Launch of the top-line report of a survey on the consumption and perceptions of mainstream and social media in the Western Province of Sri Lanka, 27 Jan 2016
On 27 January 2016, the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) launched the top-line report of a survey on the consumption and perceptions of mainstream and social media in the Western Province of Sri Lanka.
I was one of the launch speakers, and my presentation was titled: Information Society is Rising in Sri Lanka: ARE YOU READY?
The report draws on a survey of 1,743 randomly selected men and women, interviewed in Sinhala or Tamil language during June-July 2015. They were asked about mobile phone use and web access. The survey was conducted by Social Indicator, CPA’s survey research unit.
As the launch media release noted, “From the use of Facebook to smartphones, from news on TV to news via SMS, from how information read digitally is spread to others who are offline, the report offers insights into how content is produced, disseminated and discussed in Sri Lanka’s most densely populated province and home to the country’s administrative and business hubs.
It added: “The report offers government, media, civil society and social entrepreneurs insights into the platforms, vectors, languages and mediums through which news & information can best seed the public imagination.”
Dilrukshi Handunnetti (centre) speaks as Nalaka Gunawardene (left) and Iromi Perera listen at the launch on 27 Jan 2016 in Colombo – Photo by Sampath Samarakoon
In my remarks, I said it was vital to draw more insights on what I saw as ‘demand-side’ of media. But at the same time, I noted how a growing number of media consumers are no longer passively receiving, but also critiquing, repackaging and generating related (or new) content on their own.
I applauded the fact that this survey’s findings are shared in the public domain – in fact, Iromi Perera, head of Social Indicator, offered to share the full dataset with any interested person. This contrasts with similar surveys conducted by market research companies that are, by their very nature, not going to be made public.
Why do demand-side insights being available in the public domain matter so much? I cited four key reasons:
The new government is keen on media sector reforms at policy and regulatory levels: these should be based on evidence and sound analysis, not conjecture.
Media, telecom and digital industries are converging: everyone looking for ‘killer apps’ and biz opps (but only some find it).
Media companies are competing for a finite advertising budget: knowing more about media consumption can help improve production and delivery.
Advertisers want the biggest bang for their buck: Where are eyeballs? How to get to them? Independent studies can inform sound decision-making.
On this last point, I noted how Sri Lanka’s total ad spend up to and including 2014 does not show any significant money going into digital advertising. According to Neilsen Sri Lanka, ad-spending is dominated by broadcast TV, followed by radio an print. Experience elsewhere suggests this is going to change – but how soon, and what can guide new digital ad spending? Studies like this can help.
I also highlighted some interesting findings of this new study, such as:
Private TV is most popular source of news, followed by Facebook/web.
Across different age groups, smartphone is the device most used to access web
Online culture of sharing engenders TRUST: peer influence is becoming a key determinant in how fast and widely a given piece of content is consumed
None of this surprises me, and in fact confirms my own observations as a long-standing observer and commentator of the spread of ICTs in Sri Lanka.
Everyone – from government and political parties to civil society groups and corporates – who want to engage the Lankan public must take note of the changing media consumption and creation patterns indicated by this study, I argued.
I identified these big challenges particularly for civil society and others engaged in public interest communication (including mainstream and citizen journalists):
Acknowledge that we live in a media-rich information society (Get used to it!)
Appreciate that younger Lankans consume and process media content markedly differently from their elders and previous generations
Understand these differences (stop living in denial)
Leverage the emerging digital pathways and channels for social advocacy & public interest work
In my view, rising to this challenge is not a CHOICE, but an IMPERATIVE!
I ended reiterating my call for more research on information society issues, and with particular focus on mobile web content access which trend dominates user behaviour in Sri Lanka.
Award winning journalist Dilrukshi Handunnetti, and head of Social Indicator Iromi Perera were my fellow panelists at the launch, which was moderated by the study’s co-author and CPA senior researcher Sanjana Hattotuwa.
L to R – Dilrukshi Handunnetti, Iromi Perera, Sanjana Hattotuwa at CPA report launch, Colombo, 27 Jan 2016
“Sri Lanka wants to make a new Constitution in a radically different way. It is poised to become the first developing country in the world to ‘crowd-source’ ideas for making the highest law of the land.
“That is all well and good – as long as the due process is followed, and that process has intellectual rigour, transparency and integrity. Therein lies the big challenge.”
