Social Media is Politicizing the Youth of Bangladesh
Social Media is Politicizing 1
Introduction
From the very beginning of its existence Internet has been reshaping the human society in a very radical fashion. It has eradicated the spatial constraint of communication and has provided an open platform which has given immense power to its users. Ubiquity of the Internet and multimedia devices has paved the way for a new kind of media the ‘social media’. According to Ahlqvist, Bäck, Halonen, and Heinonen (2008), social media refers to the means of interactions among people in which they create, share, and exchange information and ideas in virtual communities and networks ( as cited in
“Social Media,” n.d., para. 1 ). Kaplan and Haenlein (2010) defined social media as “a group of
Internetbased applications . . . which allows the creation and exchange of usergenerated content” ( as cited in “Social Media,” n.d. ). Social media comes in various forms such as community blogs, internet forums, social networking sites, microblogs, photos and video sharing and rating websites and so on.
Whereas traditional media such as TV, newspapers and films are often controlled by the political parties or the corporate houses, social media is free and allows anyone to access and broadcast information.
Even though commercial Internet service has been around since 1969, social media saw its boom in the first decade of the 21st century. An article reported that, in the year 2013 there were total
1.11 billion Facebook users, YouTube had over 1 billion monthly users and 4 billion daily views,
Twitter had 200 million active users and there were 156 million blogs ( “Brief History,” n.d., “2013” para. 114 ). Furthermore, Duggan and Brenner (2013) concluded that, “Internet users under 50 are particularly likely to use a social networking site of any kind, and those 1829 are the most likely of any demographic cohort to do so (83%)” (p. 2). Thus, we can clearly see that the social media has a significant impact in the
Introduction
From the very beginning of its existence Internet has been reshaping the human society in a very radical fashion. It has eradicated the spatial constraint of communication and has provided an open platform which has given immense power to its users. Ubiquity of the Internet and multimedia devices has paved the way for a new kind of media the ‘social media’. According to Ahlqvist, Bäck, Halonen, and Heinonen (2008), social media refers to the means of interactions among people in which they create, share, and exchange information and ideas in virtual communities and networks ( as cited in
“Social Media,” n.d., para. 1 ). Kaplan and Haenlein (2010) defined social media as “a group of
Internetbased applications . . . which allows the creation and exchange of usergenerated content” ( as cited in “Social Media,” n.d. ). Social media comes in various forms such as community blogs, internet forums, social networking sites, microblogs, photos and video sharing and rating websites and so on.
Whereas traditional media such as TV, newspapers and films are often controlled by the political parties or the corporate houses, social media is free and allows anyone to access and broadcast information.
Even though commercial Internet service has been around since 1969, social media saw its boom in the first decade of the 21st century. An article reported that, in the year 2013 there were total
1.11 billion Facebook users, YouTube had over 1 billion monthly users and 4 billion daily views,
Twitter had 200 million active users and there were 156 million blogs ( “Brief History,” n.d., “2013” para. 114 ). Furthermore, Duggan and Brenner (2013) concluded that, “Internet users under 50 are particularly likely to use a social networking site of any kind, and those 1829 are the most likely of any demographic cohort to do so (83%)” (p. 2). Thus, we can clearly see that the social media has a significant impact in the
References: Arab Spring. (n.d.). Retrieved September 4, 2013, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Spring Azad, R.I. (2013, May 31). 33 million Internet users in Bangladesh. The Independent. Retrieved from Chowdhury, M. Z. (2011, August 2326). “Public sphere and the new media”, Bangladesh Context. Paper presented at Internet – A new public sphere, Oslo University College, Sologny, Cohen, C.J., Kahne, J., Bowyer, B., Middaugh, E., & Rogowski, J. (2012). Participatory politics: New media and youth political action. Oakland, CA: Youth and Participatory Politics Duggan, M., & Brenner. J. (2013). The Demographics of Social Media Users — 2012: Young adults are more likely than older adults to use social media. Women, African Americans, /PIP_SocialMediaUsers.pdf Facebook statistics. (n.d.). Retrieved September 4, 2013, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki Haq, F. (2012, May 7). Social media: The debate on freedom and responsibility [Web log post]. Mahmud, S & Nasreen, G. (2009). Net switching in journalism education in Bangladesh: Problems and prospects. Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh, 54 (2). p.3. Social media. (n.d.). Retrieved September 4, 2013, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media Survey finds youth use new media for peerbased participatory politics. (2012, June 27).