By MAIMBOLWA MULIKELELA –
PANOS Institute Southern Africa (PSAF) has implored mobile phone service providers to increase mobile phone services to rural areas in order for social media to make significant impact.
PSAf executive director Lilian Kiefer said it was important for mobile phone operators to ensure all citizens had access to technological tools such as mobile phones.
Ms Kiefer said it was worrying that the majority of the people in the rural areas still did not have access to technological tools like mobile phones through which they could access and use social media.
In a presentation made at the 2014 Highway Africa Conference in Grahamstown, South Africa, she said the introduction of social media by local community radio stations in Zambia had created an avalanche of events that resulted in improved service provision.
The conference is being held under the theme: Social Media – From the Margins to the Mainstream.
“We believe in the power of social media in influencing sustainable development in Southern Africa. There is no doubt that social media platforms are here to stay, and we need to support the marginalised communities to also be part of this revolution,” Ms Kiefer said.
She said the growing influence of social media platforms on the production and distribution of media content presented good opportunities for the advancement of community broadcasting in Southern Africa.
“We believe that the proliferation of social media platforms has opened community media to new horizons which most of us could not imagine just over a decade ago. Social media tools are here to stay, they have become an inseparable part of the social fabric, influencing every area including the way people seek and share information,” she said.
She said social media had become a central part of the news gathering processes, saying that through social media tools, community members had now become journalists in their own right.
“The community members can also now directly engage with their duty bearers through the local radio stations’ social media platforms,” she said.