I once had the opportunity to interview a renowned London-based story-teller, Sally Pomme Clayton, who visited Dhaka with a view to attending the Dhaka Lit Fest, the title sponsor for which is Dhaka Tribune.
She was astonished to see that people here in our country are so infatuated with Facebook. Every user is a social butterfly in this country, and they count on the gossips and the information circulated on Facebook to a great extent -- she put this observation across with a bewildered expression on her face.
She then pointed out two important things -- the first one is gossip and the other one is information. When a piece of information is not based on fact, it is gossip.
The problem arises when we start believing every piece of information (which may be gossip as well) circulated on social networking sites.
We have already witnessed many such events -- the Ramu incident -- where people have carried out vandalism or even killed innocent people believing gossip or rumours disseminated on Facebook.
But the question is: Why are people getting persuaded by everything they see on Facebook so blindly? Do you find any connection between such blind belief and the utter failure of the mainstream media?
There is no denying that the mainstream media (both electronic and print) has utterly failed to live up to the mass readers or viewers’ expectations in recent times.
As media cannot cater to every conceivable need of the readers/viewers, they have turned away from mainstream media and an inclination to social networking sites have gradually grown among them.
If we analyze some points, it will be very clear how social media is actually taking over the role of the mainstream media. First, the most vital duty of the media is to enlighten the readers or viewers with the right information.
Especially when it comes to momentous events of the country, people used to rely highly on media, but in the recent years, mainstream media could not rise to the occasion and satisfy the readers’ thirst for information.
For instance, there were a lot of allegations of irregularities in the last national parliamentary election held in Bangladesh. Two of my colleagues could not cast their vote and they were even barred from entering the polling centre by some activists claiming that their votes were already cast.
Many had the same experience, but most media outlets (there were a few exceptions) did not report any such irregularity.
Some media outlets even reported that there was almost no incident of irregularity during the election, whereas cross-sections of people had witnessed something completely different.
Meanwhile, people got to know about many such incidents on social networking sites like Facebook.
Such biased reporting during a mega event of national importance had infuriated many and consequently, social media seemed to be more reliable to the users than mainstream media.
Second, mainstream media has lost its credibility owing to a lack of objectivity. Objective journalism is gradually eroding and only a handful of media houses are trying hard to cling to the ethics of journalism despite the barriers.
Most media houses are now owned and controlled by business magnates. Consequently, the prime responsibility of the media outlets has been experiencing a drastic change, as they are now more focused on serving the purposes of the business entities.
As a result, the readers/viewers are also shifting their attention from mainstream media to social media (as those sites are still considered to be independent platforms for expressing your subjective opinions).
Third, censorship has been a driving force in this regard. There is the perception that the government is trying to control the media with a view to stifle any form of criticism towards it.
Last year, the news site of a leading online portal was temporally blocked by BTRC without showing the proper reason. Many other online portals have been shut down in the last few years, and many frontline newspapers had to pass a hard time for being critical of the actions of the government.
In 1644, John Milton wrote “Areopagitica,” where he opposed the idea of licensing and censorship. At that time, an order was issued by the parliament of England with a provision of government approval and licensing for all published books.
This was a direct blow to freedom of expression. Milton opposed the idea and tried to explain why such control was a threat to civil liberty. Though it was written in the 17th century, it seems that the modern-day rulers still do not realize its implications.
Such censorship and control over mainstream media will only add to the crisis instead of solving it. As people are very well aware of such invisible control over media, they are no more dependent on the news published or telecast in the media.
Rather, they resort to something virtual like Facebook and that’s why it has become so easy to spread propaganda or rumours on social networking sites.
Unless the government realizes this problem and lets the media run in its own way, the dependency on social media by people from all walks of life will only increase.
In the meantime, journalists will also have to appraise their roles if they want to save face.
Morshedul Alam Mohabat is a journalist.