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Social Media and Political Choices

Khalid Chandio

The question: Does social media impact our political choices? The obvious answer is

yes social media does impact our political choices. Support at all levels of the political

system is a renewable resource, but one that must be renewed. It is a century

dominated by information technology, especially the Internet, which has shrunk the

world. The global Internet usage has been showing tremendous increase since its

inception. The world internet usage doubled in the last five years. According to

Webopedia, social media is “a term used to describe a variety of Web-based

platforms, applications and technologies that enable people to socially interact with

one another online. Some examples of social media sites and applications include

Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, YouTube, blogs and other sites that have content based

on user participation and user-generated content (UGC).” We are literally living in a

borderless world where you don’t move physically but yet you are everywhere sitting in

the super jet called Internet. For restricted and close societies like ours, lacking

tolerance levels, needed to absorb the kind of freedom we encounter on social media

is a great challenge.

The more one talks to the social media, the more it tells you what to do and what not

to do. Social media is quite vast and even social news are circulated on print and

digital media too. With the passage of time it has proved to be much better than the

official media houses as social media is more credible than official media business

houses. Social media is not like any other media—print and electronic. It is unique and

has revolutionised the inter-personal relationship and communication, not affected by

any of the limitations of print and electronic media. Unlike the print media or the
electronic media, where there is a gap between the speaker and the audience—

physical and emotional, the social media puts the two directly in touch, that too in real

time. We don’t have to wait to write to newspapers to get our response published; we

send our responses immediately. All we need is a computer or a lap top, connected

with the internet. Issues ranging from cooking to international politics are freely

discussed, no holds barred.

Another question why are people slowly turning towards social media than the actual

media (i.e., Print and Electronics)? The newly born Pakistan media which is still in its

infancy, notwithstanding the fact that it has done a lot in making people understand the

political culture, sometimes does not speak that exactly what the truth is. Very often it

exaggerates a lot and promotes cynicism which is very much evident in our society

now as people are only criticizing no matter how good the governments do. Very often

we wonder how even the educated lot fails to distinguish between the failures of the

government and the state. We have to understand as a nation that there is huge 2

difference between the government interests and larger national interests. All time

chatter on social media leads to change your opinions and of course your mind is a

good player! But again propaganda creates illusions. Social media in Pakistan has

diversified the political choices of the people and this was one of the reasons the

recently held elections were hotly contested on Facebook, of course Imran Khan

leading the campaign than the others. This was the same Facebook that for the first

time gave impetus to dormant young-educated voters to go out and vote. This was the

healthy sign indeed. Rigging in elections 2013 was abundantly talked about on social

media but at the same time we did witness derogatory comments which was

deplorable. Socio-political issues in Pakistan are discussed daily on social media that

have often challenged and affected journalism and the environment of how
newsrooms operate.

It was disappointing to note that though the Prime Minister of United Kingdom, David

Cameron, was in Pakistan the same day Altaf Hussain renounced his Chairmanship of

the party but almost the entire electronic media of Pakistan focused and covered only

Altaf Hussain’s yet another political stunt and did not even bother to cover the UK

Prime Minister’s visit the way it should have been. In the backdrop, when Pakistan is in

a state of war as far as terrorism is concerned and at the same time when US is

preparing to leave Afghanistan and talking to Taliban, the visit of Mr Cameron was of

utmost importance but our infant electronic media remained indifferent. People have

started relating and co-relating issues and events in Pakistan. The massive influx of

information available on internet is one of the main determinants of extensive use of

social media. Previously there were very few openings where people could express

their views or reservations. We only were hostage to the same and old analyses by the

same and old analysts about any national, regional and international event. These

days we do have dynamic and new analyses by millions of young audience on the

social media. This is again a healthy sign as this is a new trend and bringing in new

insights.

The question of State regulating social media i.e., content-based stuff is one of the

major problems it is going to face in near future. We (state and individual) have a huge

responsibility as social media is often used for propaganda i.e., political being on the

top. There are always good and bad angles to any invention and discovery, it is again

the responsibility of the rank and file and the government to regulate any social or

cultural change. Civilized and developed nations do regulate things where huge

involvement of the people is seen. But such regulation should be broad enough to

allow space to varied ideas and views. What is needed to be eschewed is the use of
social media for personal invective and ridicule. Social media has to be guided by

norms of decency and regard for the individual’s honour and respect. Since it is being

used by the very young also who are in impressionable age, care has to be taken to

save them from exposure to even inadvertent obscene or violent material.

The writer works for Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRI) Email:
khalidhussainchandio@gmail.com

This article was carried by Pakistan Observer, 15 August, 2013