India: Social Media Blamed for Fueling Unrest

This is the first post in the 2-part series about the role played by Social Media in India in the fallout of the Assam clashes that spilled across the country and threatened to upset the nation's peace.

On 25th July, 2012, we reported about ethnic clashes that had broken out between the indigenous Bodo tribe and Bengali Muslim settlers in the Kokrajhar district of the Indian State of Assam. The mainstream media (MSM) at first chose to shy away from reporting the ground realities of the clashes. After being barraged with questions and criticism on social media about their silence and/or inadequate coverage of the Assam situation, various reasons were offered from their end, perhaps the most curious one being that of the tyranny of distance - that the clashes in Assam were happening in a... [via Global Voices Online]