identity politics, youth engagement and icts in srilanka
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Shaseevan Ganeshananthan, Researcher
Identity Politics, Youth Engagement and ICTs in
Sri Lanka
19th AMIC Annual Conference Technology & Culture : Communication Connectors & Dividers
Beyond Borders, Sri Lanka
Contents
Research Methods1
Research Findings2
Challenges3
Solutions4
19th AMIC Annual Conference – Technology & Culture : Communication Connectors & Dividers
Impact Plan5
Project Milestones6
Research Methods
20 In-depth Interviews (Age group 20 -35) Daily youth activities related to civic,
community or political activities Importance of these activities How these activities are related to ICTs Common usage of ICTs Experiences and opinions on political
institutions Use of ICTs for information gathering Views on Identity Politics and Youth
Engagement Gender perspectives Demographics
19th AMIC Annual Conference – Technology & Culture : Communication Connectors & Dividers
Research Methods
19th AMIC Annual Conference – Technology & Culture : Communication Connectors & Dividers
Focus Groups First group - young people who actively used
the Internet to engage in civic activities, including activists, NGO participants, and online opinion leaders
Second group - youth who had a special interest in political engagement and do not have to be experienced Internet users.
Research Findings
Civic, Communal & Political Activities
Civic Activities Personal activities, Blogging, Photography,
Journalism
Communal Activities Meeting friends Participating in activities in old student
associations Helping poor students in IDPs - conducting
training sessions, providing material Carrying out deliveries (food, clothes) to hospitals
treating IDPs Blood donations Digitizing and Archiving community related
documents, books etc. (Project Noolaham) Participation in different Clubs and Associations Collecting cash for charity projects Media activism
19th AMIC Annual Conference – Technology & Culture : Communication Connectors & Dividers
Civic, Communal & Political Activities
Political Activities Intellectual theoretical discussions with scholars
and friends Political writings - Post modernism, literature,
criticism and society related articles Commenting and discussing on articles on
political websites Political activism profiles in Face Book Open source movement as a political oriented
activity
19th AMIC Annual Conference – Technology & Culture : Communication Connectors & Dividers
Use of ICTs for these Activities
Civic Emails for discussions , Google groups Blogging – discussions , expressions of ideas and
feedback Internet for Information gathering – statistics, history SMS alerts – news alerts, communicating messages
Communal Using ICT and internet to publicize events & activities
such as through the websites, district websites, the twitter accounts, facebook etc
Charity – finding donors online Digital libraries and archives – Noolaham
Political Political campaigning for elections Advertisements , Posters in facebook
19th AMIC Annual Conference – Technology & Culture : Communication Connectors & Dividers
Female involvement is low compared to males
Young adults lack knowledge concerning civic engagement in politics
They think it has to do something with leadership, elections, public meetings
Subject to controversy due to war of the past two decades
General Findings & Issues
19th AMIC Annual Conference – Technology & Culture : Communication Connectors & Dividers
Educational constraints Political studies are not encouraged in school-level Until university entry their activities are bound to basic
education and school-level social activities only
Activities are more towards professionalism rather than from a volunteer perspective
Institutions & Youth Engagement
Most open Mass Media - most
encouraging Local and
International NGOs Left oriented
political parties one of the bigger
left party name called JVP reserved 40 percentage of seats for youths.
Least open The Military/Police Political Parties
only for politicians’ relatives and business men
Government Institutions
19th AMIC Annual Conference – Technology & Culture : Communication Connectors & Dividers
Use of ICTs for connecting with Institutions
Government websites Information gathering
Examination results, Ministry of Defense, Institutional sites
Operations online are less and inactive
Email facilities to ask queries to government institutions
Express own ideas through social networks, like face book, twitter, orkut, MySpace and collect data/information
NGOs achieve a lot through ICT Websites Dedicated chat engines, weekly chat sessions
at a certain specified time - immediate response online
Face book fan pages, twitter and e-mail addresses
19th AMIC Annual Conference – Technology & Culture : Communication Connectors & Dividers
Types of ICTs Used
Laptops
Computers
HSDPA modems
Mobile phones, 3G phones
Internet cafes, Hotspots
Digital Voice Recorders,
Video Recorders
Digital Cameras
19th AMIC Annual Conference – Technology & Culture : Communication Connectors & Dividers
Identity Politics
“ Focus upon the self interest and perspectives of social minorities, or self-identified social interest groups” Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim Identity Politics
Tamil youth involvement is very low and risky compared to the majority
Majority influence is a central component of identity politics
Well- educated youth are interested in policy-
based politics
19th AMIC Annual Conference – Technology & Culture : Communication Connectors & Dividers
74%
19% 7%
Majority and Minor-ity
Sin-haleseTamils
Youth involvement in libratory,
communist or socialist movements is very low compared to involvement in ethnic related political groups.
Challenges Faced
Difficulty in maintaining gender equality Female participation in political and social
activities are low compared to males Identifying tamil and muslim activists is
difficult due to ethnic identitiesYouth being reluctant to provide own ideas
and views Privacy and security issues
Independent political discourse is low in the democracy space in Sri Lanka due to the past 3 decades of war
Difficulty in maintaining the continuity of interviews
Interviews taken among youngsters under 20
years of age lacked lot of information 19th AMIC Annual Conference – Technology & Culture : Communication Connectors & Dividers
Solutions
Considered elite society female activists as interviewees
They were more involved in civic & political activities than others
Chose community level activists from tamil and muslim ethnic groups
Since they were not much involved in political activities
Mostly conducted interviews among known activists or through other contacts
Decided to conduct interviews among age groups between 20 and 35.
Impact Plan
Encourage political discussions & usage of modern ICTs in the school level
Mainly focused in participation of all ethnic groups
Hosting radio shows and/or pod-casts on civic engagement in politics and ICTs
Integrating schools, universities and educational institutions through virtual networks
Provide a common platform (common language) for students to communicate and interact
Encourage new ideas and suggestions from students in order to improve interaction through ICTs (bootom-up approach).19th AMIC Annual Conference – Technology & Culture : Communication Connectors & Dividers
Project Milestones
19th AMIC Annual Conference – Technology & Culture : Communication Connectors & Dividers
• CompleteSigning Contract
• CompleteInitial try of 5 interviews
• Complete10 more interviews
• CompleteFinish all interviews
• Yet to be submittedSubmit all interview documents
• Submitted, need revisions
2nd Technical Report
• CompletePreliminary Data Analysis
• Yet to be doneFocus Group Design
• Yet to be doneInitial try of 2 focus groups
• Yet to be doneFinish all focus groups
• Yet to be done3rd Technical Report
• Yet to be doneSubmit focus group documents
• Yet to be doneInitial analysis of FG data
• Yet to be donePaper writing
• Yet to be doneDissemination
• Yet to be doneFinal Technical Report
Thank You