New Media and the South Sudan Conflicts

Abstract

This study is intended to cover aspects of new media and assess its influence in promoting and discouraging conflict. The study covers the new media i.e. Twitter and Facebook and how their use impact on the behaviors of the audiences as to encourage or discourage conflict. The objective of the study was to establish if the new media had influence in the conflict in South Sudan. Since the conflict is thought to have come about as a result of power struggles and ethnicity, the expressions on the new media plays a role in personal communications, hence the need to find out the role of the new media on the escalation and de-escalation of the conflict. South Sudan is country that gained its independence from Sudan after 21 years of civil war. Following a comprehensive peace agreement signed in Naivasha, Kenya, the parties involved agreed to hold a referendum on whether South Sudan should secede from the larger Sudan. The study adopts content analysis as a method of examining the past as well as the present media coverage of the South Sudan conflict. The content of new media tools is also examined and given emphasis so that the frames of such media can be better understood in the context of this study. The final results are presented in figures, tables, and diagrams as this facilitate interpretation, understanding, reading and discussion. The findings shows that the new media content indeed helped in influencing the escalation of the conflict in South Sudan.The findings guides the researcher in making recommendations on what can be done to improve the use of new media in controlling the conflicts from escalation. The researcher also recommend further study from the outcome of the results