These applications are mostly installed from local files already stored in the device. The
typical Apple store and Play store that you otherwise would use for this function are delivered
in Chinese or Thai, which most people in Myanmar do not read or understand. Locally saved
applications and files are then shared through an application named Zapia, which is a
Bluetooth-based application for sharing. This pre-installed software and Zapia-functions are
part of the reason Facebook grew so big in Myanmar. As already addressed, there is no
sufficient alternative to Facebook´s opportunities that include all the functions in one place. If
such an alternative existed in Myanmar, there is no apparent reason to continue the use of
Facebook instead of the other option. Another factor maintaining Facebook´s popularity is, as
mentioned that they do not make their users choose between Zawgyi and Unicode. They
support both, and it, therefore, depends on your installed software which font is readable on
your particular device. (As shown in figure IV). Another reason why Facebook is so dominant
is the fact that the smartphone is people’s main access to the internet, and Facebook is then
used instead of the browser-applications, offering a sufficient amount of functions.
Wenche Nag, in the book Stretched Connectedness, draws on Giddens when she explains the
terminology of structuration. She writes that as social actors, we are intentional and that all
action has a purpose. Often, we are aware of this, but we do not have complete information
about all the different factors that influence a specific outcome. There is always information
or influence present that you do not know about, as could be the case with pre-installed
Zawgyi. This means that whenever someone has to make a choice, this choice is based on
incomplete information, you can never put forward every single influence behind your choice
(Nag, 2017, p. 74). There are some similarities to infrastructure theory in this, with all the
layers working together, in all the different systems needed to get something to work/function
or all the different influence forming in one way or another, aware or unaware, the outcome.
Much like the choice between Unicode and Zawgyi, this is true both to everyday life, as well
as competing companies taking action like delivering products with Zawgyi default.
Structural resources are used to facilitate action, and this action may serve to both reproduce
as well as change the structural resources. This involves power relations and then the power to
influence others, as can be seen when looking at Facebook in Myanmar when they support
both font-alternatives.
As Liao writes “New users in Myanmar unknowingly became part of Zawgyi´s existing user
base, without knowing the hidden costs that will impede the future of Myanmar´s digital
society to be sustainable and inclusive” (Liao, 2017, p. 21). Giddens two terms of power,
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