Breath of Fresh Air

It’s amazing when one looks back and sees the transformation and changes that the society has undergone in the past 50 years and how this changes has effected all spheres of the human life especially communication. This change is evident in the speed and ease, with which one can have access to information, send information and receive feedback as well as the continuous interactions going on both at the local and global stage. We have moved from the era of having to wait endlessly for news and information created by professionals to get to us, the distorted opinions and misrepresentation created by these professionals who most often are crabs in the hands of the government or political powers that at the end of the day when we access this information, we feel defrauded. Now, we are the masters and creators of our own news, share information and interact with other users, get the information the way it is without colorings and with common voice speak out. We participate in the entire communication process. And the beauty of it is that, its online real time! This excites me the most.

This communication transformation is made possible due to the tools and platform offered by web 2.0 for individuals around the globe to design and participate in content creation, consumption and information sharing. Today, we are part of social media and social networking sites like Face book, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc that allows users to connect with friends and families, interact, share information, receive feed backs and speak of whatever is happening wherever and whenever! This is empowering as more women are standing up and telling their stories as well as lending their voices to raise global awareness to issues that affect them. We have refused that anyone should speak for us and so, have decided to speak for ourselves; after all, the story is actually about us and our journey. Who best to tell it?

It’s overwhelming and exciting the new lease of life web 2.0 and new media offers for individuals like me growing up in this part of the world-Africa, where women and the girl child are treated like an addition to the ills of the society rather than a part of the society and as such, tramped upon and disregarded with impunity. Today, i can send out my story of these ills to the world, share with others who have similar stories and join voices to bring such stories and information to global attention without fear of rejection of our stories by editorial teams or distortion of the facts of the story as obtainable in traditional media like magazines, TV, newspapers etc.

I peep into the future and am filled with smiles as to the positive effect web 2.0 brings to information sharing, liberalization of the media and especially, freedom of speech as women are now empowered to put out and share their stories. It’s indeed a welcoming breath of fresh air.