“Politicians Divert Attention From Serious Issues To Trivialities”

What explains the interesting mix of communication styles amongst this year's presidential candidates? They can be described as serious, theatrical, show-offish, playboys and play girls...
This not surprising, it is political distraction or drama. This is a technique used by politicians, not only in Cameroon, but worldwide to divert public attention from serious issues and then focus on trivialities. It is time for Cameroonians to be focused. This is where media literacy becomes a very important concept for the audience. 
People have to keep their eyes focused on the ball and not miss the big picture. Which is the seriousness of elections - galvanizing governance, national unity…  - especially the younger generation which should be concerned about a future of which they will be part of decision-making. That is the trend worldwide and Cameroon cannot afford to be left out. To summarise, what explains this mix in presidential communication is just political distraction and drama to divert attention from serious political issues the nation is facing.    

Why then is social media paying such presidential candidates much attention?
This is why it is called “social” media. It was created for interaction, entertainment, political entertainment and distraction… Social media reaches a very wide audience through the Immediacy Concept in Communication – by transmitting information worldwide in an instant, immediately. This is a very popular tool to use, and it is cheaper, available and brings excitement to quench the insatiable appetite for information that the human being yearns for. 
With the different social media platforms like WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok… in the hands of politicians, they will readily use them to disseminate information. Moreover, there is no censorship or control on social media. The traditional definition of journalism is researching, processing and dissemination of information. But this is missing in social media use. What happens is garbage in, garbage out. People cannot be held responsible for their opinions on social media, which is different from conventional media (radio, television, newspaper) where you attribute information to sources. The information can be verified with these sources, you can quote them and hold them responsible. 
Social media on the other hand is most of the time anonymous. Some studies have concluded that the use of anonymous sources makes the media to lose credibility. But who cares! People say whatever they want and are not held responsible because they can hide their true identities by creating fake accounts.
Social media comes with effervescence and excitement last for a week or two only. I have done research which shows that a lot of falsehood and propaganda are disseminated on social media. Propaganda is defined by three words – partisan information, distorted information and untrue information. Again, the concept of media literacy is very important in times like this for people to always verify the authenticity of both the information and the source of the information. This is time for politicians to promise heaven and earth, to build bridges where there are no rivers… 
Cameroon has a high literacy level, but this must be translated into media literacy to build awareness on consuming media content. There is a theory in Mass Communication known as Users and gratification. The theory explains that users are not always passive in consuming content.      

At the end, are these politicians succeeding in passing on any messages on the Internet and social media? 
We have not yet done a study to ascertain this. We are only a few weeks into effervescence of the 2025 presidential elections in Cameroon. But previous studies showed that most people go for social media information because of the bandwagon effect. This is also what we saw with the Anglophone Cameroon Crisis where social media messages, espec...