Rausim! Digital Politics in Papua New Guinea

Sarah LoganDepartment of International Relations

ANUwww.ircircuit.com

@circt

• The Research Environment

- Limits in current scholarship

- Amanda Watson, (2011): ‘The mobile phone : the new communication drum of Papua New Guinea’ Queensland University of Technology eprints.

- Intermedia (2012), Citizen access to information in Papua New Guinea 2012

• The Media Environment

- Media dark

- Radio and mobile phones are most prevalent

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 20110

0.5

1

1.5

2

Fixed telephone lines per 100 people

source: World Bank

May-12

Jun-12Jul-1

2

Aug-12

Sep-12

Oct-12

Nov-12

Dec-12

Jan-13

Feb-13

Mar-13

Apr-13

020,00040,00060,00080,000

100,000120,000140,000160,000

Active PNG Facebook users per month, 2012 - 2013

source: socialbakers.com

2000 2005 20110

0.51

1.52

2.53

3.54

4.55

Internet users per 100 peoplesource: World Bank

2000 2005 201105

101520253035404550

Mobile phone subscriptions per 100 people

source: World Bank

internet users per 100 people

• ICT in PNG: the statistics

048

121620

Facebook users in PNGsource: socialbakers.com

• Transparency - Positive and negative effects

- Bailard (2012) A Field Experiment on the Internet's Effect in an African Election: Savvier Citizens, Disaffected Voters, or Both? Journal of Communication v62(2) 330 – 344

• Political Engagement and the Public Sphere

- Democratisation: DiMaggio et al, (2001). Social implications of the internet. Annual Review of Sociology, 27:307; Groshek (2012) The democratic effects of the internet 1994 – 2003, a cross national study of 152 countries, The International Communication Gazette 71(3) 115-136

- Fracturing: Hindman (2008) The Myth of Digital Democracy Princenton University Press; Sunstein, Cass R. (2001). Republic.com. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

- New actors: women + diaspora

• Protest/mobilisation

- ‘Complex contagion’: Centola, Macy (2007). Complex contagion and the weakness of long ties. American Journal of Sociology, 113(3):702

- Rumour: Goldstein et al (2008) Digitally networked Technology in Kenya’s 2007 – 2008 Post-Election Crisis Berkman Center for Internet and Society

• PNG: a special case

- Media dark

- Low literacy rates

- Under-researched information culture

- Distinct forms of social capital

• ICT and the Practice of Politics in PNG

Source: Kelly et al (2008) Mapping the Persian Blogosphere, Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Adamic and Glance (2005) The political blogosphere and the 2004 U.S. election: Divided they blog. In Proceedings of the 3rd International Workshop on Link Discovery

• The political economy of ICT in PNG- Does ICT use change the way citizens think about the state

and its capacities? - Are citizens who use ICT more or less engaged?

• Contemporary leadership in PNG- Does online influence translate into offline influence and

vice versa?- How do women use ICT in PNG?