Media and Cambodian Youth

Credit Photo: Social Media Strategies Submit

In our complex world, the media has been one of major roles in engaging people’s attention in a number of critical issues from social and economic to political, and across countries. Media, however, can be a two-pronged knife. Some might see it as a tool to making social benefits whilst some might take it for granted in a way that means it could also produce bad side effects such as the recruiting of young people by ISIS  (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria), just to name one particular instance. However, I wish to share my views on how the media (and especially the social media) influences many young people in my country, Cambodia.

Located in Southeast Asia and with a relatively small population of approximately 15 million people, Cambodia has been integrating herself into the regional and globalized world. Many Cambodians, especially young people, have consciously exposed themselves to the advancement of the technology and utilized technological advantages for their interests and national interests. Over the past few years, a number of mobile phone’s users and Internet subscribers in Cambodia have rapidly increased, reaching over 5 million Internet subscribers by January 2015, up from about 3.8 million in 2013[1]. Social media has been a significant tool for Internet subscribers, and Facebook has been the largest Social media site used by Cambodians with a total of around 1,420,000 users actively online every month[2].

Credit Photo: Simply Social

The increase of people in accessing to the social media has widened ample opportunities for both public and private sectors to promote products and services quite effective to their targets with low costs. More importantly and surprisingly, the social media in general and Facebook in particular has been utilized very effectively by a number of politicians from the opposition party (the Cambodian National Rescue Party or CNRP) to gather support from young people whose voting proportion is expected to be higher in the coming 2018’s national election; as of this writing, Sam Rainsy, the leader of CNRP, alone has more than 2 million Facebook fans. Cambodia’s national election of 2013 could be an influential example of how the social media has shaped Cambodia’s political climate. Though CNRP could not win the election, it gained an unprecedented number of seats, picking up 55 seats out of the 123-seat National Assembly, making a landslide political victory of the 2008’s, the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) lose 22 seats from 90[3]. A lot of analysts and observers argued this was due to the fact that young voters could be well informed through social media [Facebook] regarding social injustice and many other social problems. Due to a lack of transparency and because most local media coverage is seen to be bias to the ruling party, Cambodian people to some extent tend to pay more attention to information given through the social media (Facebook). Expectedly, this has changed the mainstream media approach of both the Cambodian government and ruling party to engage their members into the social media, specifically Facebook, which they ignored until the result of 2013’s election challenged their expectations. Until recently, the Prime Minister of Cambodia, Hun Sen, (who used to deny he had an official Facebook account or page), announced in public of his official Facebook page (Samdech Hun Sen, Cambodian Prime Minister) which now (at this writing) has more than 1.8 million fans.

Additionally, using social media such Facebook young Cambodians now can share their national identity and pride and support for Cambodian national teams. Some people even go further, raising extra financial support for their team. For example, one Cambodian lady alone raised almost USD 2,000 to support the Cambodian national football team (‘U23’s) using her personal Facebook account. It was reported that at a recent football match between Cambodia and Singapore (June 11, 2015) the Cambodian national stadium was flooded by more than 40,000[4] Cambodians for the first time ever, thanks to information spread through social media Facebook.

In short, in the years to come, social media such as Facebook will stay as one of the central tools for Cambodian youths to interact with one another as well as to utilize for their personal interests and social activities, perhaps even creating a new national identity.

Noted: This article was published at my school’s magazine, AJOU GSIS’s Gazette 28th publication in which I was one of the editors. To access to the entire publication, please refer to the 28 Gazette.

[1] https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/one-third-of-cambodians-now-online-thanks-to-mobile-phones-79547/

[2] http://geeksincambodia.com/facebook-statistics-in-cambodia-2014/

[3] http://techpresident.com/news/wegov/24223/rising-social-media-use-drives-youth-involvement-cambodias-national-elections

[4] https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/cambodian-fans-deflated-after-world-cup-loss-85436/