Paper short abstract:

Following massive ICT take up across Pakistan, this paper looks at the ways SMS texting, Facebook and Twitter, in particular, have impacted on the maintenance of global networks of Pakistani kin and friendship networks. The impact is not, however, uniform across all segments of the population.

Paper long abstract:

Following the explosion of ICT take up across Pakistan, this paper looks at the ways SMS texting, Facebook and Twitter, in particular, have impacted on the maintenance of global networks of Pakistani kin and friendship networks. The impact is not, however, uniform across all segments of the population. Working with rural Punjabis, urban academics and civil servants, I discuss the differential access of different groups and the consequences for attitudes and behaviours expressed. The well rehearsed tensions between the moderate, liberal sections of the country and the more conservative, religious groups provides an interesting context in which to study the consequences of social media use on different global networks. Rural landowners appear to have shifted some agricultural and economic practices as a result of social media usage, despite many of these being banned or blocked by local internet providers. Urban academics, with historically greater access to international information and exchange, do not demonstrate such radical shifts in expressions of gender expectations or political ideologies. The study employs a combination of formal social networks analysis, interviews and free listing, to generate sociograms and attitudinal consensus analysis within the key domains of economic activities, gender and political views.