Drawing from my recent interactions with the IGF Academy, as well as several academic and civil society groups, I position the current public debates on web’s socio-cultural impacts in the context of freedom of expression.
With 30 per cent of our population now using the Internet, it is no longer a peripheral pursuit. Neither is it limited to cities or rich people. So we urgently need more accurate insights into how society and economy are being transformed by these modern tools.
My basic premise: many well-meaning persons who urge for greater regulation of the web and social media overlook that governments in Sri Lanka have a terrible track record in stifling dissent in the name of safeguarding the public.
Cartoon by John Jonik
I argue: “As a democracy recovering from a decade of authoritarianism, we need to be especially careful how public sentiments based on fear or populism can push policymakers to restrict freedom of expression online. The web has become the last frontier for free speech when it is under pressure elsewhere.
“When our politicians look up to academics and researchers for policy guidance, the advice they often get is control or block these new media. Instead, what we need is more study, deeper reflection and – after that, if really required – some light-touch regulation.”
I acknowledge that there indeed are problems arising from these new technologies – some predictable, and others not. They include cyber-bullying, hate speech, identity theft through account hijacking, trolling (deliberately offensive or provocative online postings) and sexting (sending and receiving sexually explicit messages, primarily via mobile phones).
I cite some research findings from the work done by non-profit groups or media activists. These findings are not pretty, and some of them outright damning. But bans, blocks and penalties alone cannot deal with these or other abuses, I argue.
I end with these words: “We can and must shape the new cyber frontier to be safer and more inclusive. But a safer web experience would lose its meaning if the heavy hand of government or social orthodoxy tries to make it a sanitized, lame or sycophantic environment at the same time. We sure don’t need a cyber nanny state.”
Social media bashing is a popular sport among media critics and others in Sri Lanka. Sadly, some have no clear idea what social media is (and isn’t), thus conflating this category of web content with others like news websitea and gossip websites.
In this week’s Ravaya column (appearing in issue of 21 February 2016), I try to explain this basic categorization along with a brief history of the web and web 2.0. I also reiterate the basic user precautions for social media users where the motto us: user beware!
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.”
Although it has been discussed for centuries, there is no universally accepted definition of basic human needs. During the 1970s, basic needs emerged as a key topic in development debates. Various studies – catalysed by UN agencies and the Club of Rome – tried to define it.
In 1976, the International Labour Organization (ILO) prepared a report that identified basic needs as food, clothing, housing, education and public transportation. It partially drew on ILO’s country reports on Columbia, Kenya and Sri Lanka. Since then, different development agencies have adopted variations of the original ILO list. National planners have used the concept to benchmark economic growth.
The ground reality has changed drastically since those heady days. In view of the rapid evolution of information society, communication should be considered a basic human need. This is the basic thrust in my latest Ravaya column (in Sinhala).
See also my related writing on revisiting basic needs:
“The mobile phone is the biggest social leveller in Sri Lankan society since the trouser became ubiquitous (initially for men, and belatedly for women). Our elders can probably recall various arguments heard 30 or 40 years ago on who should be allowed to wear the western garb: it was okay for the educated and/or wealthy mahattayas, but not for the rest. Absurd and hilarious as these debates might seem today, they were taken very seriously at the time.
“Make no mistake: the mobile is the trouser of our times –- and thus becomes the lightning rod for class tensions, petty jealousies and accumulated frustrations of an elite that sees the last vestiges of control slipping away.”
Six years on, pockets of resistance and cynicism still prevail. I was taken aback by a recent Sinhala-language commentary appearing in the official magazine of a respected Lankan development organisation that reiterated many such prejudices. In this week’s Ravaya column (in Sinhala), I look at how Lankans in lower socio-economic groups perceive benefits from their mobile phones. I draw from LIRNEasia’s research on teleuse at bottom of the pyramid.
Young woman uses her mobile phone on the road – Photo by Niroshan Fernando
Op-ed essay originally published by the Communications Initiative (CI) on 12 Dec 2013 and reprinted in Ceylon Today newspaper on 17 Dec 2013.
