The use of Social media in the fight against Climate change in Africa

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As more people around the world gain regular access to the Internet, online and social media are becoming significant contexts in which they come into contact with—or fail to come into contact with—news, debates, action, and social input related to climate change

This makes it important to understand the campaigning that takes place online. Many actors make concerted efforts to engage publics on climate change and go online to do so.

One of the most basic ways of doing this is to tailor the campaign communication to attract and speak to a particular target public

Low communication costs allow campaigners to calibrate their choice of channels, rhetorical style, and content according to what is relevant and appropriate for the intended audience.

Many of the elements that shape variance in offline campaigns also contribute to shaping online and social media campaigns

A broad spectrum of actors campaign online to engage the public in climate change, and they do so in very different ways.

Engaging the public on climate change is a significant challenge.

A number of actors make concerted efforts to engage individuals and communities in terms of what they think, feel, and do about climate change, and their public campaigns play an important role in shaping local, national, and international policy agendas

Communication campaigns play a key role in shaping what people think, feel, and do about climate change, and help shape public agendas at the local, national, and international levels.

These include businesses; governments and international organizations; scientists and scientific institutions; organizations, groups and individuals in civil society; public intellectuals and political, religious and entertainment leaders.

Not all are ultimately concerned with climate change or engaging publics as such. Nevertheless, most campaigns involve at least one of four goals: to inform, raise awareness, and shape public understanding about the science, problems, and politics of climate change; to change consumer and citizen behavior; to network and connect concerned publics; to visibly mobilize consumers or citizens to put pressure on decision-makers

Online climate change campaigns are an emerging phenomenon and field of study. The campaigns appeared on broad front around the turn of the millennium, and have since become increasingly complex. In addition to the elements that produce variance in offline campaigns, scholars examine the role of online and social media in how campaigners render the issues and pursue their campaigns, how publics respond, and what this means for the development of the broader public discourse. Core debates concern the capacity and impact of online campaigning in the areas of informing, activating and including publics, and the ambivalences inherent in leveraging technology to engage publics on climate change.

The following play a very vital role in sensitizing the public on climate change through social media

  1. A FACEBOOK page should be created exclusively for the campaign and all FB users of the area should be invited to join it
  2. Regular updates of the campaign should be uploaded at the Facebook page
  3. Several quotes highlighting the importance of trees should also be uploaded on regular basis
  4. A Campaign Board should also be created at pinterest and same activities should be done on it
  5. A TWITTER Account should also be opened and regular updates of campaign and quotes on trees should be shared on it
  6. The same activity should also be done at Google+ where a large number of people regularly visit
  7. A free blog at Tumblr should be created and regular update of the campaign should be published on it
  8. More and more photos of the campaign should be snapped to share them at social media
  9. Comments on other blogs of tree plantation, go green and environment should be dropped to inform their readers about the campaign
  10. In online social forums the introduction and regular updates of the campaign should also be published on regular basis
  11. Details of the campaign should be published at all the websites that publish them for free
  12. A free blog at Blogger should also be created to promote the campaign and motivate others to join it
  13. A documentary on importance of tree plantation should also be published at online video channels like YOU TUBE ,DAILY MOTION and VIMEO etc

It is clear that increasing numbers of stakeholders use the Internet in their climate change campaigns. Campaigners have worked with email lists, electronic newsletters, and websites since the 1990s.

 

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