Facebook, a Potential Platform for the Dissemination of Newsworthy Facts: A Study on the ‘Shahbagh Movement’ 2013
Rakib Ahmed
Abstract
Facebook, a social media network, has turned into a successful medium of communication thanks to its millions of users sharing their personal and socio-cultural details on it every moment. During the ‘Shahbagh Movement’ in 2013, the Bangladeshi facebook users utilized almost all applications available on facebook with a view to encourage people to joining the demonstration and share updated details of the mass uprising. The movement stepped into the world of facebook quickly when its users, as an effort to mobilize public support to the movement, updated their profile’s status with an appealing note: “Cholo Cholo Shahbagh Cholo” [Let’s join Shahbagh]. Demanding capital punishment for Liberation War criminal, facebook users released information of the movement in texts, photos and videos through personal as well as group-based pages. Three facebook pages – Shahbaghe Cyber Judhya, Projonmo Chottor and Station 71.13 – were particularly active in publishing different events of the movement round the clock and responded to comments and reactions made by the followers of the pages. The facebook users consider the medium as a strong platform for disseminating news in an effective way, and they believe it can be more powerful in case of releasing facts of a particular event organized and participated by the mass people. This paper intends to find out the strength of facebook in distributing facts among citizens.
Keywords
Facebook, Potential Platform
Full Text
Rakib Ahmed is Lecturer in the Department of Journalism and Media Studies, Jahangirnagar University, Dhaka, Bangladesh. Email: rakib.ahmedjubd@gmail.com