So opens my latest op-ed essay, just published by Groundviews.org
In it, I describe the experience of Iceland which was the world’s first country to ‘crowd-source’ a new Constitution. From 2011 to 2013, the European nation of 330,000 people engaged in an exercise of direct democracy to come up with a modern Constitution to replace the existing one adopted in 1944. That involved many public hearings as well as using social media and other communications platforms to gather public inputs and to ensure public scrutiny.
Facebook was used as part of a public consultation strategy to draft Iceland’s new Constitution in 2011-13
This is the path that Sri Lanka has now chosen: open and participatory Constitution making. To be sure, tropical Sri Lanka is vastly different. Its population of 21 million is 60 times larger than Iceland’s. But the Arctic nation’s generic lessons are well worth studying – both for inspiration and precaution.
I point out: “In doing so, it is important to ensure that public consultative process is not limited to the web and social media. Instead of dominating, technologies should only enable maximum participation.”
“The bottom-line: gathering public proposals is commendable, but not an end by itself. The government needs to adopt a systematic method to study, categorize and distil the essence of what is suggested. And that must happen across English, Sinhala and Tamil languages.”
In this week’s Ravaya column (appearing in issue of 17 January 2016), I critique the public communications practices President Maithripala Sirisena of Sri Lanka – and call for better listening and more engagement by the head of state.
I point out that Sirisena is in danger of overexposure in the mainstream media, which I call the ‘Premadasa Syndrome’ (as this bad practice was started by President R Premadasa who was in office from 1988 to May 1993). I argue that citizens don’t need to be force-fed a daily dose of presidential activities on prime time news or in the next day’s newspapers. If public documentation is needed, use the official website.
Like other politicians in Sri Lanka, Sirisena uses key social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter to simply disseminate his speeches, messages and photos. But his official website has no space for citizens to comment. That is old school broadcasting, not engaging.
This apparent aloofness, and the fact that he has not done a single Twitter/Facebook Q&A session before or after the election, detracts from his image as a consultative political leader.
On the whole, I would far prefer to see a more engaged (yet far less preachy!) presidency. It would be great to have our First Citizen using mainstream media as well as new media platforms to have regular conversations with the rest of us citizens on matters of public interest. A growing number of modern democratic rulers prefer informal citizen engagement without protocol or pomposity. President Sirisena is not yet among them.
“For only the second time in my life, I voted for a winning candidate on 8 Jan 2015. I now keep insisting that Maithripala Sirisena delivers on his promises.” – Nalaka Gunwardene, blogger and tweep
It was also Sri Lanka’s first national level election where smartphones and social media played a key role and probably made a difference in the outcome. During the weeks running up to 8 January, hundreds of thousands of Lankans from all walks of life used social media to vent their frustrations, lampoon politicians, demand clarity on election manifestos, or simply share hopes for a better future.
As I documented shortly afterwards, most of us were not supporting any political party or candidate. We were just fed up with nearly a decade of mega-corruption, nepotism and malgovernance. Our scattered and disjointed protests – both online and offline – added up to just enough momentum to defeat the strongman Mahinda Rajapaksa. Just weeks earlier, he had appeared totally invincible.
Thus began the era of yaha-palanaya or good governance.
In real life, democracy is a work in progress and good governance, an arduous journey. In this week’s Ravaya column (appearing in issue of 10 January 2016), I argue that voting in two key elections during 2015 (including Parliamtnary Election held on 17 August) was the easy part. We citizens now have to be vigilant and stay engaged with the government to ensure that our politicians actually walk their talk.
Here, we can strategically use social media among other advocacy methods and tools.
මැතිවරණඅතරතුරකාලයේදේශපාලනයහාආණ්ඩුකරණය(politics and governance) එමකාර්යයේපූර්ණකාලීනවනිරතවනදේශපාලකයන්පිරිසකටපවරාඅපේවැඩක්බලාගෙනඔහේඉන්නටඉඩක්අපටනැහැ. දශකගණනක්එසේකිරීමේබරපතලවිපාකඅපදැන්අත්විඳිනවා.
Sri Lanka’s new government has committed to drafting a new Constitution to replace the current one adopted in 1978.
According to the Cabinet spokesperson, “for the first time [in Sri Lanka], a Constitution is going to be framed with the consultation of people.” Though the country has adopted Constitutions twice after independence — in 1972 and 1978 — public participation was negligible on both occasions.
