As the years have passed and new technologies have emerged and evolved, journalism and the media industry have changed and evolved with them. The way that our generation interacts with the news media is very different from the way that many of our parents’ generation interacted with the media. And the way the future generation interacts with media, we can imagine, will be very different as well. It would be fair to say that today our media landscape is just objectively better than that of previous generations.
The amount of information available to us at our fingertips is so much greater than anything previous generations had. You can read and watch content from thousands of different newspapers, blogs, podcasts and documentariesonline from pretty much any country in the world. Moreover, the media industry is no longer concentrated in the hands of a few companies. It is easier than ever for your average person to create content online and build an audience. Much like I’ve done with this blog.
The rise of social media has meant that many people who were previously unable to have a voice now have the ability to get their message out. The sort of gatekeeping and agenda setting that corporate media and governments were successful at in the past is no longer as effective because of independent outlets. And the sorts of restraints placed in legacy media outlets, such as budget constraints, advertising pressure, etc, independent media simply does not have to face those same types of issues with their coverage of events.
For me personally, like many in my generation, there are so many independent media outlets that I listen to and have listened to over the years. For the longest time, if a discussion about the rise of independent media ever came up, I would have likely been one of the most vocal supporters of the rise of independent media. I still believe in the promise and potential of independent media. However, over the last year in particular, my perspective on this has been radically changed.
A perhaps surprisingly ironic outcome of all this has been that despite the abundance of access we have to information, it appears people are more misinformed now than ever. It is just so easy for people to put out any kind of false information and for it to get millions of impressions, with little to no pushback. And the reality is that the kind of misinformation and disinformation that has been put out has been incredibly effective at influencing the way that people think. However, when people begin to talk about the spread of misinformation or disinformation online, an immediate reaction that many have would have is to see that as a call for censorship, which is understandable (to an extent).
Admittedly, for a long time, I would have had a similar reaction as well. However, more and more I have begun to truly understand how and why this is such a problem that we are failing to tackle properly. Yes, the kind of censorship that we have witnessed on social media sites has been bad. Particularly when it has been done for political reasons. But that doesn’t mean that everything everybody has to say is worth listening to. The fact is that more and more people have begun to get their news from social media, and that has resulted in more people being greatly misinformed about a whole host of issues.
When Elon Musk purchased 𝕏, Musk would infamously state in one of his tweets: “You are the media now.” Elon Musk has been very critical of mainstream media outlets for a long time and has proposed 𝕏 as an alternative. He would describe himself as a “free speech absolutist” and talk about how Twitter is the internet’s town square, where people should be free to debate ideas amongst each other without the fear of being censored.
For years, I have heard conservative commentators speak about how social media serves as “the marketplace of ideas.” A place where different topics like philosophy, politics, religion and other issues can be thoroughly discussed and debated in an attempt at discovering the truth. However, the reality on the ground is anything but that. All you would have to do is attempt to challenge anyone’s political beliefs on sites like 𝕏 or Reddit and see how unfounded the ‘marketplace of ideas’ claim really is in practice.
Taking Reddit as an example, in the build-up to the 2024 Presidential election, I had been so convinced that it would be impossible for Donald Trump to win a second term because of how much I had been using Reddit prior to the election. Reddit is a site with a user base that is politically very left-wing, and that plays out very evidently in the coverage of politics on the site. The reality is that alternative points of view are rarely seen or even tolerated in numerous Subreddits.
𝕏 is not much better. Ever since Elon Musk’s purchase of the site, a lot of 𝕏’s user base now leans heavily towards the right and the far right. Almost every political post is immediately inundated with comments from far-right users calling people slurs, or saying something racist or antisemitic. It is hardly any kind of marketplace of ideas. There are no deep conversations or debates taking place on 𝕏 or Reddit, or any other social media sites.
