Engaging with social media

National Assembly has decided to expand parliamentary outreach in the age of e-parliaments

It is something of an understatement to say that successive governments of Pakistan have at best had an ambivalent relationship with social media. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and WhatsApp are all creatures of the internet, a creation that no government anywhere in the world is entirely comfortable with given that entity’s predilection for freedom of expression. With the global version of YouTube still banned officially, there is something of an irony in the announcement that the National Assembly has decided to launch what are being described as “official” social media accounts, in order to expand parliamentary outreach in the age of e-parliaments. The Senate introduced similar initiatives in 2015.

Whilst we applaud the move in principle, one has to wonder what this might mean in practice. The Speaker of the National Assembly said that there was a need to “develop new strategies … to support effective engagement with citizens” — and he is right. Further talk of building a stronger, more vibrant and participative democracy followed, along with comments to the effect that traditional democracies (whatever they are) were turning towards e-parliaments as a primary tool to connect with the populace. Indeed they are, and with the increase in the numbers of citizens with access to the internet afforded by the 3G rollout in the last year, there is no lack of opportunity for our parliamentarians to talk to us via our handsets and other mobile devices. All this is in the future, and there are going to be “teams of experts” engaged to explore how social media accounts are best managed. The project is in its early stages, we are informed, and the National Assembly media wing now has two officers to run the social media pages as they develop. Whether the populace is going to be interested in the diary engagements of the Speaker or the meeting schedule of assorted ministers and their underlings remains to be seen, but it is dry fare indeed. In theory, all splendid stuff, but more than a suspicion that this is window-dressing rather than windows opening. We would be delighted to be proved wrong.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 16^th, 2016.

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