Ghana’s 2012 election is already underway. What separates this election season from all others is not only the biometric registration process, but the communication efforts behind it. GhanaDecides, a local collective comprised of GhanaBlogging, has effectively launched a social media campaign aimed at engaging the nation’s youth to participate in the election process. The group has invested considerable time, money and effort in creating and managing blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr accounts to bring attention to their cause. While this sounds highly progressive and great in theory, what will be the actual payoff of a social media campaign in Ghana? Will it be an effective way to target a considerable number of the target demographic of potential youth voters?
Although Ghana is developing rapidly, it’s youth demographic is still a far cry from being as technologically versed with social media platforms as their Westernized counterparts. (I can say from experience that) Most youth in the Western world have the luxury of constant, immediate, high-speed internet access 24/7 (which is why social and viral media campaigns works so well), whereas in Ghana one computer per household (with internet access) is rarely a given, let alone per individual. According to www.internetworldstats.com 79% of North Americans use the internet compared to 14% of Africans. Even the test group that was used to pilot this social media proposal were students from the University of Winneba; educated individuals who, for the most part are more informed about the electoral process than the average Ghanaian in the same age range.
Before I go any further, I will say that I absolutely applaud the efforts of GhanaDecides to bring the nation to the forefront by using social media as a platform to discuss the election but I don’t know how much it will affect the average Ghanaian. While Facebook and blogs are definitely a good vehicles given their popularity not only nationally but globally, the other social media sites may suffer a lack of hits. The poor dexterity of the internet connection here makes it hard for YouTube videos to load quickly. I also don’t think Flickr has as much social media pull as it does in North America and finally, Twitter is still utilized more organizationally within Ghana than it is socially at this point in time.
With all of that said, disenfranchised groups like the street youth that YA work with, have even less access to information about the voting process. At its heart, Ghana is still very much a traditional society that looks towards grassroots leadership to steer community action. People still look towards religious leaders and social and community groups to provide guidance on such issues of national importance.
YA has been is running workshops in the Northern, Upper East and Upper West regions. These involve respected community members as role models with the ability to influence the vulnerable youth to become educated on fair and peaceful elections so that they in turn become advocates within their peer group. It’s a very hands-on approach to building understanding, enthusiasm and respect for a process that has the potential to change the course of many lives.
I’m all for using technology to send important messages to the right people at the right time, but the technology must also be appropriate. The internet is a wonderful way to share individual's stories and experiences with a broad audience but perhaps an all-out social media barrage is not the way to go about engaging youth this election season with the biometric system already being such a new and innovative concept. Ghana is a nation that has embraced mobile telecommunications; it’s not unusual to see individuals with multiple phones or phone lines. Perhaps a Facebook campaign run alongside a texting campaign that sent out text message blasts to all major phone networks’ youth subscribers (you can only buy a phone line with ID so demographic information should be easily accessible) would have been a more effective way of making the process more inclusive. Just a thought!
I’m all for using technology to send important messages to the right people at the right time, but the technology must also be appropriate. The internet is a wonderful way to share individual's stories and experiences with a broad audience but perhaps an all-out social media barrage is not the way to go about engaging youth this election season with the biometric system already being such a new and innovative concept. Ghana is a nation that has embraced mobile telecommunications; it’s not unusual to see individuals with multiple phones or phone lines. Perhaps a Facebook campaign run alongside a texting campaign that sent out text message blasts to all major phone networks’ youth subscribers (you can only buy a phone line with ID so demographic information should be easily accessible) would have been a more effective way of making the process more inclusive. Just a thought!
Let us know what you think about the social media’s current ability to reach youth in Ghana! (I guess we’ll know by the sheer number who comment on this post :p)
You can also read more about YA's election education campaign through my personal blog.
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