Embracing new media in political communication: A survey of parliamentarians' attitudes and practices in a changing media landscape in West Africa

Abstract

This survey sought to find out the state of political communication among West African parliamentarians in view of the expanded mediality that newer digital channels like social media, the internet and mobile telecommunication tools are bringing to the political landscape in addition to traditional political channels of party politics, rallies, meetings, constituency visits and traditional media like television, radio and newspapers. The study had deliberately focused on the three core parliamentary functions; lawmaking, representation and oversight, asking key questions under each function to delineate the views and practices of legislators in using media channels. Findings from this study show that although there is a remarkable improvement in acquisition of tools, legislators are reticent in deploying the full powers of new channels in interaction with citizens, preferring traditional channels like television and radio in activity propagation and political meetings and constituency visits to newer tools like e-petition, e-consultation, blogging, personal websites, e-polling and other forums. However there are evidences of rising Facebook use and intensive use of telephony and text messages in communicating with constituents. There are also evidences of the increased use of emails and internet research in gathering information for lawmaking.