Mobile technology drives Kenya democracy

• Report highlights Kenyan media's reliance on text messages from the field in covering the 2007 presidential election.

• SMS feature on mobile phones was also used to “spread vitriol and threats across the landscape”

NEW YORK

The use of mobile phone short message service is a double-edged sword for Kenya democracy, a global press freedom group said on Tuesday.

In its annual report on attacks on the press, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) highlights the Kenyan media's reliance on text messages from the field in covering the 2007 presidential election.

On-the-scene updates on the vote count provided Kenyans with information that would not otherwise have been available, the committee said.

According to the report, the SMS feature on mobile phones was also used to “spread vitriol and threats across the landscape” amidst disputes over the vote count.

“Many used the technology to spread unfounded rumours, intolerance and fear” that fuelled the post-election violence, the journalists' group says.

Other Kenyans made use of SMS to urge calm and to try to counteract the hate messages, the report adds.

“This powerful communication tool” thus proved “both boon and bane” in regard to Kenya's election experience.

Julianna Rotich and Joshua Goldstein of Harvard University state in the report that “mobile phones and the Internet were a catalyst to both predatory behaviour such as ethnic-based mob violence and to behaviour such as citizen journalism and human rights campaigns."

The growing popularity of mobile phones in Africa powerfully promotes the free flow of information, the committee observes.

“African journalists use texting to overcome significant obstacles--including poor or nonexistent land lines, roads, and computer access that would prevent them from interviewing people, collecting information, filing stories, or just passing along notes to colleagues,” the report says.

“But the same technology that benefits journalists can undermine the profession,” the report continues.

“Text messaging can be used easily to threaten and intimidate reporters, as happened time and again after the Kenyan election.

“Because technology allows everyone to spread information easily and quickly, it has opened the door to unprofessional and unethical practices. The mere dissemination of information and opinion is not in itself journalism.”