The Role of Social Media in Crisis Communication: A Case Study of Abanwan and Urugbam Communities in Biase Local Government Area
Chapter One
AIM AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
This study is primarily aimed at evaluating the role of social media in crises communication. A case study of Biase Local Government Area of Cross River State. The specific objectives are:
- To identify how social media has contributed or dampen the crises in Abanwan and Urugbam communities.
- To identify the challenges, social media has faced in dissemination of information during the crises.
- To identify the pattern of news reporting during conflict
- To identify the roles, social media plays in managing conflict in Abanwan and Urugbam communities.
- To establish social media accessibility and the various types of media coverage within Biase Local Government Area of Cross River State.
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
The Use of Social Media in Crises communication
The fourth estate genre, which includes whatsapp, facebooks, Twitters, journals, and magazines, has attracted significant attention, but social media, including the phone, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, You Tube, Skype, blogs, Google, LinkedIn, Friendster, spoke, tribe networks, and other internet-based media, are increasingly popular as media for disseminating information, particularly in times of conflict in any nation (Felix, U.A. et al, 2013).
The number of people using the Internet worldwide also keeps increasing quickly. More than a third of the world’s population was online by the end of 2011, with 63% of that population living in developing nations. When compared to other emerging regions, where internet penetration levels increased to 26% by the end of 2011 and then to 28.3% by the end of 2015, they stayed below 15% in Sub-Saharan Africa. Nigeria in particular has shown enormous growth, with 69.6% of its population using the internet as of the end of 2015. (Internet World stats, 2017).
Facebook is just one of the several social media platforms that are popular worldwide. In 2004, Harvard undergraduate Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook, which by 2012 had 845 million active users and has now grown to 1.7 billion users worldwide. Internet World Statistics (2017) estimates that there are over 5,500,000 active Facebook users in Nigeria. Facebook would be the third-largest nation after China and India.
According to account tracker Twopcharts, Twitter was started in 2006 and has more than 300 million users by 2011. This number of Twitter users increased to 982 million accounts in 2014. (Edwards, 2014). Users can share photographs, videos, and messages of no more than 140 characters using this social networking and microblogging website.
Chad Hurley and Steve Chen created YouTube in 2005. It offers a platform for the distribution of video content, including footage of sleeping kittens, first-run Twitter shows, and political protests as seen by onlookers (Safranek, 2012).
A slum is described as an underdeveloped, neglected, or otherwise disadvantaged residential neighborhood of a city that is typically plagued by an excessive number of crimes. Rape, defamation, impersonation, hate speech, corruption, land grabbing, incitements against paying rent, forced evictions, tribal segregation, and assault are just a few of the crimes that have been reported in these residential neighborhoods. According to Letouzé Emmanuel (2013), these crimes can be broadly characterized as criminal violence, violence associated to elections, armed conflicts, and short-term crises.
In the world today, youths are regarded as the backbone of any nation, and any decision making that excludes the youth is regarded as shun and not all inclusive. At UN-HABITAT 24th Governing Council, the youth centered at almost every topic of discussion from how the government funds can be distributed, how jobs can be created and even supporting youth initiated projects. The slum areas were identified as some of the places where the government will work to improve lives (Voice of Kibera, 2013). Youths cannot also be ignored when talking about social media. Most of the youths use their mobile phones to access social media. Generally, majority of the fanatics of social media are the youths between 18 and 44 years of age. Mobile phones have transformed the world‟s access to information over the past decade. Even in the poorest, most disrupted countries, the majority of the population now has access to a handset to call, text or sms (short message service) and chat with friends and family (Candan et Reeve, 2012)
In June 2015 during the demonstrations which went on revolving around the corruption at NYS, Nigerians took to social media under the hashtags # Kibera and # NYSTransformation to condemn residents of Kibera for the uncouth and uncivilized behavior that they demonstrated after a group of marauding youths set ablaze projects initiated by Former Devolution Cabinet Secretary (CS), Ann Waiguru, through the NYS. The youths who were demonstrating against Waiguru, torched clinics, toilets and vandalized water tanks and blocked major roads leading to the slums. The vandalism came a day after a group of other youths took to the streets in a peaceful demonstration in support of Waiguru, after she had been put on the spotlight over corruption allegations at NYS. Some of the tweets by Nigerians over the saga were:
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
RESEARCH DESIGN
According to Gasoikwu (1993; 92) asserts that to design is to plan, this is the process of making decisions before the situation in which the deduction has to be carried out arises. It is the process of deliberate anticipation directed towards bringing an expected situation under control.
The emphasize of this study is not to discover a new phenomenon but primarily to unravel and identify the essential elements, functions and attributes of the subject of study which is “The Role of the Social media in Crises communication, A Case Study of Abanwan and Urugbam communities Crisis”.
The study used a mixture of survey and qualitative methods of research design. The choice of these methods was influenced by the perceived varying degrees of opinions, views and perception of divergent respondents sampled. (Croswell, 2009) argues that qualitative research design is suitable in natural settings. Since the study mostly focused on respondents’ perceptions of media and crises communication issues, qualitative approach gave more room for interpretation and understanding. Strauss & Corbin (1999) have further shown that those who use qualitative research obtain satisfactory results and appropriate answers to the central research questions being investigated. Therefore, this design was chosen because of its usefulness in obtaining an overall picture of the study.
