Journal of Me Journal of Media Studies

Journal of Media Studies

Vol. 27(1): January 2012 74-100 © 2010 ICS Publications www.jms.edu.pk

Use of social media as public sphere: A case of youth during judicial & political crisis in Pakistan (March 2007-March 2007 2009) Amna Yousaf1, Bushra H. Rahman2 & Sayyed Muhammad Irfan Raza Naqvi3 Abstract This study examines the role of social media as a public sphere in promoting online political activism ctivism and participation in real world politics among youth during the political crisis in Pakistan for the period of March 2007 to March 2009. This period is marked by political unrest where traditional media was severely controlled and all private news channels transmission was stopped. Social ocial media appeared as an alternative public communication platform for the restoration of democracy and political discourse. Windahl’s uses and effects model as a base, was applied to investigate the research problems. The relationships tionships between use of social media, online political activism, offline political participation on social media, was studied. Data was collected through survey s of university students. Findings show that social media acted as a public sphere that raised political awareness, promoted promote online activism and motivated for participation rticipation in real world political activities and democratic struggle.

Keywords: Public sphere, Social media, edia, Democracy, Democracy Online activism, Offline political participation Introduction New media technologies like Social networking sites and selfpublishing media like blogs and Facebook have emerged as democratic tools which invite citizens to share views and opinions to online community and facilitate democratic practices. “These platforms have the potential to expand Jürgen Habermas’s concept of the public sphere by empowering the public to engage 1

M. Phil Communication Studies, Institute of Communication Studies, University of the Punjab, Lahore – Pakistan. 2 Assistant Professor, Institute of Communication Studies, St University of the Punjab, Lahore – Pakistan. 3 Instructor, Department of Management Sciences, Virtual University of Pakistan.

Amna Yousaf, Bushra H. Rahman & S.M. Irfan Raza Naqvi Social Media

in political action” (Westling, 2007). Features and applications of blogs and Facebook facilitate political communication and democratic struggle in a scope much wider than before. Political use of social media is challenging the repressive and authoritarian governments throughout the world and contributing to a new wave of digital movements, activism, free speech and democracy. It will also be ever more intricate to suspend democratic constitutions and pass on the authority and power to family (Howard, 2011). Pakistan is a developing country where social media technologies and platforms are emerging and a move to establish democracy is underway. For the period of March 2007 to March 2009, Pakistan went through a political crisis due to unconstitutional acts of General Musharraf’s government. The constitution of the country was suspended, Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammed Chaudhary was dismissed and declared as non- functional, a state of emergency was imposed by the military regime, and popular political leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated. Media censorship was imposed, general elections were conducted and a massive movement for the restoration of judiciary was on the go. In General Musharraf regime, we have witnessed media liberalization in Pakistan. “Even his critics acknowledge that Musharraf's eight-year rule has seen a historic liberalization of television in the country (Wallace, 2008).” But there was a visible turn in the policy of Musharraf towards media when he declared the state of emergency (Quasi Martial Law). This time period had worst impact on the history of media than on the politics of Pakistan as Musharraf regime dealt with media organizations in authoritative manner and imposed tough curbs on mainstream media. News groups were harassed and traditional journalists were threatened and arrested to prevent from writing openly against the unconstitutional acts of the government. “Soon after proclaiming emergency rule in a televised address, Musharraf demanded that cable television operators block the broadcasts of all local and foreign news channels, except those of the stateowned Pakistan Television Corporation. Nearly 30 privately owned channels were promptly taken off the air. The next day, policemen raided the Islamabad offices of Aaj TV, an independent news channel, and attempted to confiscate the channel’s equipment. The telephone lines of Pakistan’s first independent

