The issue of banning a social media page has once again become the talk of the town in Sri Lanka. It seems that the government has banned the social media page of a young popular musician. It appears that a large number of people are coming forward against this baseless ban, regardless of their political opinions. Since this social media page is one of the most popular pages which has over 100,0000 followers with a significant social power, there could have been some hidden agenda behind this sudden ban. It is true that it’s only one individual who is subjected for this incident, but the blocking of social media in that way has an indirect link with the rights of every citizen in the country.
In this week’s column I wish to discuss
the relationship between social media and democracy on one hand, and on the
other hand, one of the significant developments in the political arena of our
country today. A very significant interconnection has been developed in the
recent times between social media and day to day activities common people. It
is a noteworthy factor that this has spread not only in to the political arena
but also in to the other zones of social life such as economy and trade.
The fact that whether a country
is thriving was measured in the past based on the criteria how well the
country's physical infrastructure has developed. In other words, development
ratio was set against the improvement of things in the material realm such as roads,
airports, ports, electric power, etc., But now that the situation has changed, and
there is a direct relationship between the fact whether a country has achieved
better social status and how the digital infrastructure of that country has
changed. In this context it is not wrong to state that foreigners decide to
visit a country as tourists, taking into consideration both the security and
the status of digital infrastructure facilities.
The nature of the developments in
the political arena is very large in relation to this situation. One of the
decisive factors in the 2015 presidential election was the kind of
anti-establishment situation which was created in the social media space. No room was left to control or modify the
social networking which was created in this context due to the unique nature of
influence in these platforms. In addition, as this type of social media
networking is formed in some kind of undercover dimension their impact is
unlikely to be understood before it comes. What I am trying to point out is that the
social pressure or social change caused by that influence can only be realized
only after it has happened. Therefore, understanding this new dimension in the
digital space is very important from a political perspective.
An important survey on world’s
social media literacy conducted by a Singaporean corporation, shows that the
impact created by social media on every social dimension of this country is
extremely alarming. According to the survey, the world's population as of
January this year is about 7.67 billion. The survey found that 42% of the total
population of the world who use a mobile phone to access social media is
accounted to 3 .25 billion subscribers.
This survey has presented some
very important data in relation to the situation in Sri Lanka. According to the
above survey, the mobile subscriber base in Sri Lanka is about 28.71 million. That
number is larger than the country's population of 20.98 million. However, there
is no difficulty in realizing the gap between the numbers as we know that there
are some individuals who use more than one mobile phone. Now, in addition to
this, it is said that the number of Internet users in Sri Lanka in January 2019
is about 7.13 million. According to the survey, the number of social media users
among them is about 6.2 million. In addition, one of the most important data
presented in this is that in January 2019, a sample of about 5.7 million among
the mobile phone users in Sri Lanka access social media through their mobile
phones. In my opinion, this figure represents a number of very important issues
in term of politics. This is approximately about 20 percent from all mobile
phone users, and is roughly equal to the size of the youngest groups voting in
the next election. This is the group born within the five years from 1997 to
2002. Nevertheless, this does not mean that all between 18 to 22 years of
mobile phone users in this country access social media platforms by phone or
nor does it mean that all who access social media platforms are between this
age group. But the fact that this group has a large impact on the voter turnout
in our country is undeniable. The youth groups that I am saying are neither
morning newspaper nor night television news. There is nothing wrong with saying
that this group's information connection is solely through mobile platforms. They
watch the news, listen to the news and read newspapers from the mobile phone.
The next important point this survey
presents is that one 7.7 million people in Sri Lanka have access to the
Internet, which is about 34 percent of the country's total population. It has
also mentioned that about 6.5 million of the mobile phone users in the country
access the Internet from their phones, which is about 31% of the total mobile
subscribers.
One important observation that can be
made based on these data is that a drastic change is taking place in the
political discourse and media practice of this country. I don’t mean to say
that this change will build a society that is based on truth and reality. But I
think there is nothing wrong in saying that digital space is the 'ground of
struggle' between truth and false in future. One of the key points aroused in
the 2015 presidential election was the profound difference between what the
traditional media presented and the knowledge produced by social media, and the
impact that difference caused on the society is decisive. Particularly in the days leading up to the
2015 election, a friend of mine suggested that in a country where there is no influence of Prabhakaran, there is a
huge potential for a drastic change in the electoral politics. In some
sense, we have all faced this situation during 2015 presidential election. In
addition, considering the struggle in the digital space that has been
developing since 2015, one can say that an important chapter of the next
political shift is intertwined with this emerging social media space. The next
model of electoral politics will develop a generation who is heavily engaged in
the digital space and who politically responds through the digital space,
excluding the model of young people frequenting the night-time at their
respective representative’s residence and those who rallying till midnight with
the candidates. It is correct to mention that this situation has completely
exacerbated some of the dividing lines in politics and the dominant politics.
Finding out how to deal with this situation is the biggest challenge at the
moment in the mainstream politics.
Dr Charitha Herath
@charith9
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