POPULATION SIZE
Biase Local Government Area LGA extends over an area of 291km2 with a total population of 429,300, projected from the 2006 National Population and Housing Census, with 266,66 (62%) being urban dwellers and 163,134 (38%) rural dwellers. In 2009, the National Population Commission estimated population of Biase Local Government Area LGA as 439,217 comprising of 220,856 males and 216,361 females. It was estimated that 3000 pregnancies occurred per annum.
CHAPTER FOUR
DATA ANALYSIS, PRESENTATION AND INTERPRETATION
INTRODUCTION
This chapter contains findings of the investigation made to determine the role of social media in crises communication. It provides the detailed analysis of gathered data, presentation of the findings together with illustrations and discussions on the same. It also provides the interpretation of the results.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
SUMMARY
The research covered the introductory and the background to the study. The methods used in carrying out the research concerning the ‘Role of Social media in Crises communication’ processes. It was understood that social media either play a positive role or negative roles in crises which will either lead to reconciliation and development or destruction by the parties in the conflict. The target of operation was focused at Biase Local Government Area LGA in Cross River state and an assessment of the roles played by social media during the conflicts experienced.
A literature review on the role of the social media in crises was done to have an understanding of the views of scholars, professionals, and other media outfits. The theories that were formed from previous study on social media were discussed and how it affects crises communication/transformation positively or negatively. A discussion on the historical perspective of Cross River conflict and the methods used in gathering data were made clear in the study. These helped the researcher make more clarifications on the processes of discussion and assessment of results or data. An analysis and presentation of the critical role of social media on the Cross River conflict was discussed, how it affects development, and the ways the government and public see it as an instrument of manipulation or instrument to achieve set goals was discussed in the study.
CONCLUSION
Social media is well known to be an influential fourth realm in any given sovereign state especially a democratic state like Nigeria. It has serious stake in crises of which its role is important. Just like the Cross River conflicts all over the state, social media has played different roles in one way or the other in the peace and conflict processes. There are factors that are brought into the process as reportage is made and ventilated to the public. Reports of conflicts and their occurrence either arouse the violent tendency of parties in crises or bringing them together to calm for peace and justice. Conflicts occurrences have received fast tracking speed in escalating conflicts while have has theirs in speedily resolving the conflicts. It all depends on the individual or group involved in the reportage. If there is tendency of being biased, then reports will not be properly sent to the public.
Media and journalism can be a great assistance in crises communication and peace building. However, the power they have is also limited, as they will never be able to eliminate armed conflicts altogether. Social media can be a good tool in a healthy and functioning environment but more is needed than ethical and responsible reporting to ensure lasting peace and safety. The role of social media is twofold: on the one hand, social media report and reflect on pressing issues and can help to question established concepts and ideas. On the other hand, they can be used for propaganda purposes and instead of revealing truths, try to cover things up and by this curtail people’s freedom and right to information. Regardless, the potential of the social media in conflict and post-crises remains a net positive, and has been sadly underutilized to this point in time.
When properly related to the public with the intention of calming tension and bringing windows of opportunities up for change then a positive contributive role is put into display. Sometimes as an influential instrument in the society, the members of social media exploit the opportunity to cause more harm while others are sometimes caught impersonating. Conflicts are challenges societies faced in certain times. They are either used to develop a society, or used to destroy a society. The available tools used in managing and transforming conflicts such as social media need a serious attention by the government and people of Cross River state. Conflict in itself is neither positive nor negative but the choice of action we made either makes it productive or destructive.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Recommendations preferred from the research for a better role of the social media in crises are:
- Social media can serve an informing and educating function by securing a free flow ofaccurate and constructive information, counteracting misperceptions, identifying the interests underlying the issues, and helping to build a consensus. This may include providing information about human rights as much as about the principles of good governance and parliamentary democracy and democratic election.
- Social media can further build confidence and mediate between conflicting parties byfostering communication, generating alternative options to the crises, reflecting the ordinary person’s desire and need for peace, communicating the process of negotiations to the constituencies involved and providing a forum for on-going
- Third,they may act as a watchdog on leaders to help ensure long-term accountability, monitor human rights violations and, in a broader sense, provide some early warning on potential escalations of the
- Theappropriateness and effectiveness of these activities will vary not only according to the type and phase of the conflict, but also according to the role that social media have played within the conflict These factors must be analyzed and determined in a pre- project assessment.
- Since the essence of crises communication is the transformation of mentalities, bothwithin the society and the individual, societies have to be involved from the top-down and the bottom-up. Social media have the potential to be a gateway through which to reach the largest possible number of people.
- Asa serious and influential stakeholder in the society, social media should critically analyze reports before disseminating to the public to prevent
- Neutralityof social media is very Media should enhance their skills on neutrality and proper delivery of accurate information to the public.
- Social mediashould not be allowed to be controlled by external forces and personalities like politicians and other groups without the interest of Cross River
- Social mediashould have access to information from the State Government and make clear what the public needs to
- Tribalism and religion should be put out of the profession as individuals could be taken off guard to be bias and develop hatred in crises in Cross River
REFERENCES
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- Best, S. G. (2007). Conflict and peace-building in Cross River State (Ibadan: Spectrum Books), Nigeria.
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