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Journal of Media Studies 27(1) news channel Geo TV were cut and their broadcasters were threatened with long jail terms”. (Yousaf, 2009) During Martial law, military dictator’s crackdown over news channels created a space and allowed new media platforms to rise as alternatives. These tough curbs on media during the six week long emergency drew the attention of the civilians, activists and students to the adoption of news media platforms. This backdrop established the helplessness of conventional media in performing its role of information dissemination, opinion building and democratization, and opened up the ways for the efficient and systematic use of new media technologies and platforms. For first time Pakistani Youth used this citizen and social network media and got the common space to view and share political opinions independently when traditional media was facing extreme curbs. The objective of this undertaking was to analyze whether social media created an efficient public sphere to support democratic struggle during the said political crisis in Pakistan. Public sphere constitutes of individuals who deliberate and are not the alienated masses rather the community of publics. As per Mills (1956), the concept of public sphere entails the idea that as many people express opinions as receiving them i.e. as many people produce and contribute to content as just consume it. This paper explores whether social media helped to empower individuals to reverse the process of massification and stimulated publics to become producers and not just consumers. Whether blogging and Face-booking were actively used by youth as sources of political information seeking and activism or not? As Mills (1956) says ‘realization of opinion in action’ among masses is managed by the established powers that have authority over means of communication but after forming opinions, publics in a public sphere come across actions even against the established authorities. This is where they extend the boundaries of virtual space to the real world. Basing on this argument of Mills, this paper evaluates whether online public sphere i.e. blogs and Facebook acted as a public sphere that motivated youth of Pakistan for change and organized for action instead of just talking in the period from. It investigates if the use of these new media platforms for political information seeking created online political activism among youth and motivated them to participate in the real world political activities.

Amna Yousaf, Bushra H. Rahman & S.M. Irfan Raza Naqvi Social Media

Literature review In human history, the democratization of communication has never been facilitated to such a degree by any medium of communication as it has been influenced and facilitated by the social media technologies. “From the French Revolution to the Bolshevik Revolution, history has shown us that while people are the driving force for change, contemporary technology is the catalyst that can transform a movement into a revolution”. (Rohanizadeh, 2011) “For the Green Movement in Iran, it was Twitter; for the Saffron Revolution in Burma, it was YouTube; for the “color revolutions” of the former Soviet Union, it was mobile phones”. (Deibert & Rohozinski, 2010) “Looking at the apparently never-ending examples of social innovation, one might easily assume that cyber-technologies posses a special power, that they are ‘technologies of liberation’ (Diamond, 2010). These digital networks are speeding up the political communication and providing efficient platforms and tools to mobilize activism, organize protests, initiate political change and raise awareness, civic engagement and participation. Coll (2011) pointed to the undeniable fact that social media like blogs, Facebook, twitter and YouTube have had played a significant part in advancing historic and unexpected revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt. Ongoing anti-government protests in other Arab and Muslim nations such as Libya, Syria, Morocco and Bahrain are also planned through the social networking site Facebook and Twitter by youth movements. Similarly, the immense power of social media to liberate and democratize people under repressive regimes is witnessed in the recent Tunisian revolution. Rayan (2011) analyzing the way people of Sidi Bouzid broke through the media blackout to spread word of their uprising writes in an article that by the use of mix of social media technologies such as Facebook, blogs, twitter and YouTube, citizens of Tunisia overcame intense censorship and broke through the media blackout to ensure that their revolution did not go unnoticed in silence. The authorities of the Tunisia tried their level best and used every possible mean to prevent the flow of videos. Despite each effort to silence them, citizens went to extreme level to ensure that their videos are available online. Government’s organized systematic "phishing" operation aimed at eliminating their online opposition struck a string of web activists on January 3, 2011. Government arrested web activists, bloggers

