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Social media, particularly the Social Networking Sites, have enabled communication anywhere in the world and to anyone who shares interests and activities across political, social, economic and geographical boundaries. Of late, there has been intensive discourse and debate among intelligentsia about the perceptible impact of social media on opinion building and expression. Some civil society movements are also said to be accelerated by social media. This paper, through an empirical study, attempts to understand and analyse how social media, especially social networking sites, change the ways of communication, allow the public to critique and discuss fearlessly different social and political issues thereby becoming a force to reckon with for civil society movements and agitations in India. To study this phenomenon, Dehradun city, an education hub of India having a sizeable number of young active new media users, was chosen as a reference point. The study suggests that social media is yet to emerge as a definite force multiplier for civil society movements in India.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1177\/1461444814523725","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2014,2,24]],"date-time":"2014-02-24T21:20:02Z","timestamp":1393276802000},"page":"1299-1316","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177\/sage-journals-update-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":23,"title":["Social media as a catalyst for civil society movements in India: A study in Dehradun city"],"prefix":"10.1177","volume":"17","author":[{"given":"Rajesh","family":"Kumar","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Communication, Doon University, India"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Devam","family":"Thapa","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Communication, Doon University, India"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"179","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2014,2,24]]},"reference":[{"key":"bibr1-1461444814523725","unstructured":"Aggarwal S (2013) India Internet outlook. 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