Saturday, January 24, 2015

SOCIAL MEDIA AND DEVELOPING NATIONS

Debate about importance and utility of social media tools appear unnecessary. It is almost conclusively established by one and all that  social media tools are universally beneficial for all the socities regardless their geography, cultural history or economic status. Social media would alleviate all.
Still, there is need to ponder over the strategy for adopting social media in social milieu of a country. Different nations have evolved differently. Developing nations have different realties and stand on different pedestal. Social media tools may have limited utility for many constituent segments of such nations.
Governments have two major functions - Policy formulation and Service delivery. Social media is mostly about public opinion and feedback aimed at effecting improvements. While social media can provide wonderful contribution to policy makers, service delivery machinery may struggle to derive proportionate benefits from social media.
Typically, Departments entrusted with responsibility of implementing schemes and service delivery face serious constraints of budget, manpower and technology. Shortage of staff, insufficient manpower trained in computer skills, lack of budget, lack of technological and infrastructural support, heavy workload leaving little time for any thing else are factors which seriously limit the utility of social media tools in developing nations.
Faith, perseverance and patience may be the key to derive the best from internet revolution for developing nations.   

1 comment:

  1. Regarding service delivery social media can be used as tools for taking feedback of citizen

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