Digital and Social Media: Connecting with the World Outside
The social impact of digital media communication is more encompassing than that of earlier technologies of communication. Digital forms mediate often disjointed, fragmented and episodic narratives that are visually and emotionally charged, circulate rapidly through social networks, and appeal to diverse, trans-local audiences whose agency is informed by social media messages. Indeed, contemporary digital technologies enable different realities – in time, space and identity – and render them into constant features of social life. Our constant access to digital communication largely forecloses the possibility of living in an exclusively emic or homogeneous imaginary.
After 2011, Myanmar’s economic liberalization was accompanied by open access to international news sites as well as to Burmese news sites in exile. Although certain restrictions on freedom of expression via press media or in public speeches continued to be enforced by the state, access to both print and digital media was vastly expanded. While digital access is now available in most towns and cities, the penetration of cellphone towers to areas beyond the heartland remains a challenge. Yet, in combination with solar power sources, digital communication, television, and cellphone use have emerged and are used side-by-side with manual agricultural labor practices, despite the lack of mechanized agriculture in remote areas. The picture below shows a solar panel next to a recently built monastery.
As the map below shows, conflict-prone regions with minimal human development are more prone to conflict and also have less access to digital communication.
For those with connectivity, the sudden access to new media enabled leap frogging and access to a wider, global discourse amidst rapid economic growth. With nearly half of the population using cell phones, individuals and organizations have become adept users of digital media in order to create social networks, shape public opinion, and mobilize supporters (Brooten et al. 2017).
New and widespread access to digital media on cell phones spurred the resurgence of a “free Myanmar.” Connectivity was tied to the increase in unfiltered reactivity among users who were unschooled in public speaking and its potential impact. As a result, all forms of media and the press are exploring new boundaries of civil discourse. Freedom of expression, though still constrained in many ways, has amplified public discourse through the advent of social media that functioned largely outside the reach of information censorship. New freedoms in the use of print and digital media have played critical roles in opening up the range of opinions that can now be expressed and contested through public media. The range of opinions expressed speaks to a salient search for a renewed relevance of Buddhist practices in the rapidly changing contexts of the contemporary era. Civil discourse became collateral damage, as Lisa Brooten wrote in her essay on “The (Lost?) Art of Civil Discourse: Rise of media use in Myanmar.”
Digital communication technologies quickly took hold via cell phones, texting, images and other forms of objectification out of context, facilitated by soundscapes, TV, cassettes, and SIM cards. The sound of Buddhist sermons and chanting has become an almost ever-present soundscape in shops and other public places. The rapid growth in the use of new media had far-reaching consequences for new developments in Buddhist discourse and groups amidst growing communal tensions. Heightened styles of communications can either disrupt or augment established Theravada discourse and practices and almost always increase their impact on social networks. With the arrival of new media, new Buddhist sentiments began to be articulated to rally and mobilize communities. New articulations of Buddhist identities responded to liberalization and concurrent anxieties about the nation’s future.
A range of religious actors employed new communication technologies, including Buddhist TV broadcasts and digital media like chat rooms, texting, and Facebook pages of monastic and lay organizations involved in propagating the Buddhist religion (thathana pyu thi) and mobilizing their supporters. Some voices used digital communications technologies to advocate for a Buddhist nationalism or to incite anti-Muslim hate speech.
Digital mobilization enabled the rapid growth of Buddhist nationalist sentiments articulated by the now outlawed organizations of Ma Ba Tha (//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriotic_Association_of_Myanmar). Their spokesperson, Wirathu (//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashin_Wirathu), is known for fomenting Buddhist islamophobia and encouraging anti-Muslim rioting. “U Wirathu, a leader of the ultra-nationalist and anti-Islamic 969 movement, made [the following] statement at a press conference at his monastery in Mandalay on 6 July 2014. His message to Muslims was simple: they don’t belong in Myanmar” (Cable, 2014). Communal tensions often followed Wirathu’s sermons in Arakan and around the country, and he was prohibited from preaching in 2017. His organization’s use of digital media fomented hatred of Muslims and the corresponding rise of Buddhist nationalist sentiments fomented online, while its ideology was also delivered through the organization’s network in preaching, dhamma talks, and Sunday school lessons throughout the country.
