Abstract:
Social Media Activism, while heavily deployed during political election campaigning remains an
unexplored academic and statistical discourse in Pakistan. Its role in engineering perceptions for socio political gain is emerging as a well documented, game changing discourse that is shaping contemporary
narrative and understanding of Hybrid Warfare in the developed world. Pakistan as a country has been
embroiled in fifth generation warfare or hybrid warfare for over two decades now. This exploratory
study based on a deductive approach, using mixed methodology aims to answer the research question
of whether social media has come of age in the country and emerged as a platform that has transformed
activism completely. A primary data study, divided into two sections; the first half explores the role of
organic social media activism through a statistical analysis of 2300 users to map trends of social media
activism on public and political participation, disinformation, government accountability and civic
responsibility. The second half, again a primary level analysis conducted through interviews aims to
explore domestic social media activism through international and domestic examples of the Kashmir
Issue and Pushtoon Tahaffuz Movement respectively. The research looks to gauge the State
understanding, preparedness and response to emerging threats of information warfare, compounded by
large scale public participation and increasing demands for transparency under the backdrop of a
country embroiled in political, social and religious fractures.
