ICH 2015
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://repository.kln.ac.lk/handle/123456789/10225
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Item The influence of social media as a mode of campaigning during the 2015 presidential election in Sri Lanka(University of Kelaniya, 2015) Ukwatta, W.; Kumara, A.P.; Samarawickrama, R.Facebook® is probably among the most popular and well known social media sites for election campaigns in different parts of the world. In Sri Lanka, internet usage has grown fast during the last few years. Prior to 2015, the main political parties in Sri Lanka hosted their party websites and a few national politicians maintained news websites. The 2015 presidential election was a turning point in the history of socio-political movements and Facebook election campaign. The present study aims to present the findings of a qualitative and quantitative content analysis of the Facebook pages of the two presidential candidates. The sample contained 150 Facebook postsduring the last two months of the 2015 Presidential election campaign in Sri Lanka. The objectives of the study were to identify the different elements of the statements of influence, campaign strategies by the users, and the additional roles that the Facebook pages play in the campaigns. The results indicate that Facebook have a significant effect on the political campaign during the presidential election of 2015. Findings show that both candidates used an emotional and motivational appeal to create social capital that the campaigns wished to control the message displayed on the pages by posting information and to present a personal image that revealed very little of their personal lives. Statistical analysis shows the numbers of comments and likes given to the posts were influenced by the element of persuasion used on the posts. Users view Facebook mainly as an channel to exert influence and as a means to gain social prestige.Item A comparative study on the representation of Sri Lankan women in politics and the private sector(University of Kelaniya, 2015) Priyadarshani, H.E.N.; Samarawickrama, R.Although Sri Lankan society is considered male dominated, there is special honor attributed to women since ancient times and since of late, equal rights and privileges are granted to women. Yet, in the current society, more women tend to be employed in the private sector rather than exerting their rights of being engaged in politics. This study examines as to why women show an interest in employed in the private sector as opposed to being a political representative, although Sri Lankan women have the opportunity and privilege to do so. At the same time, the researcher proposes recommendations to overcome this tendency. Both primary and secondary data were used for this study. However, one of the limitations of the study is the inability to extract full information regarding political behavior of people. It was found out that more than being a political representative by obtaining a party membership, Sri Lankan women tend to engage in private sector employment. In fact, the representation of Sri Lankan women is high in several fields of the private sector. Some of the reasons identified to be deterrent towards women engaging in politics are: the current image of politicians and the negative attitude prevalent towards politics, the discrepancies in the political culture of Sri Lanka and Sri Lankan society being patriarchal.