[Photo from http://thecoolhunter.net]
Last month I had the pleasure of attending the Dar es Salaam Bloggers Circle monthly meeting, and I was really inspired by the passion and dedication that each of these bloggers showed for blogging, social media, and the importance of promoting and expanding its use in Tanzania- most definitely ‘the creatively maladjusted’. I myself am relatively new to blogging, and it’s only really since starting my own blog that I’ve fully come to realise the extended levels of connectivity that blogging can offer. For example in the early days of Occupy Wall Street I found myself the only person who knew about it, with there being a complete lack of its representation in the Tanzanian general media. In a country such as Tanzania where media coverage is likely censored or at the very least is inconsistent / unreliable, blogging (and social media generally) open up a whole new world of opportunities. “Social media can give Tanzanians their own public voices. That’s the most powerful opportunity I can think of to be frank”- Elsie from The Mikocheni Report blog.
A common (often intended at ending any further conversation) response that I hear in discussions about social media in Tanzania is that most people don’t have access to the internet. In rural areas where 75% of the population lives, access is without doubt the major challenge (related to poor electricity coverage as well as few and expensive internet cafes), but this situation is rapidly changing from both supply and demand vantage points, with increasingly cheaper internet access on mobile phones and younger generations attracted to the connectivity that social media offers. In towns I would argue that a large proportion of the population are at least on Facebook, and via links on Facebook probably have much more direct access to blogs / citizen journalism than people living in the West: this is particularly true in terms of news, entertainment, gossip and events blogs that are often much more up-to-date than magazines and existing online media, translate international stories into Swahili, and also offer an additional platform for promotions (many of these bloggers actually make decent money by offering advertising to companies that are attracted by the extensive traffic on the blog).
“I’m happy to see people generating some income for themselves from their blogs. This is a great opportunity for youths, although a lot of blogs lack diversity, creativity and meaningful content but I can say this “ain’t made at’cha” after all youth unemployment is high” says Bahati Mabala from Vijana FM blog- a collective blog / platform for young people in East Africa to share, exchange and develop ideas. Other bloggers that I spoke to also mentioned the issue of adding substance and meaning to social media (as opposed to copy / paste stories) and I like how one blogger described that for him the bigger question surrounding social media is more about how it can be used to create conversations. It seems to me that the challenges surrounding this are various: 1. that only a small minority are contributing to these conversations i.e. access the internet (whether the barriers are infrastructural [e.g. no electricity, no computers], skills-based [e.g. ICT literacy, poor English language], or (potentially in the future) involve enforced restriction / censorship); 2. that many lack the skills and knowledge to be able to effectively present / promote themselves (while also not harming others); 3. and that national (and also international) online connectivity and communication is still severely limited.
All of these issues were discussed one way or another at the Dar es Salaam Bloggers Circle meeting and as a group I anticipate they will be playing an important role in each of the challenges listed above. In terms of access, although the Tanzanian government were one of the first African countries to develop an ICT policy, very little if any action has been taken towards implementing it, and one wonders how ambitious targets of ICT facilities being available in all Secondary Schools by 2015 will be reached. Saying this though there are some really worthwhile ICT-promoting initiatives (often private-sector / NGO - Government collaborations) going on, and collectivized ‘pressure’ consisting of specialist advice and recommendations is fundamental towards ensuring the continuation (and if possible speeding up) of the progress made so far. And when I say ‘specialists’, I regard Tanzanian bloggers to be a key part of this group as these are the people who know their country, culture, and who are going to be the main utilisers- let’s not slip back into the old mistake of assuming what works in the West will work here- just as there are different social cultures, so too are there different social media cultures. Input from bloggers at the very outset is also essential towards ensuring that there is rational discussion over issues of policy and regulation. Globally this is a hot topic right now with the US trying to enforce a Bill that will effectively censor the entire worldwide web, and in specific regard to a country such as Tanzania, the current lack of filtering does not mean that there will never be any in the future: there needs to be open debate and also monitoring of this situation.