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Journal of Media Studies 27(1) and a rapper who had posted a song video condemning and criticizing it on YouTube. To communicate with each other, Tunisian protesters relied on Facebook all the way through the revolution, that is why it is best termed as in the homeland: Social media revolution, or back home, better called the Facebook revolution,"(Al Atraqchi (2001)"They called it the jasmine revolt, Sidi Bouzid revolt, Tunisian revolt... but there is only one name that does justice to what is happening. Likewise, Egyptian revolution is another case in point where social media caused an unexpected political activism. Rohanizadeh (2011) attributed the online revolution of Egypt to Wael Ghonim who is the executive of Google Marketing of Middle East and North Africa, accidentally became the symbol of the Egyptian revolution as he employed his business and designed skills to create a Facebook group “We Are All Khaled Said.” He constructed a protest community online which eventually made it possible to overthrow Hosni Mubarak. This page turned to a massive campaign which fascinated almost 473,000 online supporters which is a huge number in the country that has the populace of 85 million. Annoyed Egyptians documented the evidence of the police brutality in Egypt on Facebook pages and YouTube. Uninterrupted flow of news, emotional messages in the posts, photos and videos on this site turned it into a major activist site in the Egypt and caused a leaderless protest that successfully turned into a rebellion and end to the rule of dictator. Ghonim attributed this revolution as internet revolution and the effect of social media on political activism as "Revolution 2.0." Though Egypt and Tunisia efficiently used social media technologies for revolution, they are not the first to use the new media platforms like blog, Facebook and twitter as a means for political activism mobilization and digitally enabled political protest. Diamond (2010) referred to the protests and Green Movement of Iran as the remarkable example of digital mobilization by the use of blogs, Facebook and twitter. In the aftermath of presidential election in June 2009, there was extremely violent and brutal violent crackdown of the Iranian people by the Iranian regime. Citizens of Iran started using cell phone cameras and social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter and became citizen journalists to fill the gap in media coverage when foreign media agencies left Iran. They shared the

Amna Yousaf, Bushra H. Rahman & S.M. Irfan Raza Naqvi Social Media

information and happenings of violence against them inside Iran to the entire world via tweets, blogs and Facebook updates which otherwise could never be possible. Indeed, the role of social media was so decisive that the State Department took the extraordinary action of suspending scheduled maintenance of Twitter as they could not afford such an important organizing tool at the height of the demonstrations. Iranian people used the blogs and Facebook in such a way that revolutionized the way world gets information with just a few camera flashes and clicks of mouse. (P, 79) Surprisingly, even in China which is known for its censorship and regulation of media and blogosphere as well as fights online movements for democracy and liberty has now more than 29 percent of its population online. Despite the world’s most pervasive system for monitoring, censoring, and controlling online activities, access to critical websites and online reporting, Diamond (2010) draws the attention toward the groundbreaking manifesto of activists, Charter 08 that call for nineteen reforms to achieve “liberties, democracy, and the rule of law” in China— acquired the majority of its signatures all the way through the support of blog sites such as bullog.cn. On 10 December 2008, this charter was made public online; it garnered the signatures of three-hundred plus Chinese humanrights activists and intellectuals. Consequently, the government had to quickly move to repress all mention of it. An unexpected wave of activism boost and common citizens like Tang [Xiaozhao] having no history of challenging the government started to disseminate the document of the charter on their blogs and cracking their fears publically announced themselves as the supporters. Very soon, five-thousand plus Chinese citizens even including those who had never been associated with such movements before signed the document. Countless blog that supported it were soon blocked by the authorities but campaign did not stop due to the underground salons, abstruse references, and dissident jokes disseminated virally via social media and instant messaging. (P, 75-76) However, in spite of all diffuse controls, activists in China see these liberation technologies as permitting points of communication, publishing and networking which would otherwise be impossible in China today. Similarly, the impact of social media in expressing diverse political thoughts, government criticism and generating discussions on sensitive issues is another fact that can be studied

