INFLUENCE OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON THE MASS MOBILISATION OF PEOPLE IN THE JUST CONCLUDED STRIKE ACTION IN NIGERIA (EDUCATION PROJECT TOPICS AND MATERIALS)
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
The unprepared emergence of social media technology in the face of developing societies has herald change of status quo within the socio, political and economic ecological setting of any society. The advent of social networks is a cyber revolution that changed the course of time. According to Tom Glocer, CEO of Reuters, one of the world biggest International News agencies, He believes that the era when government of a nation would filter the news of what the people listen to, hear or read is about eroding.
Apart from the fact that social media has been able to break the barrier in news reportage; making people know the true nature of happenings around them, it is now being use as tool of political propaganda, sensitization, insurgence and a medium of dissent. The revolution of social media has created three basic things:
- It has aided in building a politically conscious civil society over the course of a number of years prior to the Revolution.
- It has lowered the threshold for engaging in political dissent by providing a relatively anonymous space for political debate in a country that outlaws gatherings of five or more people.
- It has allowed organizers to plan protests more easily and anonymously.
The recent events that happened in London; London riot, in Egypt and Tunisia; the Arab spring and Middle East; Lebanon and ongoing political restiveness in Syria, came as a resultant effect of the unrestricted flow of information via the social media. Professor Norman Vaughan of king Fahid university, Saudi Arabia, believes that social media is largely responsible for the political upheaval in the middle East and the Arab world, He said the government’s effort of controlling it is seemingly failing because the text messaging which is supported by cell towers still cannot be control. He further said that government used to kill revolution by controlling the flow of information, but now, is pretty near impossible as a result of rapid technological development of the Social media.
