.0 | 67.53 | 0.6790 | 31.790 |
| sureshpprabhu | Suresh Prabhu | Details | Minister for Railways, Government of India | 1966520 | 3229 | 50.5 | 33.35 | 1.8891 | 64.757 |
| smritiirani | Smriti Z Irani | Details | Union Cabinet Minister of Textiles, Government of India. Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha representing the state of Gujarat. | 5452198 | 3245 | 14.0 | 31.43 | 0.6780 | 67.889 |
| santoshgangwar | Santosh Gangwar | Details | Union Minister, Government of India, Member of Parliament, Bareilly | 19597 | 2957 | 3.0 | 68.04 | 1.7585 | 30.200 |
| nitin_gadkari | Nitin Gadkari | Details | Union Minister of Road Transport & Highways and Shipping | 1188613 | 1110 | 2.0 | 95.41 | 0.1802 | 4.414 |
| drharshvardhan | Dr. Harsh Vardhan | Details | Union Minister of Science & Technology, Earth Sciences - Government of India, ENT Surgeon, Ex. Advisor - World Health Organization (WHO) | 1354827 | 1996 | 3.0 | 93.89 | 0.4008 | 5.711 |
| Ra_THORe | Rajyavardhan Rathore | Details | Minister Of State for Information & Broadcasting; Member of Parliament-Jaipur(R); Olympic Silver Medalist;Padma Shri; KhelRatna; Arjuna Awardee;Military Veteran | 345500 | 3201 | 3.0 | 60.98 | 8.4036 | 30.615 |
| nsitharaman | Nirmala Sitharaman | Details | Union Minister of State, Commerce & Industry (I/C), GoI, MP (RS) representing Karnataka, Formerly BJP Natl Spokesperson. Views personal, RTs no endorsement. | 1010824 | 3214 | 8.0 | 46.20 | 9.4586 | 44.337 |
| narendramodi | Narendra Modi | Details | Prime Minister of India | 26092834 | 3203 | 7.0 | 81.99 | 0.6869 | 17.328 |
| irvpaswan | Ram Vilas Paswan | Details | Union Minister of Food & Public Distribution, Consumer Affairs, Government Of India. President and Founder Lok Janshakti Party. Views and RT are personal. | 226800 | 3234 | 14.0 | 55.07 | 0.1237 | 44.805 |
Hashtags
HAshtags are a method of bringing structure to unstructured text, they are commonly used to help index and catalog a tweet as belonging to one or more categories. Using a hashtag is an indication that the tweet is that person’s stand on the issue covered by the hashtag.
A Look at the hashtags used by our Ministers shows. * Modi’s MannKiBaat is the most prominent hashtag. * Most of the trended hashtag’s are some or the other scheme buzzwords launched by our dear PM. * Demonetization arrived towards the end of the period under study but managed to get 3 hashtags in the list (DeMonetisation, DigiDhanMela, digitalpayments) * Among the regional units, only the Delhi unit of the party see’s some support on twitter by the Union Cabinet * Bengaluru finds mention as a city.
Looking at who gets retweeted, who get replies and who gets a mention we can form a network of connections which indicates the people in a given ministers social network. Looking at the network within the group of ministers and with the outside world we see the following.
- Within the Group of Ministers Modi, PMO and PIB are at the center of the network.
- But the most frequently mentioned ministers are Arun Jaitley, Piyush Goyel, RadhaMohan, Sushma Swaraj…
Outside Influences
Looking at Influencers other than the members of the UN cabinet, we find the minister’s mostly talking with the sub-departments of their ministry Taken as a group the minister’s show a tendency to talk with the Party twitter handle and party members.
Indian Railways, Setting the Benchmark for customer service.
Indian railways has acquired a reputation for responsiveness towards citizens who tweet to their twitter account.
- On an average the railways sends 800 tweets per day.
- 95.8333% of tweets are replies to customers
- The tweets are handled using a mix of traditional platforms and specialized S/W like
| Tool | UsageFrequency |
|---|---|
| OneDirect Suite | 3104 |
| Twitter for Android | 53 |
| Twitter for iPad | 18 |
| Twitter for iPhone | 9 |
| Twitter Web Client | 56 |
- Other than replies the original tweets are mostly used to speak about issues connected to the railways.
- Looking at the communication with public, you find courtesy forms a key part of communication with use of words like kindly and please.
- Other keywords indicate that the account is prominently used for resolving public grievances.