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Journal of Media Studies 27(1) in the arena of political communication. Zhou (2009) investigated the political blogs regarding the dismissal of Shanghai leader Chen Liangyu by specifically looking into the blogs posted on the NetEase which is the largest portal website in China. He employed the content analysis method of research. The findings of the study indicate that bloggers are giving quick responses to the event. Content analysis reveals that these bloggers generated strong discussions on sensitive political topics, expressed diverse opinions on the event and openly criticized government. Blogosphere is becoming gradually more outstanding space for finding and discussing political information in both developed and developing countries. Particularly, since the 2008 U.S. presidential election, the debate about the use of blogs in politics and its effect on democracy and participation has grown much deeper. According to Zhou (2009) the cyberspace of blogs has make it possible for the people to expose themselves to political information and discussions in a scope much open than before. Blogosphere played a significant part in 2004 and 2008 presidential elections in America. “It became very obvious that blogs has transformed the way candidates ran campaigns and journalists cover political events when the American political system weathered the 2004 presidential elections.” (Baumann, 2008) The capability of these new means of political communication during campaigns and elections is also taking the attention of politicians and candidates throughout the world. Walter M. R (2009) investigated that how college students use new media and examined whether it affects the way they participate in the political process during 2008 presidential elections. During that time, Political information was readily accessible via social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and a massive amount of political blogs was available online. Researcher used the uses and gratification, agenda setting, selective exposure and cognitive dissonance theory as a guide to investigate if social networking site users at the University of South Alabama have an increase in political activism. The undertaking concluded that students used social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, YouTube etc only for political information and may participate in the political process but they did not use them typically to send or receive political information, rather it was a solitary activity and not anything shared with other users on social networking sites.

Amna Yousaf, Bushra H. Rahman & S.M. Irfan Raza Naqvi Social Media

Social media has become a platform to attract and involve the younger generations in the politics and by engaging their interest in political debates make them active participants in the political process. Hayes A. R (2009) investigated the use of social networking sites among young voters and the way it increased their participation in electoral process in 2008 presidential elections. It was a time when two key candidates used considerable resources to the formation and maintenance of their profiles at social networking sites in order to reach youth. He took the Bundara’s social cognitive theory as a guide to investigate how variables like political knowledge and efficacy precede participation in the electoral process. Firstly researcher developed a scale of political learning efficacy using both qualitative and quantitative methods. Secondly, to examine the effects of previous and continued use of political social networking on Political learning efficacy, knowledge and participation, researcher used a new scale in a nationally representative survey of young voters. This undertaking concluded that use of social network sites for political communication can have an optimistic impact on political learning efficacy, therefore on knowledge and participation. But political participation via social networking sites was much lower than anecdotally reported in the mainstream media. Similarly, Warren (2009) investigated the use of social networking site Facebook in 2008 presidential election in America. The study was specifically designed to analyze whether Facebook might be a practical campaign tool to target young voters, particularly college students. A survey research method was employed to collect data from 212 students at the University of Central Missouri to determine if Facebook was a viable campaign tool. The study concludes that college students that participated in the political activities on Facebook felt more motivated to vote in the 2008 presidential election and the students who had Facebook account had better identified with the candidates due to their presence and the information they received on Facebook. If we look upon the use of social media like blogs and Facebook in Pakistan, we see the influence of this media in spreading political information, advancing online political activism, community organization for protests, and political participation. At the time of emergency imposed by Musharraf in Pakistan, lawyer’s movement, assassination of Benazir Bhutto and general elections 2008, media independence was hampered and

