Impact of Social Media in Mobilizing the 2018 Road Safety Movement in Bangladesh

Abstract

Abstract

This article focuses on the impact of social media in mobilizing the road safety movement. On July 29, 2018, two college students died in a horrific road accident in Dhaka. After their death, school and college students across the country started protesting the corruption and mischievousness of the transport sector of Bangladesh. Social media solely mobilized this movement. The study observed how social media helped young students organize and spread their agenda through a successful protest. Using the content analysis method, some of the most shared posts (pictures, videos, words) from Facebook and YouTube were analyzed to understand the impact of social media. By analyzing the posts through Critical Discourse Analysis theory and Protest Logic theory, this study found that it is necessary to engage in activism both in social media and in real life to spread a protest throughout the country.