Surfing the New Media wave

Saturday, 25 July 2015 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

SOCIAL Media or New Media has long ceased to be a buzzword and is being hailed as an agent of change the world over, and Sri Lanka is no exception.

The ability to air one’s opinion on the World Wide Web is no longer a luxury afforded to the urban elite, as ever-increasing internet and smartphone penetration has helped take the power of social networking to the masses, with some analysts going as far as to attribute recent election results to the hitherto unseen presence of the country’s political psyche on web 2.0.

UNDP Sri Lanka conducted an interactive blogging workshop this week for a group of young bloggers. Titled the ‘Unlocked Project, this initiative seeks to introduce a youth and development-themed online platform exclusively for young voices.

The Unlocked online space will be rolled out in a weekly column in this newspaper, commencing August, this year. It is hoped that this will encourage further youth participation and involvement in the fourth estate, be it online or offline.

The growing influence social media has on all spheres of governance and democracy cannot be overstated. The run-up to the 8 January polls saw an unprecedented participation of internet-savvy youth in the nation’s political process, with innumerable tweets, photos, cartoons, ‘memes’ and videos being posted and shared on a daily basis across various platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram.

Even though the actual impact this crowd-sourced and highly-organic propaganda drive had on the final results of the election remains unclear, an argument can be made that, given the country’s rapidly expanding connectivity, it helped sway opinion in a way that seemed impossible not even a year ago. And it looks as though this trend will only continue with the upcoming parliamentary elections.

Skeptics have questioned the effectiveness of internet activism, however, claiming that it is merely a means for armchair activists to feel as though they’ve contributed towards change when, in reality, their actions online have little to no meaningful impact on the causes they so dearly espouse.

Proponents, meanwhile, argue that the increasingly ubiquitous nature of social media allows for greater penetration and awareness of social and political causes, adding that raising awareness alone is enough reason for social media activism to be encouraged. Real change, they maintain, can occur when enough people know what’s going on. We are inclined to agree with this line of thinking, as it is our belief that an informed society is an empowered society.

With this in mind, we are happy to welcome the young bloggers selected by the UNDP into our fold, and hope it encourages like-minded individuals and critics alike to look at citizen journalism with an open mind and consider playing a more active role in one of democracy’s strongest pillars.