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Journal of Media Studies 27(1) compromised. But youth in Pakistan for the first time discovered social media alternatives to fill in the gaps and maintain the uninterrupted flow of news, information and freedom of speech. ‘‘Blogs and Facebook are starting to change the way young Pakistanis think because people who aren’t usually interested in politics are being exposed to it,’’ said Hamza Sadiq Khan, creator of the Facebook group ‘‘Go Musharraf Go!!!’’. (AFP, 2007) The membership of the Facebook Group “We oppose emergency in Pakistan” reached up to 10,903 members. This group was an open platform for organizing political discussions and social activism and remained a network to organize political opinion and debate about Independent Judiciary in Pakistan. The home page of this group provided link to the online petition, political content on other blogs and original news updates and videos from Pakistani mainstream media. Political discussions on this group involved young students and remained a venue for live discussions for those who never previously expressed themselves in the public sphere. Students, activist community, lawyers, NGOs and many political parties like boycotted the general election 2008 to support the cause of restoration of judiciary in Pakistan. This boycott has been a part of online activism and the subject of blogs at that time. Yusuf (2008) wrote in her paper titled as “Old and new media: converging during the Pakistan Emergency” that, a post on Emergency Times on January 26, 2008, claims that SAC (Students Action Committee) members would like to prioritize the restoration of the judges and believe that boycotting elections would be an effective way to pressurize the government. The post acknowledges voices of dissent within the SAC community and goes on to outline a methodology and rationale for upcoming activism. (p.19) Kripalani (2007) describes Pakistan may be underneath military blockade, however its citizens have activated a venue to voice themselves via the sophisticated use of the Internet. An unexpected but forceful subversive e-resistance movement is on its way in Pakistan—from blogs, to flash mobs, to e-mails, to streaming video broadcasts, to cell-phone multimedia and text messages.” Kemp (2007) argues that Internet has turn out to be a crucial tool for youth as the government arresting thousands of opposition leaders and blocking the major two private television news channels of the country but the young Pakistanis have found

Amna Yousaf, Bushra H. Rahman & S.M. Irfan Raza Naqvi Social Media

their way to be heard by using blogs as a political tool. However, social media tools do not have a single predetermined effect. So, any effort to summarize their outcomes on democracy and political action is too often condensed to contesting anecdotes. If we look upon the breakdown of the Belarusian demonstrations to overthrow Lukashenko as paradigmatic, we will view the Moldovan experience as an outlier, and vice versa. Empirical studies on this question are also hard to find, partly for the reason that these tools are so novel and partly as related examples are very infrequent. The cautious depiction of current quantitative efforts to respond the question, Do digital tools enhance democracy? is that these tools perhaps do not impact in the short run and may be facilitating in the long run. Secondly, they have for the most part spectacular impact in societies where public sphere already restrain government actions. (Shirky, 2011) Theoretical framework Uses and Effects model to predict the ‘consequences’ of active/passive use of social media for political information seeking, the ‘effects’ of making high use of interactive political content and to conclude conseffects that are more or less concurrently caused by active use of social media for political information seeking combined with the amount of interactive political content. Windahl (1981) proposed a “uses and effects” model by merging uses and gratifications and the effects tradition. He discussed a relationship between uses and effects. His model differentiates between outcomes that result mainly from content of communication and outcomes that result from media use itself. Certain types of contents tend to produce certain types of effect. The model labels these outcomes ‘effects.’ While the outcomes caused by other aspects or types of media use are called ‘consequences’. He further suggests that sometimes media use and content interact in certain ways to bring about what we call ‘conseffects.’ (p.203)

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Consequences

Effects

Conseffects

• Primarily caused by media use

• Primarily caused

• Caused more or less simultaneously by content and use

by media/content charecteristics

Outcomes on other levels than the individual Figure 1: A uses and effects ffects model (Windahl 1981)

Initially, researchers investigated the consequences of media use i.e. active or passive use of social media for political information seeking. Secondly, researchers explored explore the effects of the type of media content i.e. use of interactive political content on social media to conclude the ‘conseffects’ conseffects’ that are caused more or less simultaneously by active use of social media for political information sharing and high use of interactive political content. Here, the type of media use (active/passive) and the amount of interactive political content tent consumed both are independent and causal variables. Uses and gratification theory is applied to determine whether social media use is active/deliberative or passive. Ruggiero (2010) argues that uses and gratifications has always provided a cuttingcutting edge theoretical approach in the initial stages of each new mass medium, such as newspapers, radio and an television, and now the Internet, which receives the significance via this approach (p.3). This theory assumes that media use is motivated by needs and goals that are defined by the audience members themselves. Their consumption of media content is directed direc by their prior motivations. So, audience members actively use media content to satisfy their specific needs. So, as per uses and gratification theory, researcher looks upon whether youth actively used social media to seek out and satisfy their need for political information or they are accessed and received political information passively during casual browsing or from their fiends on Facebook network. The study aims to explore that how this usage had an effect on political behavior of the youth and the th way usage and effect of social media for political communication has contributed to promote democratization, activism and participation among them.