Example: Listen to this podcast about the history of Buddhist Nationalism in Burma
//soundcloud.com/myanmar-musings/understanding-buddhist-nationalism-part-1
The question of who belongs to Myanmar after 2011 surfaces in debates about Buddhist nationalism and the role of monks who once again command a powerful political force. Growing access to digital communication contributed to an increasing awareness of events in Myanmar globally and rising expressions of Buddhist nationalism. Media outlets in Myanmar and in the West have stressed a resurgence of Buddhist nationalism and Burmese xenophobia.
In this complex scenario, Myanmar’s social and historical realities contradict common Western sentiments toward Myanmar Buddhist practices as a uniquely peaceful and non-violent religion. Consequently, a political, social, and religious backlash began to jeopardize foreign support for democratic reforms underway in Myanmar.
Responses among global Buddhist networks to the discourse on Buddhist nationalism in Myanmar included the Dalai Lama, who admonished Burmese monks and, together with his fellow Nobel Prize recipients, has called for an end to violence. Others echo the view prominent in the West that Buddhism is inherently non-violent and peaceful, obscuring the political and social realities of those historical moments when Buddhists have been both victims and perpetrators of violence. Some Western media outlets stressed a resurgence of Buddhist nationalism and Burmese xenophobia. Time Magazine identified the Burmese monk Wirathu as the “Face of Buddhist Terror.”
Jack Kornfield (//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Kornfield) (2014), a well-known American meditation teacher, published his firsthand report about the causes of violence in Arakan, but not without explaining “real” Buddhism. Under the title “Buddhists Betray the Teachings,” he describes social causes for the Rohingya conflict and then concludes that “surprisingly, there is widespread ignorance in Burma of the many core Buddhist teachings. Most of Buddhist practice is devotional… In this culture of devotion, the teachings of the noble truths and eightfold path, of nonviolence, mindfulness, meditation, and virtue are not emphasized.” This pejorative rhetoric deprives Myanmar Buddhists of voicing their own perspectives, while Abeysekara (2002:203) reminds readers that the voice of authenticity always belongs to the community of practitioners.
New transnational publics now also include diaspora communities who locate themselves in a more complex social world than their peers at home. In a letter published in 2018, a group of Burmese Buddhists living abroad asks their fellow countrymen “to consider whether the hyper-nationalism gripping the country now is compatible with the teachings of the Buddha… His teachings promote critical thinking, compassion, and striving to make ourselves and the world around us better. He warned against the dangers of attachment—to one’s race, religion, and nation—as these attachments prevent us from seeing the four noble truths and following the eightfold path.”
Example: The letter can be read on this website:
https://asiancorrespondent.com/2018/04/burmese-buddhists-pen-open-letter-calling-for-rohingya-peace/#kKFcGkOM19bxTS2q.97
Concerns about press freedom in Myanmar continue to linger, as the podcast below explains.
Example: //soundcloud.com/myanmar-musings/press-freedom-in-2018
Myanmar journalists reporting for Reuters (//www.reuters.com/subjects/myanmar-reporters) on the 2017 massacre of ten Rohingya men in Rahkine remain imprisoned under the pretexts of a colonial law that prohibits sharing state secrets.
Facebook is the universal platform in Myanmar that many users identify as the internet per se, because it is usually preinstalled on digital devices. Debates in the West about Facebook’s role in enabling the organization of violence have been hosted by serval media outlets. Following a rapid and yet unmonitored rise in hate speech since 2012, Facebook has been criticized for insufficient monitoring and a general lack of accountability in checking the spread of hate speech. As part of his testimony before Congress, Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg was questioned about the company’s lack of social responsibility in Myanmar. The spike in hate speech is captured in the chart below:
Examples: Here are links to important discussions about the role of Facebook in facilitating the rise of anti-Muslim communal violence in Myanmar.
