Sir — This refers to the article, “Are we defacing our social mediaIJ” (January 16) by Sushmita B Waraich. There are many reasons that make us abuse social media. Never in our lives have we got sufficient political space for dialogue. And we are constantly seeing in electronic media how we must not debate! Electronic news channels could have provided the public with the much-needed political space. And these channels could have and should have taught us how to debate and how to use social media. But what we get from most of these news channels are almost high decibel nothing. We see that every participant in a television debate or a talk show just wants to outshout others.
After hearing such deafening debate, a voter becomes more confused and sometimes even a pathological phobic that makes him/her believe in undemocratic might-is-right anarchy. Social media seems to copy such a dangerous trend of reducing media to kangaroo courts. To combat such a verbal violence in the name of a debate and to give voters healthy political space for attaining mature political behaviour, such talk shows and debates must be conducted following the way a classical debate is staged.
Every speaker must be given a certain amount of time to say whatever she/he wants to and even the moderator must not speak a single word during that period. There should be two to three rounds of talk so that every participant gets enough opportunity to refute an argument and reflect on the points that have been raised by her/his opponents.
The function of a moderator is just to start the proceedings and sum it up in a few words at the end. Powerful and almost omnipresent electronic media can indeed play a huge role in creating a healthy platform for political discourse. Not only will such democratic debates help us know about the present political scenario but also teach our MPs and MlAs a lesson or two on how to depend solely on facts and wits rather than on their vocal cords.