Nalaka Gunawardene in a serious pose
This is well and good, but it is still not clear what consultation mechanisms would be used, and how genuinely consultative the process is going to be. Our politicians and officials lack imagination and courage to try out new methods of public participation in governance. For example, they barely use the potential of new information and communications technologies (ICTs).
In an interview with Prasad Nirosha Bandara of Ravaya independent broadsheet newspaper, published on 20 December 2015, I make an earnest case for the new Constitution drafting process to be more open, more participatory and more consultative by using all available methods – tried and tested old-fashioned ones, as well as new potential opened up by the spread of the web, mobile phones and social media.
I also draw attention to a historically important memorandum was sent by the Ceylon Rationalist Association on 25 September 1970 to Dr Colvin R De Silva, then Minister of Constitutional Affairs, who was heading the group tasked with drafting what eventually became the country’s first Republican Constitution of 1972. Written by the Association’s Founder President Dr Abraham Thomas Kovoor, it captured the broad, idealistic vision that members of that voluntary group of free thinkers had advocated since its inception in 1960. Among other principles, it advocated – in point 6 – that “the best protection for freedom of conscience is a Secular State”.
I located the memo two years ago and published it online on Groundviews.org so that it becomes widely available. In this interview, I urge the new Constitution drafters of 2016 not to make the same mistakes that Colvin R de Silva did in 1972 by ignoring these ideas of public intellectuals.
Samabima monthly magazine, published by Rights Now human rights advocacy group in Sri Lanka, has carried an interview with me in its December 2015 issue.
In this, I discuss the societal implications of a Right to Information law, which is to be adopted by Sri Lanka’s Parliament in early 2016. I reiterate that we need to see the new law as only the beginning of a long journey. Proper implementation will require adequate political will, administrative support and sufficient public funds. We would also need sustained monitoring by civil society groups and media to guard against the whole process becoming mired in too much red tape.
I also touch on serious inadequacies in our mainstream media that often fail to serve the public interest because of incompetence, arrogance or indifference. In this interview, I coin a phrase ‘Mass Media Brutality’ meted out to victims of crime or discrimination in Sri Lanka — when the media pack descends on an individual or family and unethical, sensational coverage follows.
Nalaka Gunawardene interview in Samabima magazine, Dec 2015 issue
Participants of SHER (Science, Health, Environment & Risk) Communication – Role of S&T Communication in Disaster Management and Community Preparedness held in Jakarta, Indonesia, on 8-9 Dec 2015
It was organised by the Association of Academies and Societies of Sciences in Asia (AASSA) in collaboration with the Indonesian Academy of Sciences (AIPI), Korean Academy of Science and Technology (KAST) and the Agency for Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT) in Indonesia.
The workshop brought together around 25 participants, most of them scientists researching or engaged in publication communication of science, technology and health related topics. I was one of two journalists in that gathering, having been nominated by the National Academy of Sciences of Sri Lanka (NAASL).
I drew on over 25 years of journalistic and science communication experience, during which time I have worked with disaster managers and researchers, and also co-edited a book, Communicating Disasters: An Asian Regional Handbook (2007).
Nalaka Gunawardene speaking at Science, Health, Environment & Risk Communication Asian regional workshop held in Jakarta, Indonesia, 8-9 Dec 2015
The challenge in disaster early warnings is to make the best possible decisions quickly using imperfect information. With lives and livelihoods at stake, there is much pressure to get it right. But one can’t be timely and perfectly accurate at the same time.
We have come a long way since the devastating Boxing Day tsunami of December 2004 caught Indian Ocean countries by surprise. Many of the over 230,000 people killed that day could have been saved by timely coastal evacuations.
The good news is that advances in science and communications technology, greater international cooperation, and revamped national systems have vastly improved tsunami early warnings during the past decade. However, some critical gaps and challenges remain.
The Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System (IOTWS) was set up in 2005 under UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission. Over USD 400 million has been invested in state of the art equipment for rapid detection and assessment. However, the system’s overall effectiveness is limited by poor local infrastructure and lack of preparedness. Some countries also lack efficient decision-making for issuing national level warnings based on regionally provided rapid assessments.
Warnings must reach communities at risk early enough for action. False warnings can cause major economic losses and reduce compliance with future evacuation orders. Only governments can balance these factors. It is important that there be clearer protocols within governments to consider the best available information and make the necessary decisions quickly.
