Perception of Audience on Social Media as a Medium of Holding Government Accountable in Nigeria ( a Study of Residenct of Offa Local Government Kwara State_

Student: Halymat Afrah Umar (Project, 2025)
Department of Mass Communication
Lens Polytechnic, offa, Kwara State.

Abstract

In contemporary societies, social media have revolutionalised human communicationpatterns in a way never witnessed before now (Okoro&Nwafor, 2013). The main index of social media technologies, which is, the speedy and unhindered flow of informationwithin a twinkling of an eye, has promoted liberty and actualized human's right to freedomof speech and expression (Okoro& Nwafor,2013). Going further, social media platformsgive liberty to the users to become both the producers and receivers of information(Ahmed, et al., 2019). The implication of this is that citizens via social media platforms candodge the run-of-the-mill practice of news making in the conventional media, whichinvolves the rigour of both gate keeping and framing (Hermida, et al, 2012). Ahmed et al,(2019)'s emphasised that this new role ascribed to the audience by social mediatechnologies in virtual communities has deemphasized the traditional role of the media asthe producers and that of the audience as the receiver.

Keywords
perception audience social media
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