Image courtesy – ICTD Cape Town 2013 website
Nelson Mandela was not only an effective communicator, but also a champion of communication for development.
He spoke and wrote with conviction and empathy, which in turn enhanced his credibility and appeal. He changed history with his careful choice of words and images delivered with the right degree of passion. Social communicators can learn much from him.
However, his communications prowess extended beyond thoughtful prose and skillful oratory. He also understood the power of mass media in today’s information society — and used it well for nation building.
When they are in office, many political leaders of the majority world tend to overuse or misuse the media, for example by forcing public broadcasters to peddle ruling party propaganda. During his term as South Africa’s president, Mandela carefully avoided such excesses.
Instead, he strategically tapped the country’s pluralistic broadcast media to unify the divided nation. Clint Eastwood’s 2009 movie Invictus re-enacted a highlight of that approach.
As a policy maker, Mandela grasped the role of communication in development – both the concepts and delivery tools.
The International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the UN agency promoting and tracking the progress of information society, recently saluted Mandela for having been a firm supporter of ICTs as a catalyst for social change and economic development.
At the same time, Mandela’s vision went beyond mere gadgets and telecom networks. Speaking at the ITU Telecom World in Geneva in 1995, he underlined the importance of communication and access to information to human beings. He called for eliminating the divide between information-rich and information-poor countries.
Three years later, while hosting ITU Telecom Africa in Johannesburg, President Mandela said: “As the information revolution gathers yet more pace and strikes deeper roots, it is already redefining our understanding of the world. Indeed, the speed of technological innovation could bring the ideal of the global village sooner than we thought possible. For the developing world, this brings both opportunity and challenge.”
Lofty statements like these are common at policy gatherings. But Mandela went further – and believed that communication should be seen as a basic human need. That set him apart from many members in the development community who have long considered it a secondary need.
Although it has been discussed for centuries, there is no universally accepted definition of basic human needs. During the 1970s, basic needs emerged as a key topic in development debates. Various studies — catalysed by UN agencies and the Club of Rome – tried to define it.
In 1976, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) prepared a report that identified basic needs as food, clothing, housing, education and public transportation. It partially drew on ILO’s country reports on Columbia, Kenya and Sri Lanka.
Since then, different development agencies have adopted variations of the original ILO list. National planners have used the concept to benchmark economic growth.
The ground reality has changed drastically since those heady days. About a year ago, I asked Frank La Rue, the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression, if communication should be considered a basic human need. He welcomed the idea, especially in view of rapid evolution of information society.
I soon found that Mandela had thought of it years earlier. Perhaps because he had such limited access to communication during his long years in prison, he appreciated its central value to all human beings.
That remark, made while opening a mobile telecom network, was rather perceptive. At the time, less than 1 per cent of all Africans had access to a fixed phone, and there were only around one million mobile phones on the continent of 800 million.
Since then, mobile phones and other low-cost digital tools have spread phenomenally, transforming lives and livelihoods across the majority world. Sullivan calls it an external combustion engine: “a combination of forces that is sparking economic growth and lifting people out of poverty in countries long dominated by aid-dependent governments.”
While the market and society have marched ahead, many development professionals are still stuck in obsolete development paradigms. That is probably why some worry that there are more mobile phones than toilets in India. (So what? Mobiles are personal devices; toilets are a shared household amenity. Comparing their numbers is meaningless.)
It’s high time we revisited basic human needs and redefined them to suit current realities. The development community must finally catch up with Nelson Mandela.
Science journalist and development communicator Nalaka Gunawardene has been following social and cultural impacts of ICTs for over 20 years.
Can Development Community Catch up with Nelson Mandela – Ceylon Today, 17 Dec 2013
In this week’s Ravaya column (in Sinhala), I write about an Indian friend of mine: Moji Riba, filmmaker and cultural anthropologist, who lives and works in India’s north-eastern Arunachal Pradesh.
It’s an isolated remote and sparsely populated part of the country that is home to 26 major tribal communities,. Each one has its own distinctive dialect, lifestyle, faith, traditional practices and social mores. They live side by side with about 30 smaller communities.
