Media told to use social media to promote migration issues

Journalists and media practitioners have been urged to use social media tools to enhance their reportage on migration related issues.

This is to enable them to reach out to a larger audience with information on irregular migration and the dangers it poses to migrants.

The call was made by a Lecturer at the Faculty of Information Technology and Communication of the University for Professional Studies (UPSA), Mr Charles Nii Ayiku Ayiku, during a three-day training workshop for some selected journalists and media practitioners at the Kofi Annan ICT Centre in Accra.

The training, dubbed: "Designing a public awareness campaign and the use of Social Media and Mobile Apps", was organised by Media Response, an NGO with focus on migration.

It was sponsored by International Organization for Migration (IOM), FMM West Africa, European Union, International Labour Organization (ILO), and ECOWAS Commission.

Tools

The journalists were taken through various practical sessions such as designing social media campaigns on migration and the use of social media tools such as Hootsuite, Sharecount, Talkwalkeralerts, Tagboard, Piktochart, Googlealert and Dafont to evaluate one's work. 

Mr Ayiku said journalists and media practitioners could make a lot of impact if they use social media tools to promote their work. 

He said social media has come to stay and that it was needful for journalists and media practitioners in particular to strive hard to make good use of the several opportunities it offers.

Mr Ayiku, who facilitated parts of the training programme said there are a number of social media tools that journalists could use to assess and evaluate their works electronically.

He has therefore urged journalists and media practitioners to make the use of social media an essential part of their work. 

Training

He said the training was aimed at equipping the participants with requisite skills in designing and implementing an effective public awareness campaign using innovative and new media technologies. 

The Executive Director of Media Response, Mr Samuel Doodo said the workshop was to equip journalists and media practitioners to sensitize their audience on the dangers of irregular migration. 

Similarly, he said, it was intended to boost the competencies of the participants on how they could effectively and efficiently use social media tools and data to enhance their work.

He said Media Response would continue to partner relevant stakeholders to organise training programmes for Ghanaian journalists and media practitioners on migration issues to enable them sharpen their skills on migration reporting.

He said similar training workshops would be organised in Kumasi, Takoradi, and Tamale in the Ashanti, Western and Northern Regions respectively.

Agents of change

He has, therefore, urged the participants to make good use of the knowledge gained at the training in order to achieve its purpose. 

The Programme Manager of IOM agency in Nigeria, FMM West Africa, Mr Frantz S. Celestine, implored the participants to strive hard to reach out to their audiences with the right information on migration, particularly on irregular migration.

That, he said, would enable migrants to make informed decisions before embarking on any journey.

He said many people embarked on irregular migration adventures as a result of the lack of information, hence the need for journalists to continuously disseminate information on the dangers of irregular migration.