Writing in March after studying 2,000 comments against President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s (AKD’s) consequential budget speech, I observed there was “a growing public sentiment (bordering on embryonic disenchantment) around the government’s inability to…
Last year, I studied in some depth perceptions of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake (AKD) and the National People’s Power (NPP) after the consequential presidential election and again after the even more significant…
A year ago, Sri Lanka hurriedly passed legislation that fundamentally undermined human rights in ways unprecedented in the country’s history. The Online Safety Act (OSA), rammed through parliament without meaningful consultation, represents…
Meta’s decision to completely dismantle its fact checking programme with immediate effect will result in the accelerated abuse of the company’s technologies. This abuse will invariably lead to the loss of life,…
A video clip of the JVP MP Bimal Rathnayake speaking at a political rally of the NPP, clearly after the presidential election but before the general election earlier this month, is…
Based on my previous study of looking at how Sri Lankan partisans on Twitter perceived their favoured presidential candidate, and opponents, I wanted to establish how mainstream media (MSM) accounts on the…
Last month, I studied over 4,000 tweets linked to the three main presidential candidates – Ranil Wickremesinghe (RW), Sajith Premedasa (SP), and Anura Kumara Dissanayake (AKD) – in order to study how…
R. Sampanthan MP passed away on June 30, 2024. He was 91. Sampanthan was a venerable statesman, and veteran Tamil politician. His passing marks the end of an era. As journalist Meera Srinivasan…
“Hence the major effect of the Panopticon: to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power.” Michel Foucault Although now contested, news…
The draft of Sri Lanka’s Online Safety Act, published last week, is draconian, dangerous, and it should come as no surprise, also dumb. I’ve not studied any vocal support of the draft,…
Prof. Ismail (Qadri) was one of the earliest champions of or some other platform, would be sent, and prior to publication, we exchanged some thoughts over. This is a polite way of…
Photo Courtesy of BBC News Sri Lanka is led by a man who has, by his admission, two faces. In a more democratic avatar is Gotabaya Rajapaksa the President. Here, the individual…
“If you think this has a happy ending, you haven’t been paying attention.” — Ramsay, Articles penned on recently by Jayadeva Uyangoda, Asanga Welikala and Gehan Gunatilleke as well as elsewhere, by…
The proposed 20th amendment will be the death of free and fair elections in Sri Lanka. The study of political communications and digital propaganda for over a decade leaves no room for…
In an on-going series of podcasts with individuals in Sri Lanka, I caught up with economist Anushka Wijesinha to talk about the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on Sri Lanka as well…
