Contradictheory: The politics of social media

In times of political uncertainty, when traditional means of contact is muted, there is value in being more active, not less, on social media to interact with democratically elected representatives. －Filepic/dpa

The riots at the US Capitol building by the Make America Great Again gang on Jan 6 was the tremor that started 2021, and its aftershocks extended well into the Internet. Donald Trump is persona non grata on social media now, along with many of his followers that parrot his brand of “greatness”.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden – US president since Jan 11, 2021 – has decided that what he wants to do is to actually just move on and do the work. In some ways, Biden should be praised.

I think most of us believe that lawmakers and government officials should put the good of the people above all else. Indeed, the word “minister” was originally from Latin and meant “servant” or an “assistant”. So, as we might say in Malaysia, “Buat kerja, bukan politik” (do the work, not politics).

We all know that office politics can negatively impact office work. Just ask the 130 Malaysian government officers who were part of a 2013 Universiti Utara Malaysia study, which concluded that those subjects who thought their workplace was rife with politics would “do what they are ordered to do by their superior without showing their full commitment to enhance the quality of the tasks”. It’s demoralising when you believe who you know is more important that what you do.

On the other hand, it’s almost impossible to not have some element of politics in your work. According to American psychologist Robert Hogan the presence of office politics is a result of three characteristics of humans: Firstly, the desire to get along and cooperate; secondly, the need to get ahead; and finally, the tendency of groups to try and find meaning. Hogan also says that 90% of people who are good at doing their job fail to continue to do well when they get promoted, and that the base rate of incompetent management in corporate America is 70%.

If that is what things are like in the best of times, then what if things become chaotic? What if, hypothetically speaking, a state of emergency is declared? The temptation would be to say, get your head down, do the work. But I would argue that it’s time for more politics, not less.

There is a misunderstanding that politics is always a negative thing that stops people from doing work. But the truth is that politics is also a form of communication, and it becomes vitally important during uncertain times.

How can you tell the difference between what is good and what is poisonous? In the study of government officers I cited earlier, examples of “workplace politics” they gave were “Telling others what they want to hear is sometimes better than telling the truth”, or “Sometimes it is easier to remain quiet than to fight the system”. It’s obvious in this case that playing politics would be detrimental to the work being done because there is a gap between what is being said and what needs to be done.

So, where is Malaysia in all this? A country in the grip of a pandemic, with warring political factions, temporarily held on a knife-edge in a state of emergency. Many blame politics for the position we are in now; and yet, I contend it is politics that will hold the course and, hopefully, save the day. The trick is being able to tell the difference between politics that saves thousands of lives and politics that saves individuals time in prison (or at least a RM2,001 fine).

But you may rightly point out: the natural check and balance afforded by Parliament and state assemblies has now been muted. So if you see wrongdoing, how do you say something about it? It must be on social media. The same social media that this column has long lamented for being a megaphone for the wrong type of outrage. But perhaps it’s time that we try to leverage its strengths given there is no other avenue.

Don’t get me wrong, I know where the power lies. Even in the United States where the technology companies are relatively independent of the political players, they have been arguably swayed too far across the line in banning those with unpopular political viewpoints, with even the American Civil Liberties Union warning that, “It should concern everyone when companies like Facebook and Twitter wield the unchecked power to remove people from platforms that have become indispensable for the speech of billions – especially when political realities make those decisions easier”.

This means the more effective social media is in shaping civil society, the more likely those who are skewered by it will push back. Maybe some modern-day equivalent of the Printing Presses and Publications Act will be rolled out. Maybe cybertroopers will come ready with counter-(mis)information.

But I think for now, there is value in being more active, not less, on social media. Not only as an additional source of news (which is how most use it, I believe) –but also as a chance to interact with democratically elected representatives.

In the same way that employer and employee can use politics to do good work, now we too can play our political part – and don’t be afraid to demand a little. Remember where the word “minister” comes from.

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In his fortnightly column, Contradictheory, mathematician-turned-scriptwriter Dzof Azmi explores the theory that logic is the antithesis of emotion but people need both to make sense of life’s vagaries and contradictions. Write to Dzof at [e-mail]. The views expressed here are entirely the writer's own.