Role of Social Media in Mobilizing the Anna Hazare’s Social Movement during August 2011: An Empirical Study

Anna Hazare is a renowned social activist in India. Hazare began an indefinite hunger strike against the then government for passing the Lokpal Bill, which had been pending for more than four decades. The movement started in the April, 2011. Lakhs of people gathered in the Ramleela Ground, Delhi to support the movement. People took leaves from their offices to sup-port the cause. Undoubtedly, mass media’s role was remarkable throughout the moment in mobi-lizing people but social media also played a critical role. The beauty of social media is that, it fulfills the social need of people. Social media connected like-minded people who wanted to go in a group to support Anna Hazare. The present study is empirical in nature with a sample size of 215 volunteers and experts, who supported Anna Hazare. It was investigated in the study that how social media connected or motivated them to become a part of this movement. The sampling method is judgment sampling, where, only those respondents were selected which were the part of the movement or connected to the movement in any form. The data analysis tools were mean and multiple regression.