The internet has been credited by the United States of America’s Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as one of the most powerful forces for the advancement of freedom and political change. Clinton has called for consideration of internet based technologies such as twitter for the Noble Peace Prize.
Clinton’s remarks come at a time of heightened social media activities in conflict situations. While this raises the question of impacts of social media in conflict situations, the sobering reality however, is that it is quite impossible to enumerate the exact impacts. Nevertheless, social media has had both positive and negative impacts that have in one way or another shaped conflict dynamics.
A study commissioned by The George Washington University indicates that determining the actual effects of the new media in conflict situations is cumbersome due to methodological challenges and the newness of the subject.
The use of the term new media within the study refers to nontraditional media especially social media tools such social networks, blogs and mini blogs, wikis and others. Regardless of the aforementioned challenges, the study expose sufficient evidence which indicates that new media has significant positive effects in conflict situations.
The study reveals that in most of the conflict situations, the new media has emphatically changed people’s perceptions and actions with regard to issues in contention. With time recurrent activism gains popularity; followers are able to join and follow such activism at the click of the mouse.
As a result it becomes easier to facilitate collective action and thus spur mass movement (Aday, Farrell, Lynch, Sides, Kelly and Zuckerman 2010).
Aday et al.’s (2010) work indicates that the new media impacts conflict situations in four broad based areas. These include exposing individuals to new information flows such that an individual gains new competencies. The new media also improves how groups relate, thus improving inter and intergroup communication channels.
By affecting group activities, social media enables such groups to form mass movements in politically charged conflicts (Eltantawy and Wiest 2011). Lastly, conflict situations easily gain international attention with the help of mass media tool such Facebook, twitter and blogs.
This has effectively led to social media to be referred to as the “magic bullet”. The phrase “magic bullet” is particularly used with reference to the impacts of twitter in spreading the Green Movement philosophy and the calls of political change in Iran (Aday et al. 2010; Esfandiari 2010).
The impact of social media goes beyond increasing the participation of the people in conflict situations. The dawn of social media has also given rise to new avenues through which peace, conflict prevention and resolution is attained.
Social media tools especially social network sites such as Facebook as well as blogs and mini blogging site such as twitter have had significant impacts in the search for peace, justice and conflict prevention in conflict zones. It is imperative to note that social media in itself cannot prevent or solve a conflict; neither can it ensure that justice prevails.
Nevertheless, these tools offer new and effective possibilities through which the avoidance and prevention of conflict occurs. One such example is the 2007/2008 post election violence in Kenya.
Through Facebook and popular blogs such as “Ushahidi”, Kenyans were able to report the occurrence of sporadic acts of violence which conflict prevention and resolution was attained. People used reports from social media to not only evade conflict but also intensified calls for end to the violence.
Additionally, heightened calls for justice through “Ushahidi”, underlines the usefulness of social media in conflict resolution (Goldstein and Rotich 2008).
Assertion made by Goldstein and Rotich (2008) indicate that in conflict situations social media has also helped to push the boundaries of journalism. As reported by Communication for Social Change Consortium social media has come in handy in countries where access to traditional media is limited (Monzani 2010).
While Monzani (2010) cites countries such as Iraq, Burma and Gaza as some of which social media has helped to highlight the nature of conflict, Aday et al. (2010) survey indicate that Iran also falls under this category.
Social media tools have given the rise of citizen journalism thus helping to eliminate or counter biased reporting by the mainstream media, which in most cases is usually under the tutelage of authoritarian regimes. While citizen journalism significantly lowers the quality of professional journalism, it nevertheless enables direct involvement citizens in conflict zones.
Citizens communicate with the outside world through social media news feeds. Such communication impacts the conflict situation in two major ways; it counters biased reporting from the mainstream media is as well as giving the citizens opportunities to voice their afflictions.
In the Syria protesters, realizing the need to back up activism with sufficient evidence, have turned to social media tools especially YouTube. According to Rafif Jouejati, the Syria opposition wing spokeswoman “Social media has became a powerful tool in getting the word out” (Sterling 2012).
YouTube is thus being used to smuggle news about the atrocities committed by President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, to the international community.
