New Media and Social Movement Activism

Posted on March 2, 2017 by Joshua Ndip Ako

Contemporary social movements effectiveness in rallying their constituent support is nowadays attributed to the level of embeddedness of new media in their activism. This is based on the fact that social movements in different parts of the world now use new media tools to simultaneously organize protests demonstration at the same time or instantly influencing other movements across international boarders. And the effectiveness of these new media tools in activism is applauded because of the interactive link it creates for communities, enabling back and forth conversations, and the sharing of instant messages to large audiences around the world instantaneously. This assertion can be backed by the Tunisia revolution in 2011 that set the pace for Arab Spring that crisscrossed Arab World. But “Does new media activism different from what is now called “old media”, or does new media play more instrumental role than old media in social movements activism”? Continue reading →

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Influence of new media on political changes in Africa

Posted on March 1, 2017 by Hassan Abdi Madar

New media have made a quite big change in the world for the last few years from local grassroots to global international levels. It is used for social and political changes including regime changes through influencing electoral processes and people mobilization like the Arab Spring as wells as a “cause” for
particular situation such as “the save Darfur.” Thanks to the interconnection of electricity, cheaper access to internet and smartphones which have enabled the power to connect directly with friends, family members, and world citizens equally and has transformed the way relationships are formed and sustained and altered the very structure of our social fabric (Kevin Lewis, 2014).  Continue reading →

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The Rohingya Migration – One Of ‘The Other’ Migration Crises

Posted on February 28, 2017 by Sofia Margareta Møller

The Council of Foreign Relations

The ongoing migration crises around the world seem to be a never ending story. With the strong picture of a little boy laying on the shore near Bodrum in Turkey in September 2015 the global awareness of the crisis peaked, but since it’s massive exposure in both conventional and social media it seems to have diminished.

The proximity principle is as always strong and the focus on migration tends to be on the ones affecting us directly. One of the migration crises often referred to as ‘one of the other’ is the ongoing flight from Myanmar by tens of thousands of Rohingya. The Rohingya is an ethnic sufi-inflected Sunni-Muslim minority, primarily living in the Rakhine state in western Myanmar and it’s population of approximately one million makes up around a third of the total population of the extremely poor state. The Rohingya has since the 1970’s been subject to pervasive violations of human rights, including persecution, ethnic cleansing and statelessness. With Aung San Suu Kyi’s landslide victory in the Myanmar general election in November 2015 many hoped for a positive change for the country and the Rohingya and former US president Obama lifted the nearly two decade long sanctions against Myanmar. So far only small changes have been seen and with what is still a very fragile government there has been nothing but silence on the treatment of the Rohingya who still faces extreme limitations of their freedom, violence and in parts of the region also severe malnutrition, in what by Human Rights Watch is described as a campaign of arsons, killings and rape. Continue reading →

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BREAKING THE DIGITAL DIVIDE: THE PARADOX OF NEW MEDIA IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

Posted on February 20, 2017 by Joshua Ndip Ako

 

There´s a growing conception of how  people think about new media (internet) as a groundbreaking link that has transformed the way people live their lives, and yet researchers and practitioners in the field of ICT and development often struggle to prove specific impacts of the technology to funders, Kleine D. (2010).

There is an apparent recognition of the huge development potential, incorporating political participation, in new media and its associated technologies, but the paradox lies in how this potential is translated to meet the needs and aspiration of the people who are in dare need of development. The techno-deterministic concept of development assumes that the level of penetration of information technology in poorer countries is a determining factor that will spur economic growth, without that developing countries are doomed to remain backward. With this assertion, development performance is equated to how a country is digitally connected. Hence, many development policies are becoming more and more linked to bridging the digital divide assume to slow down development in developing countries as compared to Western countries. This can be misleading because development is not only related to technical solutions, it also relates to the socioeconomic circumstances in any society, Nederveen Pieterse, J. (2010: p. 167 ). Because of this, the techno-deterministic position of development is viewed to be a reflection of neoliberal thinking in the form of digital capitalism that still maintains the status quo of neoliberal development strategies. Continue reading →

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The Impact of President Trump’s travel ban.

Posted on February 19, 2017 by Hassan Abdi Madar

You always see strange things in this world. These strange things maybe coming from normal individuals, or powerful persons from the countries leading the world. A person like President Donald Trump whose words are lawful or have immediate enforcement considering his influence of the world being the most powerful man is an issue of great interest to everybody. It was early January when Donald Trump, the newly elected president of the United States annouced the executive order ban of the citizens from 7 muslim countries to enter into the USA. This was part of his policy towards immigrants in the USA and the newcomers like Syrians fleeing from war, waiting to come to USA are mainly affected. Being an immigrant is not the choice of any body and back to the history every person in the US was an immigrant one time or another. Immigration is a global phenomena we have to acknowledge and it is not usually a negative but a positive contribution of knowledge, skills and cultural enrichment instead. Continue reading →

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The Impact of New Media on Southern Cameroon Struggle for Self Determination

Posted on January 24, 2017 by Joshua Ndip Ako

The profoundness of new media in political activism, whether in the realm of contentious politics or social movements need to be recognised in a changing world where citizens are shifting their participation in activism from physical to social media platforms. Globalisation of communication technology tools, coupled with a changing awareness of political activism in previously less informed societies, especially developing countries, has changed the political playing field for both governments, social movements, civil society, non-governmental organisations and  citizens interactions in contentious politics and social movement activitie. These dynamics are evident in the Southern Cameroon anglophone movements.  Continue reading →

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