Social
media has become the most ubiquitous and most powerful source of news updates
through smart tools such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, Blogger,
Myspace, Storify, Linked-in and several others. In addition to that, it has risen as a tool
for the mobilization of collective action and the creation, organization and
implementation of social movements around the world, be it election campaign of
US President Barack Obama or the Arab Spring. It has been instrumental in
supporting political and social movements by providing opportunities for
political expression, symbolic identification for collective action, and
information exchange.
Pakistan
is also associated with this huge, global, every-day widening social media
network which has become a new avenue to promote businesses in Pakistan not
only used by individuals/firms but also to influence public opinion on social
and political issues.
The
usage pattern of social media in Pakistan is no different than in United States
or any other country of the world. There are 30 million Internet users in
Pakistan, 11% of total population, half of which use mobiles to access the
internet. In terms of usage, Facebook takes the lead in popularity which has
over 8 million users in the country out of a global total of more than 1
billion. Twitter and LinkedIn have 1.9 million and 1.2 million users in
Pakistan respectively. Google Plus and Pinterest appear to have far fewer users
in Pakistan, at approximately 64,000 and 115,000 respectively.
Overwhelming
50% majority of Facebook users in Pakistan are youth, aged 18-24 years and 25
percent from age 25-34 and overall 70 percent Facebook users are male and 30
percent are females. Of all the online browsing and surfing, 27 percent of
internet users in Pakistan are Facebook users. Social media is also more
popular in Pakistan because of the accessibility of smartphones at reasonable
prices. More and more people are using social media on their phones rather than
desktops.
From
a political stand-point, social media forums are being increasingly employed by
political parties to strengthen their vote bank. The idea is to target a young
population aged 18-24 who have never cast votes in any elections to vote for
their party in the upcoming elections in 2018. Various political parties have
also taken the lead and are using social media like Twitter and Facebook to
enhance and expand on their party ideas as well as providing day to day news
updates regarding their leadership and party efforts. For others, the social
media has also become a tool to smear, charge and accuse politicians of other
parties by uploading news items, videos and claims to discredit them.
Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) was one of the front- runner parties to launch campaign
on social media and specifically Facebook. PTI chief, Imran Khan capitalized on
Facebook and YouTube to launch his political career and promote himself as a
leader. Imran Khan’s popularity has increased manifold because of social media
and how he has been able to convey his viewpoint and party agenda effectively
via the social media.
Following
the footsteps of PTI, PPP, PML-N, MQM and most other political parties have followed
suit using the social media as an effective tool for getting prospective voters
on board. Their pages are very actively updated and monitored. There are number
of resources that suggest that most of the mainstream political parties are
seriously challenged by PTI, who they fear might rob their vote bank, at least
in the urban areas.
Active participation
on the social media has become a norm for the political parties in Pakistan. It
is a positive development from the political perspective but still far behind
in the sense that only a miniscule percentage has access to the internet and
social media but the trends do show an increasing popularity. It is also a
positive trend from the perspective of the growth of the political system in
Pakistan as it would provide forums to new parties who are unable to get a fair
chance to be part of the political system through conventional means such as
elections.
However, media gagging
and censorship on pretext of national security or religious blasphemy should be
a cause for concern. Moves like blocking of Facebook in 2010 and current
blocking of YouTube only relegate Pakistan to stone- age of Information age.
No comments:
Post a Comment