Amna Yousaf, Bushra H. Rahman & S.M. Irfan Raza Naqvi Social Media

Hence, the researcher intends to explore whether the consequences of active use of social media interact with the high use of interactive political content to bring about what we call public sphere or not, for which, the base of uses and effects model is most suitable and is required. Hypotheses H1: Youth, actively using social media to seek out and satisfy their need for political information, are more politically active on social media than those still passively accessing political information on social media. H2: More politically active youth on social media are more likely to participate in offline political activities than those less politically active on social media. H3: More politically active youth on social media are more likely to produce political content than just consuming it than the youth less politically active on social media. Methodology Survey method Researchers used survey method to test the hypothesized relationships between active/passive use of social media, online political activism (i.e. use of interactive political content on social media), offline political participation and production/ consumption of political content on social media by youth, survey method for data collection. The method assisted in collecting the information directly from blog and Facebook users and included a proper analysis about online political activism and offline political participation of youth using social media for seeking out political information actively or passively on a quantitative scale. The population covered by the study is the youth in the universities of Lahore. The total population of this study comprised of all students in universities of Lahore. Four universities of Lahore were randomly selected, two from public sector universities, University of the Punjab (PU) & Government College University (GCU), and two from private sector universities, Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) and National University (FAST). Due to non-availability of the sampling non probability sampling technique, convenience sampling was used and randomly three hundred respondents were accessed, seventy five students from each university as per

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Journal of Media Studies 27(1) convenience. Conceptual and operational definitions of variables Active/passive user/use of social media for Political Information seeking Public sphere comprise of individuals who deliberate and they are not just the alienated masses rather the community of publics whose media use is active and goal oriented. To measure what constitutes ‘PUBLIC” in the public sphere not the ‘mass’, the base of uses and gratification theory is being applied. Study assesses that whether students adopted social media (blogs and Facebook) to actively seek out political information (with prior motivation for need satisfaction) and know about evolving political situation of the country, events, rallies, protests and elections and organize community for activism via social networking and blogging or they were passively receiving political information without prior motivation for need satisfaction. To measure the level of activeness on the social media, questions were added to assess how actively youth been using social media for seeking out political information during the events like emergency 2007, assassination of Benazir Bhutto, general elections 2008 and lawyers’ movement for the restoration of judiciary that have been occurring during the political crisis of 2007- 2009. Respondents had to rate their activity level on four point scale from not active at all to very much active. The numerical values were assigned to four point scale i.e. Not active at all=1, Not too active=2, Somewhat active =3, Very much active=4. To make two categories of users i.e. active user and passive user, midpoint of range 1-4 was used as cut point. Respondents who scored below the cut point were considered as passive users and those who scored above the cut point were considered as active users. Political activism on social media Hauser (1999) argues that “activity is among the defining conditions of any public sphere. He proposed that public is a group of interested individuals who engage in discussions and opinions around the issues on which they have a potential to be active”. In a public sphere individuals are asked for opinions, collaboration and engage in interactions on the issue and the publics surrounding the issue. So, online political activism is the use of interactive political content on social media. It implies the