Skills building, and not just on how to connect or set up a blog or Facebook account, I’m talking about writing skills, effective tagging, sourcing, referencing, ensuring the credibility of sources, ethics etc… are all things that need to go hand-in-hand with access to the web. Pernille of Dunia ni Duara blog talks about how “in Tanzania ‘pathos’ [persuading by appealing to the reader’s emotions] is often much higher prioritized than ‘ethos’ [convincing by the credibility of the author] in communication and that presents challenges in social media too, when feelings take over, sources and rumours aren’t verified etc…”. This often means that graphic photos without any form of consent are posted, for example of the bodies of children from the Zanzibar ferry tragedy, or the open coffin of the Tanzanian rapper who recently passed away, Mr Ebbo, and hurtful mistakes are also made e.g. recently claiming that an elderly Tanzanian singer was dead (she did an incredible performance a few weeks later!). These skills don’t necessarily need formal training: discussions and even online forums, peer feedback etc… such as is offered by the Dar es Salaam Bloggers Circle, is an important step in the right direction.
And this brings me to the third challenge- connectivity- an issue that really started the whole idea of the Dar es Salaam Bloggers Circle. Currently direct access to blogs in Tanzania is difficult to navigate unless the blogger themself gives you their URL. For instance when I heard that there were riots in the Southern region of Mbeya last month I was searching on the internet for a blogger’s perspective on the situation but could not find anything until a link was posted onto Facebook by a friend. There is currently very little self-promotion (i.e. linking up your blog to Twitter / Facebook) and this is very limiting in terms of the number and range of hits that you are going to get, and also makes it virtually impossible for viewers outside of Tanzania to ‘hack in’: “I guess we’re yet to realize that platforms like Facebook and Twitter are tools that can be used for networking, or for cultivating constructive thoughts by sharing ideas- Tanzanians can interact with people from all over the world and learn different things without having to travel. I feel like we’re treating social media as this one single thing rather than a tool that can have multiple purposes”- Bahati from Vijana FM blog. And these ‘purposes’ are many including access to education, entrepreneurship, advertising, advocacy etc… “The greatest opportunity as I see it is communication, meaning access to information and the option of responding which may lead to a greater variety of people having influence, and also decision makers having better access to knowledge, crowdsourcing opinions etc…” - Pernille from Dunia ni Duara blog. And such communication is also important in international contexts, with citizens being able to now represent their countries, cultures as they experience them, not how international ‘news-hungry’ journalists, voluntourists or politicians do.
As the anniversary of 50 years of Independence in Tanzania draws closer I see more and more comments about it on Facebook, Twitter etc… Without doubt Tanzanians are proud of their country and people but few if any of these comments are celebratory: all talk about the massive corruption over the recent Dowans / Tanesco fiasco, about the bad roads, the poor healthcare and appalling education systems, and generally about the suffering of the people that has little if any representation by the few in power who these last weeks have been spending far too much time discussing how MPs sitting allowances should increase by 285%.
For me, this last year across the world, has more than ever before been one where we hear the voices of the people as opposed to their governments, and it makes me wonder, what are the next 50 years for Tanzania going to be like? Whilst social media definitely has its challenges in a country such as Tanzania, these very challenges also offer the opportunity for developing different, creative, and localised solutions that in turn will make social media in Tanzania… Tanzanian. In terms of access this could mean “making a newsletter/paper on paper or a radio programme for people living in the villages and collect information that is then also posted onto a blog aimed at decision-makers”- Pernille from Dunia ni Duara. Also I would argue that the Dar es Salaam Bloggers Circle in itself is one of these localised solutions as we don’t commonly see bloggers meeting and talking, developing new ideas, face-to-face etc… in the West.
As one blogger told me “When we think of how social media can benefit Tanzanians, we need to step outside of the ‘global’ understanding of social relations, and see what defines ‘social’ in Tanzania”.
Some Tanzanian Blogs to get you started:
