Page 21 - Peoples_Journal_Sri_Lanka

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

will not provide any opportunity to make a huge movement against the
system (Amin, 2011). Anyway, social media has the potential to gather
public opinions in an effective way to succeed in some event at the regional
and local levels (Kidd & McIntosh, 2016).

In this context, social media provides a platform to fill the gap of
individualized human relations, and simultaneously, this combination works
to gather public opinions on particular matters in an effective manner.

5. Methodology

This study is mainly based on four cases, which were mobilized on a
Facebook community to address and create a platform to demand justice
from the responsible authorities. Some of the identifiable cases are the Illegal
poaching case in Kandy, Vilpattu deforestation, poaching a blind tusker in
Galgamuwa, and the Brutal killing of a sea eagle in Galle. Facebook users
made a collective effort to seek justice for those victimized animals and
habitats. They forced the government to take necessary actions against those
activities. Almost all movements were successful, but some failed.

Figure. 01: Four cases which were caused by social media waves (a)
Villpattu deforestation, 2012-2015, (b) Illegal poaching case in Kandy,
2016, (c) Brutal killing of a sea eagle in Galle,2016, (d) Poaching a
Blind tusker in Galgamuwa,2017 (All images collected from the
Facebook social media platform)