• July 2, 2015
• Social Media
• Web Desk

ISLAMABAD – Ruling Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) social media cell is proactively busy in building party’s image as well as dispelling and countering negative things on social media under the supervision of Maryam Nawaz Sharif.

The social media cell not only deals with the image building of the party on popular social media forums like Facebook and Tweeter, but it also draw the media policy on day to day political developments taking place in the country and then in the light of party’s line vocal party leaders especially young Parliamentarians are directed to propagate and project it on private electronic and other available media sources, a ruling party MNA said while talking to The Nation here on Wednesday.

Another ruling party MNA, who is closely interacting with the social media cell, termed the work being carried out by the cell quite fruitful and in line with the party’s policy strategies to tackle major political issues.

However, some senior party leaders did not take the whole exercise well and termed it running of a parallel system in the presence of regular channels of the party to deal with these affairs.

A source in the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) said that some quarters within the party are not comfortable with the growing role of the media cell which had made even Prime Minister’s Media Office greatly under its influence and the media managers of PM Media Office are compelled to take guideline from the cell.

Similarly, people sitting in the state-run media channels including Radio Pakistan and Pakistan Television Corporation, were directly taking directions from the cell in host of cases to the annoyance of people sitting at the helms of affairs in Ministry of Information, the source further informed.

The sources in the ruling PML-N informed that Premier Sharif was quite happy with the performance of his daughter and was greatly relying on her regarding the party’s media management. It was due to the growing confidence of PM in the abilities of his daughter that under his direction the whole media management of the party at all levels was centralised under the cell to avoid any dichotomy in the party’s policy on some particular issue, these sources further said.

Another source in the party informed that the think tank of the party was also working in unison with the social media cell to effectively project and promote the party’s manifesto and future plans on social media and other media outlets.
Amina Malik, associated with the cell, informed The Nation that under the able guidance of Maryam Nawaz they were successfully dealing with the party’s image building on social media as well as print and electronic media channels.

Taking about the utility and usefulness of the exercise, she said that the cell was also playing the role of national cohesion and evolving consensus on issues of national importance like uniting the nation on the operation Zerb-i-Azb against militants by launching an effective campaign on media.

Amina Malik, who is also writing on political and social issues for the cell, informed that recently she has evolved a plan of women empowerment through information technology. The e-women programme is mainly aimed at engaging the women folk through latest techniques of information technology. The social media cell would help them overcome their problems like health, education and job-related issues.
Press Information Officer to Maryam Nawaz Sharif, Moazam, was reluctant to share details about the social media cell of PML-N but was appreciative of Maryam’s proactive approach in handling the party’s point of view on social media in her personal capacity.

To a question, he said that all the government departments were having their web pages and these departments have staff to deal with these pages as per their requirements.

The young Parliamentarians like Talal Chaudhry, Danyal Aziz, Maryam Aourangzeb, Dr. Tariq Fazal Chaudhry are among those proactively working with the social media cell of the party and promoting the cause of the party.

Similarly, a separate group in the media cell is working writing blogs on social media and articles both in leading Urdu and English dailies aimed at promoting the party’s image as well as allaying the negative things about the governance related issues of the party.

The Nation