Islamabad ( BMZ REPORT )
“Social media is a great opportunity for the development community to get feedback for projects, and also collaborate & advocate its cause by showing the human side of development” said Raza Rumi, Senior Media Analyst on a seminar held on “Promoting Development Discourse through Social Media” at Sustainable Development Policy Institute, Islamabad here on Monday.
He said that this communication tool is successful to generate unprecedented debate among public. However, development discourse is also reshaped to fill the information gaps of disaster management and public accountability by promoting freedom of speech. “For instance, it is surprising to see that policy makers, politicians and donors have also started using social media to empower their followers, to reform agenda, and to promote their manifestos & political activism among general public”, he added.
Dr. Vaqar Ahmed, Deputy Director SDPI talked about the Ngo’s perspective of social media. He said that creativity & originality are the tools, which can improve the impact of media. Further, he added that social media is not only about using Facebook & twitter, on the other hand, there are various other comprehensive and authentic tools in the form of online communication. While quoting the example of “Salman Khan Online Academy” he encouraged the idea of free online educational programs and compatible system of data mining as well.
Amena Aly Kamaal, Founding Director Strategic Communications, said that an online medium helps you to be more interactive, which also leads to gain trust and faith of people. The more your client or follower is getting in contact with you the more he will be concerned to invest his valuable time and effort in your organization. “However, the biggest threat of this medium is privacy concern. If this aspect is not addressed properly than it can cause bad effects on your organizational goals” said Amena.
Shirin Gul, Digital anthropologist & social behavior analyst, Mindmap Communications discussed the impractical role of non-trained social media experts, who are not properly aware about the development issues. “There is an urgent need to recognize that discourse of development sector on social media should be research oriented and dialogue based” she urged.