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Social media’s Influence On Political Participation

By Leo Sobechi
06 February 2022   |   6:00 am
 THEY are the digital triggers. They dominate social media. Yet, their presence in governance and policymaking does not portray their active involvement in the new media. It has been discovered that the media continues to play a prominent role in the overall societal development, especially politics. However, experience has shown that not only the mainstream…

 THEY are the digital triggers. They dominate social media. Yet, their presence in governance and policymaking does not portray their active involvement in the new media.

It has been discovered that the media continues to play a prominent role in the overall societal development, especially politics. However, experience has shown that not only the mainstream media now plays this unique role of consolidating and amplifying a vibrant democracy.

With its instant messaging and feedback potentials, the evolving new media is doing a far greater job in enlightening the people, based on the sophistication of media tools available to it.

Internet-based networking sites, especially Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and YouTube have become the major drivers of political conversations, particularly during elections.

Apart from spicing up the media space, the networking sites play dominant roles in influencing crucial decisions in the area of politics, electioneering and popular culture. The power of social media, which is very evident through visibility, has been known to assist voters in taking crucial decisions, especially during voting and assessing information about representatives and policy.

A random content analysis reveals that many political actors now rely on the new media to keep up to speed with current affairs, as well as take part in online debates on domestic politics. 

In Nigeria, the youth demonstrated the tremendous power of social media when they organise protests against police brutality in 2020.

That singular uprising, especially the effective coordination of the protest before it was hijacked by hoodlums and state interference, raised the question as to the power and influence of social media in the country’s politics.

A lecturer at Baze University, Abuja, Dr Arthur Martins Aginam, said, “There’s no doubt it has become quite effective as a resource for not just elections for a lot of engagements, whether it is political activities in media or not.”

Aginam, however, noted that sometimes caution is needed about social media like every other media as a channel. He stated: “So foremost, you have to take a look at the content in terms of what it is you wish to communicate, that also can be communicated to the broadcast, it can be communicated through the print media.

“Why social media is particularly effective is that when we were talking about the convergence of media, the coming together of various media types, some fifteen, twenty years ago, we talked about newspapers, you want a newspaper, you go and buy a newspaper.

“If you want to listen to the radio, you turn on the radio, you want the television, you turn on the television, you want to listen to the music, you go and buy the DVD. But, today, because of the emergence of developments in new technologies, these media have been brought together. With your laptop, with your smartphone, with your tablets, you can access those things.”

The Dichotomy Between Digital Natives And Migrants

The don who is also a former journalist disclosed that “the key thing to bear in mind is that social media is much more effective for young people. In media sociology, we talk about what we call digital migrants and digital natives.

“Digital migrants are much older people, who, when this new technology, social media emerged, were already adults. What they’re trying to do is to try as much as possible to bend backwards, to be able to relate by using social media.”

The debate about making electronic voting part of the country’s electoral system played up the dichotomy between digital natives, which the youth represent and the migrants made up of the old leaders that in control of the levers of political power. That the debate went to the digital migrants was therefore not hard to comprehend.

According to Dr Agina, “Some people are much more effective. So people have much more adapted to it. Some older people are using social media but probably the vast majority, I guess is just to be able to be carried along; just to be relevant in terms of the media and digital space.

 “In contrast, you will find out that the digital Nephi’s are Nephi’s are young people who are born into it, they grew up into it, so it is almost like another life to them, they are pretty good at using that.

“Sometimes people also adjudge that if you have a son, who is about five or six years, when you have these issues with your phone or tablet, your son picks it up and somehow he figures it out, while you the owner of the phone who must have read the manual and the rest of them is kind of struggling with that. So, social media is very effective, particularly for young people.”

Aginam, however, regretted that the vast majority of Nigerians still live in the colonial era, noting that they are very to afford smartphones, but still have more or less basic phones. “And, much of what happens in social media, whether it is Instagram, Twitter, WhatsApp, you need a smartphone to do that.

“So, what we have not just in Nigeria but in other developing countries is what I call the urban-rural divide, the rich-poor divide, the information-rich versus the information poor.

“If you don’t have money to buy a smartphone, you cannot be a part of social media. Even if they manage to have a smartphone, they don’t have the money to buy the data to access the social media. Some of those people survive on a very meagre amount of money committed to food.

“So, there’s no doubt that social media is effective but like I said, let’s not overrate that because we’re talking about a limited portion of the population who have access to social media and within that category you have like, the migrants and the natives,” he explained.

Then there is the issue of credibility, which the don said is quite a problem. He argued, “The truth of the matter is that media is always ahead of policy. So, even in the US now, it is amazing the technologies that are already in the offing among all these high-tech companies.

“By the time messages are coming out, you have to wait for a little while for its efficiency for you to be able to much more determine its impact, whether positive or negative, it is then for the first time the lawmakers are saying how do we begin to address this issue? 

 “Everyone was excited about the internet, especially the social web, what is called web 2.0 the interactive web as opposed to the static web, which was the originally one way. You send a message, people cannot reply, they can only read. But now we have what you call the interactive web, the social web, you know, what sometimes it is also called 2.0, and that’s what brought about this social media, very interactive web.” 

“So, one day we will all use the internet but over a period, we have now seen the other side, the implications of the use of fake news, like you said mal-information, disinformation, misinformation and even the propagation of hate speech. Those are usually challenges and the rest of them and sometimes there are no easy solutions to these problems because, for instance, people are talking about regulating or not regulating,” he noted.

 

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