ECAS 2013

This study examines the ways in which the social media was used during Nigeria's 2011 elections, and explores whether the role of social media in the election provides opportunity to improve elections in Africa. It argues based on Nigeria's experience that there is a perceptible link between the use of social media in elections and improvements in the quality of elections. The study contends that the use of social media improved the quality of Nigeria's 2011 elections by promoting participation, competition, and integrity of elections. Unlike the existing studies on use of social media in elections, which focus on the deployment of social media in electioneering campaigns, this study examines how social media was used in a wide range of election related activities, namely electioneering campaign, election administration, and election observation. Looking specifically at Nigeria's 2011 elections, the study observes that social media was used by various election stakeholders primarily to broadcast messages, interact with each other and the public, report issues which require intervention to the authorities, receive feedbacks on action taken to address complaints, as well as mobilize and educate the electorate. It concludes that although social media is open to abuses, the opportunities it holds for improving elections necessitate its use. The study therefore recommends, among other things, that election management bodies and civil society organizations in Africa should make early plans for strategic deployment of social media to improve the quality of elections in their countries.

The 2007 Kenyan presidential election was marred by charges of rigging and vote fraud. The result was massive violence in Nairobi, and the Rift Valley, and to a lesser extent in Kisumu, resulting in nearly 2000 dead, and more than 200,000 displaced. The response to this by donors and the Government of Kenya (GoK) was to increase the use of technology in a bid to increase the reliability of voting outcomes. Several methods were tested during the 2010 Constitutional referendum to improve vote counting outcomes, including sending vote tallies by SMS, flying ballot boxes from polling stations to a central counting area, and improving voting registration procedures. An additional influence of technology was that political rumors, some of which were actually untrue, were sent via SMS, sometimes sparking protests and violence. To quell unrest, the Kenyan Government shut down live television coverage of the election for some time period in 2007. In other periods of social unrest, such as the Egyptian Revolution, and the "Walk to Work" campaign in Uganda, governments have successfully shut down cellular telephone service, or attempted to suspend Twitter. ICTs are likely to be implicated at multiple levels: 1) vote counting and vote verification 2) political rumors, 3) information about local violence and voting violations, using technologies such as Ushaidi, and 4) political organizing. The Kenyan state will have to make difficult decisions regarding freedom of speech which implicate technology. This paper will examine this watershed event in African politics from a legal, regulatory, political and technological standpoint.

The utility of ICT infrastructure in public administration and governance in Africa is at a low ebb and therefore yet to gain popularity. Public administration and governance in most states of the region are marked by inefficiency and poor performance index. In the actual sense, African government and politics remain challenged by poor quality administration, bad governance and lack of electoral integrity. Elections are conducted as wars and they fail to meet the minimum international standards. Elections are wantonly rigged with the consequent destructive violence by the politically aggrieved. Electoral manipulations are facilitated and enhanced by the reliance on traditional electoral processes involving the use of manual processes. The application of ICT infrastructure for the conduct of elections and governance administration is yet to emerge and therefore has not become a culture. The study has three basic objectives. One is investigating the utilitarian values of ICT and electronic infrastructure in governance and their transformative potentials of achieving good governance, political communication/persuasion and electoral sanity in Africa. Two is identifying the socioeconomic, political, moralized ethical and infrastructural challenges confronting ICT-propelled credible electoral administration and quality governance in Africa. Three is generating some affirmative possibilities for transforming the basic limitations to ICT powered governance and administration in Africa.

The increase dependence on new media technologies in mediasphere is a global phenomenon of the 21st century. This study examines the extent to which new media technologies in radio broadcasting engendered democratisation through quality participation. Through the theoretical frameworks of adaptive structuration, uses and gratification and Pretty (1995) model of participation with a survey of purposively selected FM radio stations in southwest Nigeria, radio programme producers and presenters were sampled on their motivations to use new media technologies for participatory programming. The aim is to determine the extent to which motivations/gratifications engendered democratisation through quality participation. It was found out that when given the platform to express and role to play in media enterprise, citizens motivate the interest of presenters for participatory programming majorly through text-based new media platforms and, thereby increasing the social responsibility (information dissemination and mobilisation) function of the media and, as well, may serve as a predictor of the candidates of the people and subsequently, hopes of good governance. The study, while contributing to the current discourse on the convergence of new media and mainstream media, also practically advance the concept of participatory communication and its democratizing potential especially in a developing polity, beyond the theoretical and speculative dimensions.