The assertion made above are likely to indicate that social media as inalienable from the successes achieved in successful conflict situations. It is therefore imperative to state that social media impact in conflict situations is exaggerated. In some situations, social media has had no effects at all while in others social media activities have exacerbated the conflict.
Aday et al. (2010) note that oppressive regimes have learned to use social media effectively to quell dissent form the experiences of other regimes. Aday et al. (2010) cites China’s example where, anticipating the Uighur protests, the Chinese government blocked twitter after the “Twitter revolution” in Iran.
But this is not the most negative use of social media by oppressive regimes. Stepanova (2011) notes that the Iranian government used social media tools such as twitter to institute oppressive countermeasures during the 2009 green movement revolution. Social media enabled Iranian authorities to trace and arrest protesters.
In resolving any conflict, Friedman, Tidd, Currall and Tsai (2000) assert that focusing on the interest of other parties involved in the conflict necessitates effective conflict resolution. The use of social media has effectively led to generating social capital necessary for mounting successful revolution in countries such as Libya and Egypt (Howard and Hussain 2011).
However, in most of these situations social media activism is largely uncoordinated and driven by self interest. Most of the social media activists seem to have concealed self interest. As a result social media activism obscures the real issues on the ground while propagating populist propaganda.
For instance, in Iran the while the revolution was based on political change much of the social media activism called for regime change since it was driven by selfish interest. Thus, in Iran social media activism largely ignored genuine interests from all stakeholders (Aday et al. 2010). This is perceived as one of the reason why the revolution was unsuccessful.
While social media is largely credited with positive impacts in conflict situations, the failure in Iran raises doubts about its actual effectiveness. Scholars from The George Washington University hypothesize that the use of social media fails to create the necessary vertical hierarchies to mount a genuine revolution.
As such the use of social media in conflict situations alters the political structures such that a lot of international attention is gained at the expense of shaping internal revolutionary activities. Thus, within the physical border of the conflict zones, social media activities are merely passive and largely fail to save the victims of the conflict.
For instance in the southern Sudan conflict, the “Save Darfur Movement”, while attracting enormous sympathy from the international community failed to generate any positive effects on the ground. Similarly, the twitter revolution in Iran failed because is seemed to have been designed for the international community, while the Iranians government continued unabated to oppress protesters (Aday et al. 2010).
The use of social media has had significant impacts in conflict situations. Heightened social media activities increase participation of individuals, empower groups to share crucial information and increase awareness by the international community.
This has had mixed impacts in different conflict situations. In Egypt, Lybia and Tunisia social media activities has largely mediated in toppling oppressive regimes, while in Kenya blogging supported the avoidance of conflict as well as the search of peace and justice.
While the failures in Iran, Syria and Sudan blot an otherwise positive record, it is nevertheless worth to note that social media activities have positively shaped the outcomes in conflict situations.
List of References
Aday, S., Farrell,H., Lynch, M., Sides, J., Kelly, J. and Zuckerman, E. 2010. Blogs and bullets: New media in contentious politics. Web.
Eltantawy, N and Wiest, J. 2011. The Arab Spring| social media in the Egyptian revolution: reconsidering resource mobilization theory. International Journal of Communication. Web.
Esfandiari G. 2010. The twitter devolution. Foreign Policy. Web.
Friedman, R., Tidd, S., Currall, S. and Tsai, J. 2000. What goes around comes around: the impact of personal conflict style on work conflict and stress. The International Journal of Conflict Management 11(1).
Goldstein, J. and Rotich, J. 2008. Digitally networked technology in Kenya’s 2007–2008 post-election crisis, internet and democracy case study series. Harvard business Review. Web.
Howard, P. and Hussain, M. 2011. The Role of Digital Media, Journal of Democracy 22(3).
Monzani, B. 2010. Media in conflict prevention and peace building: an opportunity for E.U. Leadership. Web.
Stepanova, E. 2011. The role of information communication technologies in The “Arab Spring”: implications beyond the region. Web.
Sterling, J. 2012. For Syrian activists, YouTube is a sword and shield. CNN. Web.