A combination of economic development, improved communications, the exodus of the young and the gradual renunciation of animist beliefs for mainstream religions threatens Arunachal’s colourful traditions. “It is not my place to denounce this change or to counter it,” says Moji. “But, as the older generation holds the last link to the storehouse of indigenous knowledge systems, we are at risk of losing out on an entire value system, and very soon.”
For the past 15 years, he has been documenting it on video and photos. Read my English blogposts about him in Nov 2008 and Jan 2009.
I caught up with him in Delhi last week, which inspired this column.
Moji Riba has been working since 1997 to document Arunachal Pradesh's rich cultural heritage. Image courtesy Rolex Awards
Surrounded by young monks, Moji Riba films rituals celebrating Buddha’s birth at Galden Namgyal Lhatse monastery. Tawang, Arunachal Pradesh, India, 2008 (Photo courtesy Rolex Awards)
සංස්කෘතික පර්යේෂණ හා ලේඛනගත කිරීමේ කේන්ද්රය (Centre for Cultural Research and Documentation, CCRD) අරඹමින් තවත් ඔහු වැනි ම කිහිප දෙනෙකු සමඟ ප්රාන්තයේ ජන සංස්කෘතිය ගැන වීඩියෝ වාර්තා චිත්රපට නිපදවීම ඇරඹුවා.
Riba teaches Hage Komo the basic camera skills that will allow the young Apatani to film an interview with his father and an animist priest, thus recording his tribe's oral history (Photo courtesy Rolex Awards)
Hage Komo gets video instructions from Moji Riba, who is enlisting local young people to capture the oral histories, languages and rituals of their tribes for his project. Komo films his father gathering bamboo in a grove outside Hari Village. (Photo courtesy Rolex Awards)
Malima (New Directions in Innovation) is a Sinhala language TV series on science, technology and innovation. This episode was produced and first broadcast by Sri Lanka’s Rupavahini TV channel on 23 February 2012.
Produced by Suminda Thilakasena and hosted by science writer Nalaka Gunawardene, it is a magazine style programme. This episode features:
• An interview with Lankan inventor and entrepreneur B K Maheepala, who runs his own company Buddhi Industries (Pvt) Ltd, which manufactures and markets his own patented design of a cashew shelling machine. He exports most of his machines to cashew producing countries across Asia and Africa, and can’t cope with the demand! See also newspaper article at: http://www.sundaytimes.lk/120129/BusinessTimes/bt25.html
• Steve Jobs (1955 – 2011) was called ‘technology’s great reinventor’ for transforming entire industries – computers, music, mobile phones – with systemic thinking that combined functionality with design elegance. We look at key lessons from his life for today’s inventors. A longer discussion of this is found in my tribute published on Groundviews.org in Oct 2011.
• Find a method to waterproof the ubiquitous mobile phone – win the gratitude of billions of mobile users worldwide. Inventors have taken up the challenge – and see what one group has introduced to the market. With this layer, never fear dropping your phone in water!
• Interview with young inventor Savindu Sanjana Jayasinghe, a student of Rajasinghe central school, Hanwella, who has invented a portable detector for measuring carbon emissions from vehicle exhaust fumes.
Louder, please?Why do people – especially middle aged men – yell into their mobile phones?
This is one of those widely asked questions in relation to communications technologies that have become part of our daily lives. Mobile phone etiquette hasn’t evolved as fast as phone coverage, so this behaviour remains a regular source of irritation at hotels, restaurants, airports and other public places.
So why do people with normal speaking volumes yell into their cell phones? I came across an interesting explanation, which also suggests that it’s a trait more common among Digital Immigrants.
Here’s an extract: “Household telephones, or landlines, have a microphone in the receiver that amplifies your voice into the ear piece. When you talk into a landline, your voice is captured and replayed through the ear piece, so you hear your own voice loud and clear….With cell phones, your own voice is not amplified into the earpiece, so the only sound you hear is from your mouth. Seem like this wouldn’t be a huge difference, but the volume level of words coming from your mouth through the air and into your ear is a pretty big difference from sounds coming from a phone speaker that’s pressed directly against your ear.”