Now, the proliferation of information and communication technologies (ICTs) is making this delicate balance even more difficult. To remain effective in the always-connected and chattering Global Village, disaster managers have to rethink their engagement strategies.
Controlled release of information is no longer an option for governments. In the age of 24/7 news channels and social media, many people will learn of breaking disasters independently of official sources. Some social media users will also express their views instantly – and not always accurately.
How can this multiplicity of information sources and peddlers be harnessed in the best public interest? What are the policy options for governments, and responsibilities for technical experts? How to nurture public trust, the ‘lubricant’ that helps move the wheels of law and order – as well as public safety – in the right direction?
As a case study, I looked at what happened on 11 April 2012, when an 8.6-magnitude quake occurred beneath the ocean floor southwest of Banda Aceh, Indonesia. Several Asian countries issued quick warnings and some also ordered coastal evacuations. For example, Thai authorities shut down the Phuket International Airport, while Chennai port in southern India was closed for a few hours. In Sri Lanka, panic and chaos ensued.
In the end, the quake did not generate a tsunami (not all such quakes do) – but it highlighted weaknesses in the covering the ‘last mile’ in disseminating early warnings clearly and efficiently.
Speakers on ‘ICT Applications for Disaster Prevention and Treatment’ in Jakarta, Indonesia, 8-9 Dec 2015
I concluded: Unless governments communicate in a timely and authoritative manner during crises, that vacuum will be filled by multiple voices. Some of these may be speculative, or mischievously false, causing confusion and panic.
“The key to successful foreign policy in today’s world is networked diplomacy. Managing international crises requires mobilizing international networks of public and private actors,” says Anne-Marie Slaughter, an international lawyer and political scientist who is a former Princeton academic and ex-Director of Policy Planning at the US State Department under U.S. Secretary of StateHillary Clinton.
Diplomacy then…and now
The nature of this ‘networked diplomacy’ is still being documented and studied. Some governments are not even convinced of its value, but meanwhile, others are encouraging it perhaps as a way of ‘exploiting the inevitable’.
I am neither diplomat nor scholar, but sometimes dabble as a writer and researcher on how new media – including social media – impact our society, economy and governance. So I welcomed an opportunity to engage a group of mid-career professionals on the topic Diplomacy & Foreign Relations in the Social Media Age.
I made this presentation on 14 November 2015 as part of the Certificate Course in Creative Diplomacy, conducted by the Regional Centre for Strategic Studies (RCSS) in Colombo, Sri Lanka – a think tank on international relations.
In this, I introduce and briefly explore the new kind of real-time, public diplomacy that is being ushered in with the spreading of social media. I show how diplomats and other government officials can no longer ignore this mass medium, but at the same time their traditional ways of communications need to be reoriented to suit the realities of this new information ecosystem that is informal, irreverent and fleeting.
As I spoke on the day after the ISIS terrorist attacks in France, I used (among others) the latest examples of how Gérard Araud, France’s Ambassador to the US, tweeted live as multiple terror attacks unfolded in Paris on Nov 13 night.
Real time tweeting by French Ambassador to the US while Paris attack was underway on 13 Nov 2015…More tweets from Ambassador Gérard Araud on 13 Nov 2015…
To see the bigger picture, I’ve distilled some wisdom of key researchers in this area including: Anne-Marie Slaughter, former Princeton Academic and ex-Director of Policy Planning, US State Department; Philip Seib, Professor of Journalism and Public Diplomacy, University of Southern California; and Ramesh Thakur, Professor, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University (ANU).
I also used the case study of Indian Ministry of External Affairs using social media for crisis management when 18,000 Indian nationals were stranded in Libya in Feb – March 2011 who had to be evacuated urgently.
As Ramesh Thakur has written, it is “a useful case study in the utility of social media tools in connecting the government with people who are normally well outside their range, but who can be a useful channel to send out time-urgent critical information and to receive equally valuable information from sources on the ground.”
Dedication to a remarkable diplomat-scholar who spent a few days in the Summer of 1995 mentoring a group of youth leaders from around the world, including myself, who were brought to the UN Headquarters in New York…
I dedicated this presentation to a diplomat and scholar whose mentoring I was privileged to receive 20 years ago: Dr Harlan Cleveland (1918 – 2008) who served as US Ambassador to NATO, 1965–1969 (Johnson Administration), and earlier as US Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs, 1961–1965 (Kennedy Administration).
