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ISSN 3121-3049
People's Journal Sri Lanka Volume 01, Issue 01

Voice of the Voiceless: Potentials of Social Media Platforms
for Environmental Justice in Sri Lanka

1
Manjula Karunaratne and Wasana Pushpananda 2
msmanjula@geo.ruh.ac.lk
1
Department of Geography and Department of English Language Teaching 2
University of Ruhuna, Matara, Sri Lanka

Abstract

The development of Information Communication Technology (ICT) has made social media
a necessity in modern human life. Apart from providing entertainment, social media
provides a platform to gather individuals with common interests. This study attempts to
examine whether social media has the potential to gather individuals to create a discourse on
prevailing environmental issues and achieve environmental justice. A mixed methodology
was used for this research. Questionnaires prepared by using Google Forms were shared link
through researcher's Facebook account. We got 111 completed responses. A telephone
interview was carried out for 25 randomly selected respondents of the list of the 111 group.
Information gathered from questionnaires and interviews was thematically analyzed. The
study revealed that Facebook has potential in gathering individuals towards environmental
justice. It also revealed that activities on environmental justice on Facebook demonstrate the
level of importance given to certain environmental issues. The results also suggest that
Facebook provides an opportunity to extend the discourse on environmental justice from the
virtual world into the real world through protests and campaigns organized by members of
Facebook groups for environmental justice.

Keywords: Facebook, Environmental justice, Socialmedia, Sri Lanka

Article History: Received: 05.04.2025 Accepted: 20.07.2025