Tweeting alone
The Mikocheni Report hits the nail on the head on the role of social media in developing countries:
Social media are an elite concern at this point in time, limited in their reach and somewhat unsuited for mass political campaigns except through SMS. Still, they are important for convincing the reluctant voters in the Blackberry class that as a tech-savvy politician, you might be someone they would like to do business with.
Bingo. Twitter won’t overthrow any country until it becomes an everyday part of life and Facebook isn’t really of much value if you live in a village without electricity. SMS, by contrast, is an everyday part of life in many developing countries and is playing a role in political mobilization.
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Are you aware of any studies – academic or not – of the impact of SMS? I am not, so no “gotcha” commenting here.
One question arises: how do you charge your cell phone to use SMS if you don’t have electricity? I suppose you can plug in at the cafe… or a friend’s house more plausibly. Having had to go from plug to plug at times, though, I seriously wonder whether people struggling to keep a live handset are meaningful mobile phone users.
Google scholar returns lots of results for Twitter and SMS mobs, but I haven’t read much about it. I have seem parties using SMS to mobilize supporters during elections, so it does happen.
I was a bit over the top on no electricity. I meant the grid. Lots of villages in rural parts of poor countries have generators and/or solar panels that charge large car batteries. Don’t underestimate the impact of the cell phone: its been the most revolutionary change in rural parts of poor countries in the past five or six decades.