Written Task 2: Which Social Groups are

marginalized, excluded or silenced within the

text?
Written Task Word Count: 904 words
Part of the Course to which text refers-: Part 2: Language and Mass Communication

Prescribed Question: Which Social Groups are marginalized, excluded or silenced within the
text?

Title of the Text: How Social Media Can Silence Instead of Empower, October14, 2017 by Kale
Leetaru

Focus: Does the social media actually look at empowering marginal group or silence them?

Outline:

In today’s technology driven world, social media platform like Facebook, twitter have assumed a
pivotal role as the conscience keepers of the world. Opinions can be influenced; decisions can
be altered through this medium.

The society of professional journalists in its code of ethics advises journalists to “avoid political
or other outside activity that may compromise integrity, or impartiality or may damage
credibility”. This issue here is whether social networking platforms are helpful in spreading news
or just merely platforms to share personal information/statues. If indeed so, whether they
provide their editorial staff an atmosphere for partisan reporting. Also, a key point- whether the
journalists follow their code of ethic. Hence, it becomes important to actually explore whether
these platforms have an issue of biasness or not.

Written Task:

As social media assumes increasing importance in today’s context, one should analyze the
need for communication by humans. Noelle Neumann propagated “The Spiral of Silence”
theory. The theory stipulates that people have `an inherent phobia of being isolated. This fear
leads them to remain silence rather than voice their opinions. Media and more importantly social
media assumes great importance as it helps propagate information and opinions without
actually coming into physical contact or knowing each other. Unfortunately, though, social media
platforms like Facebook, Twitter etc. rather than act as conscience sentinel, they have started
filtering information hosted by them. This filtering is done by deletion of content or suspension of
accounts on the pretext of being either disconcerting or degrading to a particular community or
political leadership. Who decides or what forms the basis of the decision to filter is highly
subjective and sometimes driven by the editors’ personal beliefs

There are 3 instances in the recent times which the article has cited that form basis of this
analysis. 3 events; Rohingya Crises, Chinese corruption, and United States assaults allegations
where subjectivity formed part of manipulation of the social media content. The concept of
‘Spiral of Silence’ is applicable here as it has now started to become contrived. Social & Digital
media form a tool available to the common man whereby, he can voice an opinion or highlight a
wrong doing without his voice being suppressed. The power of multiplicity lies with internet and
there have been instances where posts have gone “Viral” in a few minutes.

Marginalization of Rohingya Muslim community took place in Myanmar and the activists took to
Facebook to highlight issues and document the atrocities which were taking place in the ground
level. An unfortunate community which had no voice and was unwanted was being persecuted
and had no way of redressal. Facebook used the pretext of deleting content of accounts since
they depicted violence, though later on, it came to light that their reviewer workforce could be
biased towards minority groups.

The Chinese government is all about autocracy and suppression of any form of dissent and this
is an accepted fact. In this case a Chinese activist took to Facebook too highlight corruption in
the Chinese government. He had his account suspended ostensibly at the behest or
intervention of Chinese government officials. Though Facebook refused to comment on the
issue, they gave the reason as “Published Personal Information without consent”. It is a
laughable excuse to suppress any kind of information on their portal which would be
uncomfortable to Facebook. The question here was whether Facebook is on news platform or
merely an undefined social platform with which has arbitrary rules. There is a thin dividing line
today between the two as information flows back & forth and hence, persecution or suppression
of activists, as in this case should not have been carried out as somebody said, “Journalists
are conscience keepers to society”, and should have standards accordingly.

Lastly, we all know the recent controversy that erupted on sexual harassment/assault in the
western fil industry. Several well-known actresses like Alyssa Milano, came out with allegations
of sexual misconduct at various stages of their career. The platform used for this by a prominent
actress was Twitter. Twitter went ahead and suspended her account claiming that they did it
since “One of the tweets included a private phone number and that the account will
temporarily be locked”. Twitter went around in circles trying to justify its actions, little realizing
that it was only blocking twitter’s own famous motto, “Truth to Power”. Subsequent events and
back teaching only strengthened the contention that suspension of social media accounts is
whimsical and without reason.
The article brings out very clearly social media platforms have been unable to come to terms
with the fact that they have a bigger role to play in society. At various times, they have
suppressed voices just because they are unpopular. Though “Social Media companies like
Facebook and Twitter go to great lengths to argue…”, the author has cited the above
discussed episodes where their decision to delete/suppress accounts’ information was an
autocratic and whimsical decision. This probably stemmed from the fact that these social sites
did not view themselves as publishers of news & consequently did not have clear journalistic
code of ethics.

By questioning through three different episodes, the author has clearly highlighted how these
sites suppress sometimes genuine content to be viewed on their platforms. The question now
remains, why so? The author feels that these large corporations are “at the end of the day,
commercial for-profit enterprises, rather non-profit public goods spaces”. This concludes that
social platforms are driven by advertisers who do not live their brands advertisers running
against negative news. The author uses a quote by U.S Supreme Court judge & media articles
by times to reinforce the responsibility of social media companies and not look at “Making
decisions about who gets a digital megaphone and who should be unplugged from the web”.

As news transgresses onto social media, the world becomes a smaller people and
dissemination consumes a new meaning. The concept of “Spirit of Silence” also gets
diminished with amplification of human voice. Speaking against the system, highlighting wrong
doing or communal suppression is part of a democratic system of information sharing. Thus,
social media should emerge from the shackles of elite and embrace the pain of the masses as
well.

Word Count: 904

Works Cited:

Leetaru, Kalev. “How Social Media Can Silence Instead Of Empower.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 14 Oct. 2017,
www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2017/10/14/how-social-media-can-silence-instead-of-empower/#60396fae7ba1.

“Spiral of Silence.” Mass Communication Theory, 21 May 2014, masscommtheory.com/theory-

overviews/spiral-of-silence/.