Effectiveness of Twitter as a Social Change Communication Tool

Effectiveness of Twitter as a Social Change Communication Tool
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Effectiveness of Twitter as a Social Change Communication Tool
Social media is a combination of interactive networking, whether that is through pictures, video, texts, tweets, or posts. It has grown on such a large scale that it has become a social “norm” in everyday activities. Social media takes positive and negative effects on individual mental health, which determines how they perceive and interact with society at large. Coherently, social media act as a tool that amplifies people's intentions based on their experiences and philosophies in life. As a result, social networking platforms are crucial in directing the lives and societies which people want.
Nevertheless, social media also act as a component that dissuades others from reaching their goals and leads to anxiety, especially in an event involving mockery of a person. Such a side effect is most significant in schools, leading to the emergence of the term cyber-bullying. Correspondingly, the experiences which people accrue from interaction in social media sites would inform whether they should continue to use such platforms to seek personal/societal help or avoid them entirely because of interacting with hostile or uncaring people. Notably, social media platforms may also become channels in which people with low political and economic power join forces to trigger a nationwide/global revolution. One of such cases is in Sudan. Berridge's (2020) article brings forth the idea that social media renders it fast and effective for an individual to activate massive demonstration against the high and might in a country. It indicates that Sudanese railways worker, in the past, would take a long time before effecting a change that favors their working conditions and benefits. However, the advent of social media increased communication speed, leading to short-term demonstration accommodated by substantial change. Notably, Berridge (2020) informs of Sudan railway workers staging a protest back in 1985 against the rise of basic food prices during President Nimeiri’s regime. The protests did not use social media technologies which are common in the world of today, hence, taking two and a half weeks before achieving the objective of topping the regime from power. Contrastingly, a similar situation arose in December 2018 and only took less than three days before the protest was popularized to the extent of prompting government response. However, there are also cases in which social media sites have become tools for advancing divisions among people and war. For example, Shead (2019) reports that the extent to which hate speeches feature on Facebook necessitated the use of artificial intelligence to detect and delete such posts. As a result, there is an emerging dilemma on whether social media platforms effectively establish positive social and political change. The purpose of the present study is to evaluate the extent to which social media communication, especially Twitter, would mitigate problems that are prone among minorities or marginalized communities. Withal, it suffices to say that Twitter i...