A RESEARCH PROPOSAL

A RESEARCH PROPOSAL

ON

THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON NATIONAL SECURITY

INTRODUCTION

Background to the Study

The spread of social media, driven by internet boom and mobile technology is changing the way

society operates (Albert, 2006).  Today, social media tools have become a staple in everyday lives of many people becoming one of the main methods of social connection and interaction around the world, whether between individuals, or with businesses and governments.

The growth of Web 2.0, its expanding global reach and potential new technologies to further its use and adoption argue that today’s social networking is a change in the form of human communication that cannot be ignored (Berkman,  & Shumway,2003). Online social networks have impacted every field of human endeavor from education to health care and many more and National security is no exception.

Due to globalization, focus has now shifted to assessing the effects of non-state actors. The advancement in social media has increased the ability of non-state actors including terrorists, criminals, protestors, hate mongers and rioters to impact national and international security. Power is constantly shifting and diluting from states to groups and individuals (Clay, 2008).

Since Social Media are extremely quickly evolving and are facing a many-sided interaction with geo-economic and socio-cultural elements, it is important to constantly monitor how they develop, analyze how they work, and measure their potentialities. This process aims at making the states not to be caught by surprise in case of a potential offensive use of Social Media by adversaries and at changing such innovative tools into resources of primary importance, to be

ready for all the bodies involved in the protection of the national security.

With the recent growth of social media in the past 2 deacdes as a new staple in our modern culture, social media has also emerged as a growing threat to national security. As the Internet and social media are constantly growing and changing, national security has lagged behind.

Davies, C. (2011), define social media as “Internet based application that enables people to communicate and share resources and information. Some examples of Social Media include blogs, discussion forums, chat rooms, wikis, YouTube channels, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.

Social media can be accessed by computer, smart and cellular phones, and mobile phone text messaging. There are three main characteristics that define social media:

1. A virtual space where the user can activate and set their own profile
2. The opportunity to make such profile public, in part or totally, linking it with other profiles and in doing so, the user can communicate with the other profiles linked to his/her network
3. The opportunity to handle one’s own network, developing and updating it constantly (Dale, 2009).

Some important demographic facts about social media:

i.         More than 75% of internet users have at least one active social media profile

ii.        About 40% of social media users access their profile via their mobile phone

iii.      People older than 55 are particularly active using social media via their mobile phone

iv.      Social media users are primarily women

v.       Most users are between 18 to 34 years old

Although social media has the potential to be a threat to national security, it also has the opportunity to strengthen national security and to be used to benefit the government.  One of the fastest growing ways that governments are using social media is as a warning or trend prevention tool, as a monitoring tool, the government is able to recognize the first signs of any hostile or potentially dangerous activity by collecting and analyzing messages in order to try to predict events that could be a danger to national security (Emanuela, 2011).

Another important use of social media by the government is as an institutional communication tool. Social media provides a medium that creates cohesion between federal agencies by increasing both communication and transparency.

Statement of the Problem

Nigeria being a member of international community is not immune to forces of social media regarding its use and misuse. The use of social media as a new communication platform introduces serious security and privacy concerns, including new vectors for cyber-attack that the

government and the military cannot ignore (Gabriel, 2006). Criminal gangs, terrorist organizations, non-state actors with bad intentions and subversive elements including Boko Haram, Al-Qaeda and Al-Shabaab, regularly use social media websites to disseminate propaganda with sole intention to reach out, recruit and radicalize their target audience.

Individuals use social media to send alarming messages, hate messages and false information to the public regarding state of national security affairs (Lai, 2018).  Most of the social media users remain unanimous and cannot be easily traced by law enforcement agencies and subsequent prosecution. Nations therefore are faced with tough challenges to track, monitor and contain the use and misuse of social media relative to National security. National security demands a strategy such as monitoring conversations and content shared on Social Media, arranging effective methods to counter adversaries’ propaganda and interferences, improving governmental agencies and institutions’ performances, strengthening a state’s geopolitical position and its international credibility. However, such initiatives require sophisticated technologies which are very complex, costly by third world countries.

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