Social media and election in Tanzania

Social media has a lot of affordances that makes it an important platform for the 2015 election in Tanzania. Social media has lots of benefits to both citizens and the candidates. Citizens can obtain a lot of information about the candidates which will help them make informed decisions while candidates will have a cheap and cool platform to sell themselves. The role that social media can play in this election is colossal nonetheless I am interested to know whether social media can predict the result and how social media is  used in election. In this analysis  I’ll focus on presidential race and my analysis will tender on how the presidential candidates are using the platform.

Research shows that social media has proven to be effective tool for predicting future. For instance a study by Asur and Huberman, Predicting the future with social media, which used to predict box-office revenue for movies has proved that social media can be effective tool for prediction even more than prevailing market based techniques. Replicating the success of social media in predicting movie performance at box office; can analysts use or be persuaded to predict the election results using social media? Though it might need a lot of simulation and regressions to find the right model for predicting the results it’s my belief that a simple search and survey can shade light on the potential results

Preceding to the usage of social media by presidential candidates. First, I am glad that some presidential aspirants such as Lazaro Nyalandu, Mwigulu Nchemba, Hamis Kiwangalwa and January makamba have been actively engaging on social media other aspirants  have their teams actively campaigning for them in the platform for instance you will find Team Lowassa and many other teams actively participating. The participation of these candidates in the platform prove it to be an important arena that shouldn't be ignored

The platform is also beneficial to  candidates who won’t afford a chance on mainstream media. For instance a video on YouTube can be accessed by voters any time they wish to watch not necessarily the time that its broadcasted in the mass media. Also social media has helped citizens to engage directly with the candidates, voter are able to engage with candidates in twitter, Facebook, Instagram and forums such as JamiiForums. Thus if a candidates decides to capitalize on social media, it possible for him or her to increase the chances of succeeding.