Diffusion of News through Social Media with Reference to the Kiss of Love Movement on Facebook

Abstract

Web 2.0 is an interactive medium that has paved the way for the democratization of news. News is no longer the domain of the elite who disseminate it to the masses via mass media. In the age of Web 2.0, where social media rules the roost, every individual is a content generator and a purveyor of information. News is now more viral than ever. Facebook with over a hundred million users in India is the most popular social networking site in India. People use Facebook to connect, like, share and comment on everything from politics to culture to religion and so on. They also use it to disseminate news that they connect with on a personal level; along with their opinions on the same. This way, they become creators and transmitters of information.The Kiss of Love movement is a non-violent protest against moral policing which began when a Facebook page called 'Kiss of love' asked the youth across Kerala to participate in a protest against moral policing on 2nd November, 2014, at Marine Drive, Cochin. The controversial movement has snowballed into a mass movement which has spread into other states. A campaign of this magnitude has been made possible due to viral diffusion of news, information and comments on Facebook. This study uses quantitative and qualitative tools to study the diffusion of news with regard to the Kiss of Love movement through Facebook in an attempt to shed more light on the diffusion process of information through social media.