Can Positive Messaging on Social Media Promote Peacebuilding in Myanmar?
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Can positive messaging on social media promote peacebuilding in Myanmar? Clément Silverman Communication for Development One-year master 15 Credits Spring 2018 Supervisor: Tobias Denskus Word count: 13,783 Clément Silverman: AG2346 1 Can positive messaging on social media promote peacebuilding in Myanmar? Abstract: Can positive messaging on social media promote peacebuilding in Myanmar? It is argued that social cognitive communication campaigns reversing negative symbolic interactionism on social networks could be the answer. This paper finds that there has been only one significant campaign, MIDO’s Pan Zagar, to use positive messaging on social media. Whilst the numbers of people that engaged with it suggest that this was popular, there is not enough evidence to determine if this had any behavioural change. However, an opinion survey and interviews show that there is potential to leverage counter narratives towards building peace – especially by harnessing the popularity of the major platform Facebook to both monitor and publish content influencing people towards peaceful behaviour. Contents: Page 3 Introduction: • Social media in Myanmar • Conflicts in Myanmar Page 13 Literature review • Papers on Myanmar • Other examples of social media in conflict situations • Journalism • Conflict and peace Page 22 Theory • Symbolic interaction • Prototype theory Page 25 Research methodology • Interview • Survey • Media monitoring Page 29 Results analysis • MIDO • Fake news • Traditional C4D • Hate speech • Media monitoring • Facebook • Influencing Page 42 Conclusion Page 44 Bibliography Page 47 Appendix Clément Silverman: AG2346 2 Can positive messaging on social media promote peacebuilding in Myanmar? Introduction: This thesis will argue that the use of positive messaging can promote the possibility of peacebuilding in Myanmar. It will draw on a literature review, desk research, opinion survey and interview with experts in the field to investigate the use of social media in the country in relation to intercommunal violence. Theoretically, concepts of positive messaging – also known as counter speech –and interventions based on reinforcing affirmative ideas on social media can have an impact on the complex peacebuilding efforts. The definition of positive messaging and counter speech used here are in reference to specifically proactive campaigns that are designed to use language that acts as a direct antithesis to negative communication. That is to say, whereas there are plenty examples of hateful, malicious and false information being used to foster divisions and conflict, there are fewer significant attempts to use positive and encouraging ‘nice’ language as a tool to build peace. The attempts to monitor, track and curtail hate speech, although relevant in part, particularly in relation to the on-going Rohingya crisis in Rakhine state, is not the focus of this research. This is due to the restrictions in finding balanced or reliable accounts, the safety of sources, access to the area geographically (this also the case for the other conflicts in the country). The research methodology used is based on qualitative, rather than quantitative, information gathered. This due to the limitations as described above, and the need to produce a concise final analysis within the word count allowed. The opinion survey was conducted online it was posted to Facebook in a closed group and aimed at gathering responses from people with high awareness of the effectiveness of messaging online. In this sense it was a focussed and targeted survey, but did not go further to canvas a broader section of society, and there was a lower than expected response rate, which may have affected the final findings. Clément Silverman: AG2346 3 Can positive messaging on social media promote peacebuilding in Myanmar? The interviews conducted with experts in the field for this paper provided genuine insight – there was a time constraint meaning that additional follow-ups could not be made. In addition, an analysis of one-month’s media monitoring was carried out to show the coverage of the issues in the press, which reveals how well social media stories are being received by the journalists and exposed to the general public. There is a unique opportunity, however, to examine how a country that has only very recently had mass access to new forms of mobile communications has used them to intervene in long running internal disputes and intercommunal violence. Access to technology has in recent years both aided development through connectivity, and also been used for political gains. This has implications the field of communication for development, in looking at how communications and social theories can be used to provide interventions that transform lives in a place that is experiencing on-going developmental and economic challenges. Traditionally, one of the major successes in providing information to the closed off country was via exiled broadcast and print media. Now social networking has provided new tools to leverage counter