Social Media and Socio-Political Movements
Introduction
Facebook, Twitter, Blogs – all of these help circulate information and raise awareness. I first heard about the Non-Dalit Common People’s Association and the Ambedkar cartoon through postings on facebook. These tools can spread information to a wider audience in very quick time.
Over the past decade and especially since revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya lots of people have been talking about the impact of social media in social protests. As one Egyptian activist put it: “We use Facebook to schedule the protests, Twitter to coordinate, and YouTube to tell the world.”[1]The internet can be an important tool for mobilising people and spreading information, but we must be careful not to see it as the key to social change.
Plus Points of Social Media
First let us think of some of the positives:
- Information
When mainstream media neglects certain groups or topics, these media allow information to spread. They raise awareness both within and beyond the country and challenge the dominant narratives of the government and the press. After the shootings in Paramakudi I was in Scotland, but received several emails and blogs and followed facebook pages to find out what had really happened. Robin Jeffrey recently wrote about how few Dalits work in the newspapers – social media allows Dalits and others to write their own news. In Egypt and other places there was no free media and lots of government censorship. Protestors could not rely on the media. But because the Arab Spring was covered by ordinary citizens via Twitter, Facebook, online blogs, and videos on YouTube, according to the 2011 Arab Social Media Report, 94% of Tunisians get their news from social media tools, as do 88% of Egyptians.The advent of social media did not cause the revolutions of the 2011, but played a crucial facilitating role, by “gathering real time information, by facilitating the weak ties, that is, the physically distant and socially diverse relationship across the globe” (Chebib & Sohail 2011, 151). Social media spread information about how to survive tear-gas, but also about what the protests were about.
- Networking
Social media also help to build, maintain and expand networks. In his 1973 study entitled “The Strength of Weak Ties,” sociologist Mark Granovetter analysed the link between micro-level interactions and macro-level patterns in social networks, concluding with the strength of weak ties lies in their potential for “diffusion, social mobility, political organization, and social cohesion in general,” across different networks.The advantages of weak ties over strong ties lie in their ability to diffuse information and ideas across social groups. Granovetter illustrates this theory by using the example of spreading a rumour. If an individual shares a rumour with all of his closest friends (considered strong ties) and those individuals pass the rumour to their close friends, some individuals are likely to hear the rumour multiple times, as “those linked with strong ties tend to share friends.”Thus, the information is contained in one social group. When applied to political mobilisation, the same rule applies. If the activists organizing the protests in Tahrir Square had only spoken to their closest friends or family members, it is unlikely that hundreds of thousands of Egyptians would have shown up on 25 January. By capitalizing on the weak ties forged online through social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter, the activists were able to not only circulate their calls for political mobilisation, but began a dialogue that fostered the attitude for political activism in Egyptian communities. Through social media groups can reach out to others on the basis of issues or shared interests. In Egypt one of the most important Facebook sites was not linked to a political party. It was created by Google executive Whalid Gholem and called ‘We are all Khaled Said’ (a protestor brutally killed by the police). The focus on an issue meant 500,000 joined the site.
- Co-ordination
One of the most important aspects of social media is the ability to co-ordinate action. You can provide real-time information about what is happening and where it is. You can bring thousands of people together in single issues and you can help to bring people onto the streets. The two best examples of this are Obama’s election campaign and Egypt: For Obama’s election there was a very big net campaign that sent resources, information and ideas to local activists and got them onto the streets. Also in Egypt, social media told people what was happening and brought them together. Without the action on the ground nothing would change.
Possible Problems
This reminds us that social media cannot do anything on its own. Richard N. Haas points out, “the printing press, telegraph, telephone, radio, television, and cassettes all posed challenges to the existing order of their day. And like these earlier technologies, social media are not decisive: they can be repressed by governments well as employed by government to motivate their supporters.” Social media are just one new means of communicating and they also have problems:
- Online can replace Offline
There is a danger that people sit at home posting on Facebook or signing petitions and not go out into streets, villages or protests. Unless petitions and protests are chased up and followed then they tend to be meaningless. Secondly, there is a danger that people online just talk to themselves within a bubble. Need to reach out beyond group to others. Needs to be connected to offline mobilisation.
