Motivators and Challenges of Social Media Use For Political Communication in Addis Ababa
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Date
2018-01-05
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Extant literature suggests that media play a critical role in improving governance, increasing economic efficiency and stability, and creating positive social and environmental change. Social media is serving as a source for the public media for political news and there by challenging the conventional role reserved for mainstream journalism. The dramatic growth of the popularity of social media sites raised various scholars‟ attention. Extant literature indicates that effective and efficient use of social media is motivated and considered by external factors. This study aims at examining the motivators and challenges of social media use for political communication in Ethiopia. How political parties, government and citizen use social media in Ethiopia as a tool for their political communication. The study employed quantitative methods. For quantitative method, survey was used as a data gathering tool. The survey questionnaire was administered to 300 people selected through convenience sampling technique. Descriptive statistics was employed to analyze the quantitative data. The results show that the most signification benefits survey participants perceive of using social media is because of it gives freedom for free expression of political view and opinions.
Majority of the respondent use social media for political issues, for change of people life, Discussion about religion, about sport and for entertainment. Facebook is the popular social media sites in Ethiopia with 55.5 %, you tube 18.3% and twitter 16.3 % and other social media with 8.6%.
Motivators of social media use for political communication are it gives freedom of expression, it hides personal identity and it expression of multiple opinion. High internet cost, poor quality of information, poor internet connection and blocking of social media are among the challenges. The government is primarily responsible to create the platform to facilitate effective and efficient use of social media in Ethiopia. More importantly a responsible generation shall be built that can use social media responsibly.
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Social Media, Social Media Sites, Politics, Challenge