narratives towards change and peace. Social media in Myanmar Hearing the common refrain: ‘In Myanmar Facebook is the internet (Roache, 2018)’ is equally both an unhelpful cliché and a perfect summation of the situation in Myanmar. For many people, their portal to the internet is certainly not via a browser into the world wide web, it is through the blue and white F application icon on their smartphone. ‘Facebook is used as a search engine in Myanmar, and many businesses have a Facebook page but not a regular website’ (Parikh, 2017). This is because of the explosion of mobile phone ownership, brought about by a change in government policy to open up the telecommunications market in 2013. Although the picture is rapidly changing and reliable data is not readily available, it is said that now 95% of people - 50 out of 53 million (Kanale, 2017) - have a mobile phone, according to the latest Kepios findings. It is difficult to estimate exactly how Clément Silverman: AG2346 4 Can positive messaging on social media promote peacebuilding in Myanmar? many smart mobile phones (typically touchscreen, 3G or 4G capable) are in the hands of Myanmar citizens, but reports point to varying but consistently high numbers between 70% (Peel, 2017) and 80% (Vota, 2015) of the country’s mobile connections. That’s ‘higher than the Asia-Pacific average of 53 per cent and even the European level of 68 per cent, according to GSMA Intelligence, an international industry body’. (Peel, 2017). In terms of the effect this has had on economic development it is said that ‘over the next 15 years an estimated 250,000 job opportunities are believed to be created in the country as a result [of investment in telecoms] and contribute to more than 5% of the country's GDP’. (Mizzima, 2017). This is a giant leap for a country in which agriculture was ‘the primary source of livelihoods, not just for half the poor, but also for nearly half of all households’ (World Bank Group, 2014). Livelihoods across all sectors of industry are boosted by the uptick in telecommunications. Social media itself is hugely influential in Myanmar, perhaps more so than in countries where the market for information is more mature and have an established trusted mainstream media. It is often cited that ‘for those with access, the mobile internet and social networking is becoming their primary source of news’. (Spirit et al, 2016). In particular, the ease of access to information has facilitated change and discourse that bypasses the previously tightly controlled media and press. It ‘played a big role in spreading State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi’s democratic message’ (Parikh, 2017). The same apps which are improving the agriculture and pastoral sectors by providing raw data and information, are also including social functionality that connects people via chat. ‘Chat forums are connecting farmers, allowing them to swap tips while experts are on hand to answer queries’ (AFP, 2018), which shows that Myanmar has truly embraced the possibilities that the new connectivity has afforded them leading to greater economic benefits throughout society and not just for the urbanised middle or upper socioeconomic groups. The general uptake and usage of telecommunications and internet services has led to Myanmar being described as a ‘leapfrog nation’, whereby traditional media, technologies and services familiar to developed countries have effectively been bi- passed as the country skips these iterations and embraces modern practices. This is Clément Silverman: AG2346 5 Can positive messaging on social media promote peacebuilding in Myanmar? seen in sectors such as: agriculture (as mentioned); banking (with a majority of people unbanked, mobile payments have begun to fill the space) and transport (with ride-hailing apps becoming widespread). Crucially the press is being transformed by the changes to digital technology and with it its relation to social media. It is important to note that the free press in Myanmar is nascent, only since ‘the adoption in 2014 of the Printing and Publishing Enterprise Law (PPEL), which officially abolished past prior censorship and allowed newspapers to become editorially independent from the state’ (International Media Support, 2016) and the broadcast law of 2015 have allowed a diverse range of public, private, mainstream and ethnic media to begin to flourish. Although in many ways the sector can boast a multitude of print publications and of those many are printed in minority languages, they are often have a ‘limited circulation of a few hundred copies per issue’ (International Media Support, 2016). Despite the liberalisation of first the print and then broadcast media, there are still obstacles regarding obtaining a licence for new TV and radio stations with five new channels only being granted in 2017. There is also a campaign, some might say of fear, run by the government against journalists and media houses. This is most evident by (at the time of writing) the trial of two Reuters journalists arrested under the colonial-era Official Secrets Act for reporting on the mass graves of massacred Rohingya people discovered in Rakhine state.