No, Sir Winston is not using an early mobile phone - it's a field radio receiver!Hmm. So there’s hope that the trait will become less common in the coming years.
Of course, the habit goes a long way back to the days when phone lines rarely offered good audio quality. There is the true story of how Sir Winston Churchill had to suffer a Cabinet colleague who was a loud phone talker. During the Second World War, they were sharing crammed war cabins.
One day the Minister was once again talking very loudly on the phone. Churchill asked his secretary to go over and tell Mr Brown not to talk at the top of his voice. The secretary returned and told the PM: ‘Sir, the Minister is talking to Scotland.’
Without batting an eyelid, Churchill replied: ‘Yes, I’m sure he is. But tell him to use the phone!’
Tiananmen literally means Gate of Heavenly Peace...hmmm
I spent several hours at the Tian’anmen Square in Beijing, China, this week, while attending a media conference. I was returning to this landmark, now a key tourist attraction in modernised and assertive China, after nearly a decade. And much has changed…
Measuring 880 metres by 500 metres, and covering a total area of 440,000 square metres, the Tiananmen Square is the largest city square in the world. But mere superlatives don’t impress me. It’s what goes on behind the claims, labels and stereotypes that interest me.
I’ve been to the square on a couple of previous Beijing visits. The first was in October 1996, during my very first visit to China. I was also taken in a group tour on a later visit. If I remember right, my last sighting of the Square was in 2002 – just before I acquired my first digital camera. (That makes a difference, because Before Digital, my analog photographs on travel were sparingly taken…and my own memory is not a very reliable storage medium.)
Day or night, he keeps vigil over Tiananmen Square...and 1.3 billion people
This time, I was armed with my digital camera and ample digital memory — and, it seemed, so were most other visitors! There were the obviously foreign tourists (including the loud and uninformed Americans), but it seemed most people thronging to the square were Chinese…many from out of town. For some, a visit to this centre of power is a rare occasion to be cherished and recorded.
I was impressed by just how many people were clicking away, using either digital cameras or mobile phone cameras. I shouldn’t be surprised by this, for China is the country with the largest number of mobile phones in use: by March 2010, there were some 780 million mobile subscribers, accounting for 58.5 per cent of all people in China.
Keen to capture different scenes under varying kinds of daylight and night lights, I made three visits to the Square – including one at 5.30 in the morning to catch daybreak at the Gate of Heavenly Peace (literal meaning of Tiananmen). So here’s a sampling of my several dozen photos – this selection has a bias on people shooting each other, digitally speaking (a far cry from the kind of shooting that took place here 20 years ago).
Look serious, man - he's watching!Now bring out your best smiles, all!People milling about with Great Hall of the People in the backgroundClicking away at Monument to the People's Heroes
One of the most striking moments I captured was of this elderly couple, very dignified and sprightly in their outlook, as they were taking a stroll on the square early morning and capturing memories on their mobile phone. They are old enough to have known another reality, but this was now and here…
This Square, and we, have seen and heard much in our time...Did we get it alright?
I also noticed how the younger visitors were clearly at ease with digital technologies, just like their fellow Digital Natives elsewhere in the world. There is also a discernible easing up (not only among unknown people in public places, but also noticeable among older and younger Chinese friends I have): maybe it’s the exuberance of youth, but the NextGen Chinese don’t seem to be as somber and serious as their parents.
Or perhaps the younger people in China today just have more things to smile about?
Would Chairman Mao approve this pose, eh?Heaven is in the eye of the beholder...Digital Natives capturing memories for the Next Gen
It was a rushed visit of four nights and three days, so all my impressions are fleeting. They don’t begin to do justice to the nuanced complexity that is modern China. But they tell me one thing: even in a land with a proud history of over 5,000 years, ten years can still make a difference.
Bye for now: I take only photos, and leave only shadows behind...
Note: All photos were taken touristically for my own memory and personal archives, with no other intention.
Open Minds! (formerly: Moving Images blog) 