Patralekha Chatterjee: Driving social change, one tweet at a time

Can social media drive social change? It is the sort of question you normally debate inside a conference hall, rather than during a bus ride to a town famous for its white truffle. But Italy is one country where it is perfectly acceptable to think the most profound thoughts in the most pleasant of surroundings. I was sitting next to Wang Yongchen, one of China’s most famous environmental journalists, and as the bus chugged along through the picturesque countryside, we found ourselves discussing Twitter and public policy.

Wang and I were part of a group of international journalists, who gathered last week in the town of Cuneo in Italy’s Piedmont region for a symposium on ‘People Building Futures: Media, Democracy and Sustainability’, organised by The Greenaccord, an Italian NGO. We came from countries as far apart as Peru and Pakistan, from political systems as different as China and India, and economies as diverse as Ethiopia and the United States. Our hosts had arranged the symposium sessions in various small towns so that we also got a flavour of the local businesses, culture, and cuisine. One afternoon, we were headed towards Alba, the home of truffle and Ferrero chocolates. A session on The New Media Frontier was scheduled inside Ferrero’s research centre.

Like India, China is walking the tightrope between economics and ecology. Sustainability is an emerging concern. What is fascinating is that even within a closed system, a growing number want to make their voices heard instead of remaining passive and discontented. Many Chinese citizens are coming forward to confront industry and their government over China’s toxic air and water. Wang was telling me how she and many of her colleagues were using the Chinese Twitter (Weibo) to spur public action on key environmental issues.

Wang, 58, a journalist with China National Radio, had co-founded Green Earth Volunteers way back in 1996. It was one of China’s first environmental NGOs. In the early days, volunteers took up projects like tree-adoption and bird-watching. Since last year, Wang has taken to tweeting on environmental issues in her country. Going by the number of her ‘followers’ (close to 20,000), her popularity is surging. Wang told me her current focus is the state of China’s rivers. She is particularly concerned about river pollution and the government proposals to build dams in ecologically sensitive areas. “I take photographs of our rivers. I upload these photos on Twitter. The pollution is evident. People can see for themselves. Then there are other issues, like climate change and disappearing glaciers. Dams are of great concern. Fewer and fewer young people in China are reading newspapers. Social media opens up new frontiers. You can make your point through images and 140 characters. Local authorities respond,” she says.

One of the biggest achievements of Chinese environmental journalists has been to spread awareness about proposed dams. A plan to build 13 dams along China’s Nu River was postponed in 2004 after fierce opposition from Wang and fellow activists. The activists vociferously expressed their concern about the plan’s potential impact on biodiversity and on minority populations in the area. Wang says monthly meetings of journalists have helped keep the issues alive. “What will happen in the future, we can’t say. But it shows the public can participate... The fight isn’t over.” She hopes social media can trigger discussions about a Green GDP in her country.

It is not just China. At the symposium, Egyptian journalist Dalia Abdel Salam spoke about how the seeds of ‘revolution’ were sown by local bloggers who had started uploading  video footages about police excesses on YouTube and how videos posted by citizen journalists from Tahrir Square had set the media agenda. Attempts to block social media sites had completely backfired, spurring more people to come out into the streets. There is a takeaway lesson from all this for us in India.

The number of Indians who tweet, blog, and use social network sites like Facebook may be small compared to the rest of the population but getting online and getting engaged is a trend that is on the ascendant here, as elsewhere. Social media can instigate as much as include and empower those whose voices are not heard usually. It played an important mobilising role when Anna Hazare was on hunger strike. Social media is increasingly the new battleground where the different ideas of India and different notions of development will be contested. That also means debates will be less grey and grim. Who can object to that?

The author is a Delhi-based writer linbox@dnaindia.net