Amna Yousaf, Bushra H. Rahman & S.M. Irfan Raza Naqvi Social Media

use of social media by youth as participants in the process of communication, opinion building, discussions and activities aimed at interactions and collaboration on the political issues taking place during the political crisis. It equals to youth engaging in political activities having control over and change roles in their mutual discourse. Online political activism is the participation of youth in political activities online in the virtual space of blogs and Facebook like how often they joined Facebook groups that opposed emergency and Musharraf rule, or groups that demonstrated reactions to Benazir’s death and news of Bilawal Bhutto’s selection as her successor, or those supported lawyers’ movement for the rule of law, became a fan of Chief justice Muhammad Iftkhar Chaudhary on Facebook, signed online petition that criticized the government’s abuse of the independent judiciary, voted in any online poll that addressed the issue of removal of Chief justice Muhammad Iftkhar Chaudhary. The respondents who made high use of interactive political content are highly political active and those who made less use of interactive political content are less politically active on social media. To measure the online activism on social media, nine questions were constructed that are related to the use of different interactive political content on blogs and fifteen questions were constructed on Facebook. Respondents had to rate their use of interactive political content on four point scale from never to many times. The numerical values were assigned to four point scale i.e. Never=1, Once=2, Twice=3. Many times =4. To make two categories of users, high users of interactive political content (highly active) on social media and less users of interactive political content (less active) on social media, midpoint of range 936 was used as cut point for blogs users and midpoint of range 1560 was used as cut point for Facebook users. Content production/consumption of political content on social media As per Mills (1959), one of the defining features of the democratic public sphere is the symmetry between the individuals’ intellect to produce and consume ideas i.e. the balance between the ability to produce and consume content. Public sphere is characterized by the ability of the public to become producers instead of being merely the consumers. Production of political content involves

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Journal of Media Studies 27(1) whether respondents initiated to express their political views on blog or Facebook, updated any political blog, commented on political blog or participated in any political discussion on Facebook. Two categories of content producers and content consumers were formed, those who used to contribute political content to the social media and those who never used to do so. To measure the production of content on social media, five questions were constructed that are related to producing or contributing political content on blogs and nine questions were constructed related to Facebook. Respondents had to rate their level of contribution/production of political content on four point scale from never to many times. The numerical values were assigned to four point scale i.e. Never=1, Once=2, Twice=3. Many times =4. Offline political participation Offline political activism is the ability of the publics to participate in the real world political activities. Public sphere revolves around the idea of how public opinions become political action. When publics engaged in opinions, discussions and political activities aimed at collaboration and engagement realize their potential to take the opinion in action. This is where the virtual space meets the real world and publics rise to extend their political activism in real life. For offline political activism and participation in the real world political activities among youth, four questions were developed to measure political participation, all questions cover different political activities in the real world like boycotting general elections 2008, participating in long march or other rallies staged for the restoration of chief justice or any protest against emergency and Musharraf rule and contributing money to the lawyers’ movement or long march. In two questions, respondents had to answer in simple yes or no. The numerical values were assigned as Yes=1 and No=0. Two questions were constructed on the four point scale from never to many times. Further, two categories were developed from that four point scale, those who were participating=1 and those who were not participating in real world political activities=0. Further to assess whether participation was motivated by the use of interactive political content on social media, four question were constructed on five point Likert scale from strongly disagree

Amna Yousaf, Bushra H. Rahman & S.M. Irfan Raza Naqvi Social Media

to strongly agree. To make two categories of users, those motivated to participate due to their use of social media and those who were not motivated to participate due to their use of social media for political information seeking, the numerical values were assigned to five point Likert scale were Strongly Disagree=0, Disagree=0, Don’t know =0, Agree=1 and Strongly Agree=1. Analysis & interpretation First hypothesis of the study stated that youth, actively using social media to seek out and satisfy their need for political information, are more politically active on social media than those still passively accessing political information on social media. To test the first hypothesis chi-square test was conducted. The results of the test are given in Table 1 for blogs and Table 2 for Face book. Table 1: Active/Passive users of blog for political information seeking & High/Less Use of interactive political content on blogs Use of interactive political content on Blogs

Total

Chisquare

pvalue

6.895

.005**

User of political information on blogs

Less

High

Passive User

21(43.8%)

27 (56.3%)

48 (100%)

Active User

27 (23.3%)

89(76.7%)

116(100%)

48 (28%)

116 (70.7%)

164(100%)

Total

**p