Social media as a gateway to accelerate inclusive growth

Abstract

The current perspective of understanding development focuses on including all members of society participating in the growth process, primarily through digital technology. This paper examines social media for promoting inclusive growth in Tanzania. More specifically, the study aims to investigate the social media site that youth citizens widely use to discuss government economic issues for fostering inclusive growth, how youth citizens use the perceived widely used social media to participate in discussing government issues for inclusive growth, and how does the government encourage citizens’ use of social media to discuss government issues for inclusive growth. The study was conducted in Dodoma City and employed mixed research methods using survey and interview data collection methods. Findings show that youth citizens mainly prefer using WhatsApp social media to discuss economic issues to promote inclusive economic growth in the study area. The study also found that youth citizens in the study area use WhatsApp social media to spot government actions and voice their opinions for inclusive growth. The study concludes that WhatsApp social media is a gateway to accelerate inclusive growth in the study area. It suggests a networked digital policymaking framework to encourage citizens to openly discuss and publish government issues on social media without fear to accelerate inclusive growth in the country. Also, it suggests an established framework for collecting citizens’ opinions on social media for government decision-making practices to imply that citizens’ views are considered for inclusive growth in Tanzania.