- The Opposition can also mobilise
The state or corporations can censor or shut down the net so unless you are networked offline mobilisation can stall. Secondly, the internet can also be used by groups like the ABVP or RSS as happened after the Osmania University Beef Festival.
- Anonymity and authenticity
One problem with some social media is that you do not know who is posting. There was a case in the UK in 2011 when an activist group kept getting emails saying: let us be radical, let us use violence. When they checked who was sending these messages they found that the computer was based in a police station. Lots of misinformation is spread online – need to decide who to trust.
- Long Term Change
Social media is very good at spreading information and connecting people, but it can happen a bit too fast without time to reflection and planning. The Egyptian revolution was very fast – 18 days – but what has really changed? All the people on the streets wanted to get rid of Mubarak, but were less clear about what they wanted. The army stayed in power and protests have started again. You need to communicate, but also need detailed programmes and policies for change. In 2009, Twitter was used in protests following the controversial election of President Ahmadinejad. The USsupported the Green Movement and called on Twitter to help the movement, but in the months afterwards the Green Movement lost its momentum. This reminds us of the difficulty of sustaining online activism and transforming it into an offline reality.
- Reaching the unconnected
Finally, only 10% or so of people in India are connected to the net and most web communication is in English. How do you reach out to people without internet or English? How can you include their voices? The net is only 1 tool, do not forget all the others.
Conclusion
Although the net is a brilliant tool for social mobilisation we need to remember that it is just one tool. It cannot create revolutions on its own it needs the right context and reaction: see Iran and Syria where revolutions have failed or been brutally crushed vs Tunisia and Egypt where revolutions were quick and quite bloodless. These did not happen overnight because of the net. Middle East scholar Joel Beinin has calculated that there have been approximately three thousand worker-led protests in Egypt over the last decade, indicative of the unhappiness with Mubarak’s regime. There were also strong efforts to mobilise on the ground. When the Egyptian government shut down the internet, protesters were able to continue organising demonstrations due to the organisational infrastructure that had already been established.
In an Indian context need to remember other important ways of communicating. The mobile phone is a key tool. Assa Doron and Robin Jeffrey have done research on the BSP in UP. In 2007 they used mobile phones very effectively in the election: slogans, news, information were all passed to party members who forwarded them to friends or spoke about them in towns and villages. During the election activists used camera phones to monitor violence. They took photos and videos and posted them online.
Two key things to think about arewho are we trying to reach and what are we using the net for?
First thing is that the sites need to be updated regularly and have content if you want people to keep coming back.
If talking to party members and others in TN then the material needs to be in Tamil, and also should not have too many photos because these need lots of bandwidth to load. The focus should be on locally relevant and important information: what have our MPs and MLAs said in parliament? This is something activists are often asked and cannot get from the papers. What are current campaigns and priorities? News on upcoming meetings and events. Local contacts.
If you want to gather information then there should be opportunities for people to upload photos, videos and comments either directly or through an office. This will give users a sense of ownership and participation.
If you want to reach out to supporters beyond TN, then it would be best to use English. He the key is on programmes, policies and news.
If used correctly, the net can really help political movements. In Egypt Facebook provided the organisational infrastructure to share information and also provided a crucial platform for potential protesters to network with one another and share their common grievances.
The final conclusion is that successful socio-political movements need grassroots organisation offline and need to use offline tactics of organization together with online tactics. Social media are of most use for sharing information and accelerating and facilitatingcommunication and protest.
[1] Anonymous Cairo activist, quoted in Nadine Kassem Chebib & Rabia Minatullah Sohail, “The Reasons Social Media Contributed to the 2011 Egyptian Revolution,” International Journal of Business Research and Management 3 (2011): 139.