Moreover, perhaps the worst aspect of social media is its ability to manipulate people into believing anything. The fact is that we are much more susceptible to propaganda than we may realise. And the most egregious example of this has come from the social media strategy used to gain Ibrahim Traoré the fame and notoriety he has. All over social media every day, there are all sorts of posts praising Ibrahim Traoré, painting him as a Pan-African hero transforming Burkina Faso for the better. The only problem is that the vast majority of these posts have no actual basis in reality.
This is a topic I have written about previously, so I will not delve into it with as much detail as before. But in short, if you were to believe all the propaganda put out about Ibrahim Traoré, you would believe that in the short time he has been leader of Burkina Faso, he has: abolished all taxes within Burkina Faso; paid of all of Burkina Faso’s national debt; made all education free primary secondary and university; eliminated all corruption within Burkina Faso; built all sorts of new infrastructure such as roads, bridges, trains, flats, etc. However, all of those claims have no basis in reality.
In reality, Burkina Faso barely has any paved roads to speak of, and that has not changed under Ibrahim Traoré. Videos of flats that were allegedly built by Ibrahim Traoré turned out to be photos of buildings in Algeria, not Burkina Faso. Social media would have you believe that the United States and France are so threatened by Ibrahim Traoré that they have already set up plans for a full-scale invasion of the country, and Africans are sending troops over to defend Ibrahim Traoré, also false.
The most concerning thing is that so many people genuinely believe these claims. I have had to go into extensive discussions and debates with my own friends and family on this very topic. The fact is that so many people not only believe the propaganda, they have become so emotionally invested in the idea that Ibrahim Traoré really is this African hero, so much that it would be very difficult to try to persuade them otherwise.
Perhaps the worst thing about all of this is that we barely have major media outlets that are able to rebuff all the false claims made about Ibrahim Traoré the same way that other nations do. The fact is that there really is no major African media outlet. There are some big television news networks in all our individual countries, but even they struggle to really make any sort of major impact. You often find that people are typically way more aware of American politics than they are of their own country’s politics because of how much easier it is to follow American media.
The few times mainstream media outlets, like the BBC or AFP, have reported on Burkina Faso, their posts have typically inundated with comments from people accusing them of spreading Western propaganda. The commenters would often claim that they no longer fall for mainstream media narratives now that social media is there to tell the truth about Burkina Faso. Yet all the while they do not realise that they are the ones who have so easily fallen for propaganda put out on social media.
It’s clear that on the African continent, we desperately need our own major media outlets. The media is important because of its ability to actually inform people about the actions of the government and hold the government accountable. While social media and independent media certainly have their place, they will never be a substitute for actual journalism done by bigger media organisations.
It is very telling that the military junta in Burkina Faso would expel all foreign media outlets from their country (after they reported on an alleged massacre carried out by the military) and then proceed to invite in a YouTube personality, Wode Maya, to come and propagandise on their behalf. Wode Maya’s video is filled with praise for Ibrahim Traoré and leaves you with the impression that Burkina Faso has been completely transformed into this African utopia.
What you don’t see in the video is the fact that the military is continuing to lose more and more territory to terrorist organisations within Burkina Faso. And that these armed groups are advancing closer and closer towards the capital of Burkina Faso, Ouagadougou. You also won’t hear about all the massacres of civilians that have taken place within Burkina Faso over the last few months. You particularly won’t hear about the massacres the military junta itself is alleged to have committed against civilians, either. (The supposed Pan-African regime which massacres Africans.)
It’s easy to dismiss the traditional media as flawed or biased, and that criticism often isn’t without merit. But despite its imperfections, journalism remains a vital feature of a functioning democracy. The media industry plays a crucial role in holding power to account, informing the public, and providing context that social media, with its speed and superficiality, simply cannot replace. Instead of abandoning the industry, we should demand for, and support better journalism.
The biggest challenge facing the African continent isn’t just poverty or a lack infrastructure, it’s the lack of transparency and accountability of those in power. Real progress will come not only from economic growth, but from building stronger democratic institutions and supporting a robust, independent media. While social media does have a role in that, if we want lasting change, we must invest in and protect the journalists on the ground committed to uncovering the truth, challenging authority, and informing the people of the full story.