- //teacircleoxford.com/2018/06/13/what-role-has-social-media-played-in-facilitating-the-spread-of-hardline-nationalist-sentiment-in-myanmar/
- foreignpolicy.com/2015/11/13/burma-gives-a-big-thumbs-up-to-facebook/
- www.wired.com/story/how-facebooks-rise-fueled-chaos-and-confusion-in-myanmar/
- www.democracynow.org/2018/4/11/how_facebook_played_instrumental_role_in
- www.cnn.com/2018/04/06/asia/myanmar-facebook-social-media-genocide-intl/index.html
These cartoons speak to the ambiguous public attitudes Myanmar citizens hold toward Facebook’s role in the country’s public discourse.
Different communication technologies have had a significant impact on the roles of the monastic institution (sangha) in Myanmar. Against a colonial history fraught with encounters that many Burmese still view as anti-Buddhist, the notion of secular governance remains weak and largely unpopular. Following decades of totalitarian rule (1962-2010), the sangha has reclaimed its place in the Burmese public sphere as monks have both supported and contested military regimes in Myanmar. The sangha today in Myanmar is not a homogeneous group that speaks in a single voice, and its affirmed uniformity was clearly an idealized rather than a historical reality. Yet, Buddhist monks continue to enjoy tremendous power among the Burmese public. As monks on all sides of the political continuum seek to participate in emergent social and political reforms, they represent a formidable and unpredictable force in determining this country’s future.
Author Biography
Juliane Schober is Director of the Center for Asian Research and professor of religious studies at Arizona State University. She directed the graduate program in religious studies (2009 -2012) and developed a doctoral track in the anthropology of religion.Her primary areas of research include Theravada Buddhist practices in Southeast Asia, especially Myanmar (Burma), Anthropology of Religion; Material Culture, Media and Aesthetics; Icons; Ritual; Modernity, Politics and Religion; Colonial Studies; Conflict and Civil Society; Theravada Buddhism; and Sacred Biography.
She has held leadership positions in the Association for Asian Studies, the American Academy of Religion, and in the American Anthropological Association. She serves on several editorial boards, as a trustee of the Burma Studies Foundation and on the Academic Board of the Inya Institute, Yangon, Myanmar. In 2013, Professor Schober participated in the first IAPP delegation of U.S. universities to Myanmar, organized by the International Institute of Education (IIE).
In 2018, Juliane Schober became a Research Fellow of The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation in Buddhist Studies. She founded the Theravada Studies Group, an academic organization affiliated with the Association for Asian Studies to promote comparative and scholarly exchanges in the social sciences and humanities about Theravada Buddhist traditions in India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Southwest China and globally though pilgrimage and diaspora networks. With support from the Henry Luce Foundation, Professor Schober has developed a collaborative project on Theravada Buddhist civilizations in Southeast Asia. This project brings together international scholars to chart new directions in this field and organizes annual workshops for dissertation writers. She is Principal Investigator on Title VI grants (NRC, FLAS and UISFL). Her work has been funded by the Henry Luce Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Social Science Research Council, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, and the Smithsonian Institution.
Her book, "Modern Buddhist Conjunctures in Myanmar: Cultural Narratives, Colonial Legacies and Civil Society," was published in 2011 (University of Hawai’i Press). She co-edited "Buddhist Manuscript Cultures" (Routledge, 2008) and edited "Sacred Biography in the Buddhist Traditions of South and Southeast Asia" (U. of Hawai'i Press, 1997). She has authored many book chapters, journal articles and essays in encyclopedias, such as "The Encyclopedia of Religion" ( Macmillan 2005), "The Encyclopedia of Buddhism" (edited by Buswell, Lopez and Strong, 2003) and "The Encyclopedia of Buddhism" (edited by Prebish and Keown, 2007).
