ABSTRACT

The world is fast changing. In the last few decades, developments have occurred which have shaped and are still shaping the way people communicate with one another as well as share or receive information. Within the traditional setting, the arrival of electronic devices seemed to have passed a “death sentence” on the use of gongs, flutes, town criers, animal horns, pen and paper messages, among other traditional media of communication.The electronic means, such as radio, television, newspapers and magazines, which were used before the advent of the internet have also been overtaken by emerging technologies and digital applications. Internet and its tributaries, such as social media, are exerting their role in the new era ofdigital communication. Communication now takes place in real time. It is faster and cheaper to send and receive information.With just a click, information is disseminated to a large, disparate community of virtual audiences at the same time. Thus, the internet-enabled social media has significantly impacted on the landscape ofinformation dissemination more than yesterday’s communications media. It is in the light ofthis that this chapter sets out to discuss the use ofsocial media for information dissemination in the digital era. The chapter stresses that, with the current state of advancement in digital technology, more and more social media platforms are bound to emerge that may profoundly affect the patronage of one social media platform over the other as well as broaden the pre-existing landscape ofinformation dissemination.