Social Media Archives – Page 27 of 27 – Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA)

By Ashnah Kalemera
Social media is fast becoming one of the major uses of the Internet. Wikis, blogs and other social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube have been added to the Internet as enablers for developing, storing and disseminating instant information to audiences of people in diverse locations at a fairly low cost.
Social networks could potentially be used for a broad range of participatory activities, such as demanding for public services like education and water, contacting leaders, political campaigns and discussions, and fighting corruption. They also could play a critical role in citizen engagement and advocacy, which have a major bearing on transparency and accountability in governance and the conduct of public affairs.
With growing numbers of Africans becoming internet users, monthly web information analysis by Alexa.com shows that there are a significant – and rising – number of users of social media on the continent. Facebook, a social networking platform that allows highly interactive processes, claims that it has 750 million users, half of whom log on daily with the average user having an estimated 130 friends.
In June this year, Alexa.com ranked Facebook the second most visited site in the world. The site was ranked the most popular for social networking in Egypt, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Morocco, Nigeria and Sudan. In Algeria, Cameroon, Congo, South Africa and Uganda, Facebook was ranked the second most used website.
Twitter, another social networking and micro blogging service with instant dissemination of up to 140 character strokes, has also greatly attracted citizens and policy makers on the continent. Ranked the 9th most popular social networking website globally by Alexa.com, it was widely used by South Africans, Nigerians, Kenyans and Ugandans, taking 7th or 8th position of these countries’ internet traffic.
Overall, users of social networking sites form a network that provides a powerful means of sharing, organising, and finding content and contacts. Citizens, with the capacity to undertake independent analysis of issues, form opinions and influence others, and can leverage on social media for policy engagement. This engagement can be with other citizens as well as with their leaders. For instance, administration complaints can be made more easily by directing them to public institutions’ Facebook accounts or by mentioning them on Twitter.
For governance in particular, information flow through the smooth collaboration of information providers could help in overcoming various institutional problems such as graft. Citizens’ and governments’ use of social media platforms translates into becoming bound to one another through exposure to a common class of problems, pursuit of joint solutions and thereby embracing ‘change’. With more and more applications being developed by individuals and groups, social media stands to become even more interactive, far-reaching and viral.
However, most African governments have not taken significant steps toward making the use of social media and networks within administrations official and widespread. In fact, the policy environment remains un-conducive with most government Internet related regulations aimed at protecting political interests at the expense of enabling citizen participation.
Ultimately, the prospects and potential of social media remain anchored in the complexity that is the socio-economic, technological, political and cultural environment. Access to the internet, ability to effectively use diverse media tools, as well as time and security issues and citizens’ knowledge of how best to use the mediums, will determine how much civic participation, transparency and efficient public service delivery can thrive via the social mediums available.
Although social media networks are unlikely to replace traditional policy and governance processes in Africa, it is un-doubtable that they can effectively contribute to meaningful citizen motivation, sensitisation, education, mobilization and ultimately, influence. What is required is for governments to leverage on these technologies in service and information delivery.

By Ashnah Kalemera
In recent years, web 2.0 technologies (such as wikis, blogs, and social networking sites) have been added to the effectiveness of the internet as an enabler for developing, storing and disseminating information to large audiences of people in diverse locations, instantly, and at fairly low cost.
And, as a three months web information analysis has recently found, there are a significant – and rising – number of users of web 2.0 technologies in Africa.
Wikis are conversational technologies with broad knowledge management capabilities that employ an unconventional knowledge creating and sharing paradigm where there is no cast-in-stone circle of authors. Rather, the knowledge creation process is incremental.
Whereas wikis have been hailed for revolutionising the information age (for instance, Wikipedia has within a few years become the world’s largest Open Content project achieving millions of articles and outnumbering all other encyclopedias), they have also been faced with criticism of the validity of their information.
Amongst internet users, Wikipedia is the 8^th top site in the world. In Africa, it is most popular in South Africa and Madagascar, ranking 6^th and 7^th respectively.
Being edited by everyone capable of doing so, the validity of wikis depends on the knowledge of who does the editing, as well as on the more frequently visited subject matters that are continuously improved and commented upon. Moreover, some wiki pages that are not visited at all lack combined knowledge contributions and thus may not be accurate or may be speculative.
The social networking site Facebook to date has 500 million active users. Half of them log in daily and the average user has 130 friends in use. It is ranked the 2^nd most visited site in the world. Amongst African countries, it is either the number 1 [9 countries] or number 2 [5 countries] most used website.
Users of social networking sites form a network that provides a powerful means of sharing, organising, and finding content and contacts.
Blogs (online diaries maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events or material, graphics and video) are popular too. They combine text, images, links and other media and also allows interactivity by way of comments. According to Alexa.com traffic figures, Blogger is the fifth most popular website in the world. On the African continent, it is the 5^th most popular in Nigeria, 6^th in Kenya and 8^th in Uganda, Mauritius and South Africa.
Twitter, a social networking and micro blogging service that utilises instant messaging, or a web interface is the 9^th most popular website globally. South Africans, Nigerians, Kenyans and Ugandans are at par with the rest of the world; ranking 7^th – 8^th of their internet traffic.
Table 1: Website traffic rankings (Source: www.alexa.com)

	Facebook	Twitter	Blogger	Wikipedia
Algeria	2^nd	49^th	9^th	12^th
Cameroon	2^nd	51^st	23^rd	9^th
Congo	2^nd	11^th	12^th	9^th
Egypt	1^st	23^rd	7^th	22^nd
Ghana	1^st	15^th	12^th	10^th
Ivory Coast	1^st	34^th	26^th	10^th
Kenya	1^st	8^th	6^th	7^th
Madagascar	1^st	39^th	11^th	7^th
Mauritius	1^st	16^th	8^th	7^th
Morocco	1^st	34^th	9^th	13^th
Nigeria	1^st	8^th	5^th	9^th
South Africa	2^nd	7^th	8^th	6^th
Sudan	1^st	54^th	8^th	20^th
Uganda	2^nd	10^th	8^th	9^th

Clearly, web 2.0 technologies allow for more efficient and speedier generation, exchange, sharing and modification of multimedia content.
The key features of the interactive, online media, that often make them popular with users include their interactivity (users may communicate on a many-to-many reciprocal basis); and they are a global network as communication is not fettered by nation-state boundaries. Besides, there’s free speech as internet users may express their opinions with limited state censorship; and they enable free association since net users may join virtual communities of common interest. But do these advantages explain why social media has caught a fire in Africa?

Tag Archives: Social Media