Harlan Cleveland, among the first ‘philosophers’ of the Information Age
According to RCSS, their Course in Creative Diplomacy “provides theoretical and practical insights into the various facets of Creative Diplomacy. The course will expand participants’ understanding of the concept of diplomacy and expose them to new skills and alternative perspectives to engage with stakeholders. It is further envisioned that this post-disciplinary approach, which will be followed by the course, will explore a whole host of new mediums through which mediation, cooperation and negotiation can be carried out.”
Today, I gave the opening speech at an introductory seminar on ‘open data’ held at the Sri Lanka Press Institute, Colombo, on 15 Oct 2015.
Organised by InterNews and Transparency International Sri Lanka, the seminar explored the concepts of ‘open data’ and ‘big data’ and discussed that role civil society, media and technologists can play in advocating to government to open up its data, enabling a culture of transparency and open government.
An Open Dialogue on Open Data – 15 Oct 2015 Coloombo – L to R – Sriganesh Lokanathan, Nalaka Gunawardene, Sanjana Hattotuwa [Photo by Sam de Silva]My premise was that while the proliferation of digital tools and growth of web-based data storage (the cloud) opens up new possibilities for information generation and sharing, South Asian societies need to tackle institutional and cultural factors before democratised and digital data can really transform governance and development. Our countries must adopt more inclusive policies and practices for public sharing of scientific and other public data.
This resonates with a call by the United Nations for a ‘data revolution for development’. I cited the UN Secretary-General’s Independent Expert Advisory Group on a Data Revolution for Sustainable Development (IEAG) highlighted this in a report titled A World That Counts: Mobilising The Data Revolution for Sustainable Development (Nov 2014).
A World that Counts…
I also referred to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that were adopted by member states of the UN at a heads of state level summit in New York on 25-27 September 2015. Underpinning all 17 SDGs is an explicit recognition of the value of data for development — to better inform decisions, and to better monitor progress.
Sri Lanka’s President Maithripala Sirisena addressed the Summit, and officially committed Sri Lanka to the SDGs. I argue that implicit in that commitment is a recognition of data for development and open data policies. We now need to ask our government to introduce a government-wide policy on data collection, storage and sharing. In short, it must open up!
This was my open call to the President to open up:
Open Your Govt’s Data, Mr President! Hope you don’t give us HAL’s famous answer…
Sri Lanka has taken tentative steps towards open data. In 2013, the Open Data initiative of Government started making some official datasets freely available online. It focuses on machine-readable (well-structured and open) datasets.
I quoted from my own recent op-ed published in Daily Mirror broadsheet newspaper:
After many years of advocacy by civil society, Sri Lanka will soon adopt a law that guarantees citizens’ Right to Information (RTI). It has recently been added to the Constitution as a fundamental right.
Passing the RTI law is only a beginning — institutionalising it requires much effort, considerable funds, and continued vigilance on civil society’s part.
RTI is Coming: Are We Ready? My question to Lankan civil society and media
As champions of RTI, media and civil society must now switch roles, I said. While benefiting from RTI themselves, they can nurture the newly promised openness in every sphere, showing citizens how best to make use of it. Reorienting our public institutions to a new culture of openness and information sharing will be an essential step.
I looked at the larger news media industry in Sri Lanka to which provincial journalists supply ground level news, images and video materials. These are used on a discretionary basis by media companies mostly based in the capital Colombo (and some based in the northern provincial capital of Jaffna). Suppliers have no control over whether or how their material is processed. They work without employment benefits, are poorly paid, and also exposed to various pressures and coercion.
I drew an analogy with the nearly 150-year old Ceylon Tea industry, which in 2014 earned USD 1.67 billion through exports. For much of its history, Ceylon tea producers were supplying high quality tea leaves in bulk form to London based tea distributors and marketers like Lipton. Then, in the 1970s, a former tea taster called Merrill J Fernando established Dilmah brand – the first producer owned tea brand that did product innovation at source, and entered direct retail.
The media industry also started during British colonial times, and in fact dates back to 1832. But I questioned why, after 180+ years, our media industry broadly follows the same production model: material sourced is centrally processed and distributed, without much adaptation to new digital media realities.
In this week’s Ravaya column, (appearing in issue of 11 Oct 2015), I have adapted my talk into Sinhala.
Ceylon Tea industry pioneers and innovator: L to R – James Taylor, Thomas Lipton, Merrill Fernando
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Open Minds! 