ICTs should complement traditional media

By tapiwaz Submitted on 15 September, 2009 - 13:24

ShareThis
Average rating
(0 votes)

With only 5.6 percent of Africa accessing the internet, civil society has been urged to combine the use Information Communication Technology (ICTs) with the traditional media methods to fully utilise the role of citizen journalism.

Giving the keynote address at the opening of the 4th Digital Citizen’s Indaba (DCI 4.0) in Grahamstown, South Africa last Saturday, Cameroonian blogger Dibussi Tande said Africa was still a long way from effectively using the internet “under the current circumstances, where we are dealing with a largely unwired audience and with the bulk of digital activists outside of Africa”
Citizen Journalism, dubbed the new media, is community news and information shared online or in print and involves blogs, digital storytelling, images, audio files, podcasting or videos - where individuals write or comment on issues they feel are left out of the mainstream media.

The indaba was held as part of the Highway Africa 2009 Conference which attracted over 500 civil society organisation representatives, practising and trainee media personnel from across Africa.

This year’s theme of the Highway Africa Conference, set in line with South Africa’s jostling of the World Cup soccer showcase next year, is Reporting Africa - 2010, Development and Democracy
“It is important that civil society does not only do digital activism, they must convert it to offline collective action on the ground. Civil society organisations should go into the community with SMS forms to help people who don’t have wheels.”

Citizen journalism, through the use  of social networking platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Flickr, have worked in the Madagascan crisis where  ordinary people posted pictures and stories about the crisis in the country.
But with Africa being highly undigitalised, the effectiveness of these tools have been very limited compared with developed countries.

“There is a mixture between the traditional and the modern and they complement each other. In Africa both new and old will work hand in hand,” added Tande.