introducing new digital toolS for Social change in PakiStan - irada

Background 2
Starting in the early 2000s, Pakistan has witnessed huge expansion of its telecom and electronic media market.
In a country of 187 million people, there are now over 100
million mobile phone subscribers. 3 Pakistan has more than 80
licensed satellite television channels, and more than 50 international
satellite television channels. More than 74% of the
urban population has access to these channels through cable
television 4 , although it should be noted that the majority of the
rural population does not receive cable television; in the countryside,
most viewers can only access the state-run Pakistan
Television (PTV). Besides the myriad television channels, there
are more than 130 private FM radio stations around the country.
5 These radio stations have played a particularly effective
role in informing and educating disaster-affected communities
during and since the floods of 2010.
While media has expanded in Pakistan, media freedom has
shrunk over the years. According to a March 22, 2012 article
in Foreign Policy:
Pakistan’s media may be feisty (the country’s private
television channels are often stridently anti-government
in tone), but feisty does not necessarily mean
free. In its 2011-12 Press Freedom Index, Reporters
Without Borders ranks Pakistan 151st out of 179
nations. The country’s culture of violence toward
the media is the main reason for this low ranking,
but state policies threaten media freedoms as well.
Because the rapid and relatively recent expansion
of the Pakistani press has not been accompanied by
checks on its excesses, media-muzzling measures
have effectively become proxies for regulation. 6
3 Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, http://www.pta.gov.pk/index.
php?option=com_content&view=article&id=269&Itemid=599
4 The Annual Report 2010 of the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory
Authority (PEMRA) http://pemra.gov.pk/pemra/images/docs/pub-rep/
annual_report_2010.pdf
5 http://pemra.gov.pk/pemra/index.php?option=com_content&view=artic
le&id=5&Itemid=10
6 Michael Kugelman, “Pakistan’s pugnacious press,” Foreign Policy, March
22, 2012. http://afpak.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/03/22/pakistans_
pugnacious_press
Participants gather at the Islamabad Innovation Lab, held at the
Marriott Hotel in Islamabad in October 2011
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) ranked Pakistan the
most dangerous country in the world for journalists in 2010
and 2011. Incidents of threat, assault, and kidnapping of journalists
are quite common, and CPJ lists 42 journalists murdered
in Pakistan since 1992, half of them with impunity. 7
At present, more than 20 million Pakistanis have Internet
access. The percentage of Internet users in Pakistan, more
than 11% of the total population, is much higher than any other
country in South Asia, including India, where a mere 6% have
Internet access. 8 However, the majority of Pakistani Internet
users still rely on a dial-up connection; only two million have
access to broadband Internet.
According to some estimates, more than 5.5 million Pakistanis
have Facebook accounts, and about 1.9 million are on Twitter.
Pakistan has a thriving blog culture: 1.7 million Pakistanis
are registered bloggers on blogger.com, and Wordpress ranks
Pakistan the 11th most active country in the world in terms of
traffic to wordpress.com 9 .
7 Committee to Protect Journalists, “Pakistan: Political unrest proves
deadly for journalists.” http://cpj.org/asia/pakistan/
8 Internet World Stats, Asia: Pakistan. http://www.internetworldstats.
com/asia.htm#pk
2011 The Year of Social Media in Pakistan, http://asiasociety.org/blog/
asia/2011-year-social-media-pakistan and The Social Media Scene in
Pakistan, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xXMW0fumuU
Seeding Innovation: Introducing New Digital Tools for Social Change in Pakistan 5