BY ALEX DADAMU
Politics and political Leaders need to adapt on how their information can be distributed to the masses using the digital mediums at our disposal.
This was uttered by the Member of Parliament for East Are’are, Hon. Peter Kenilorea on Wednesday when addressing Media personalities from Solomon Islands and around the pacific region who gathered for the 6th Pacific Media Summit which ended on Thursday in Honiara.
Hon. Kenilorea was speaking on the topic, ‘The Media and Political Leadership in a Digital Age’.
He said the Media has and is adapting to this digital world of information sharing.
“Politics and politicians are perhaps caught on the backfoot with the fast pace of how information is now disseminated.
“Leaders need to adapt as well on how their information can be distributed to the masses using the digital mediums at our disposal,” Hon. Kenilorea said.
He said that instead of shying away and even threatening to limit the rights of expression in the social media space, he feel that as leaders, they should engage with both the media and the people directly utilizing the powerful platforms that social media presents. It’s an opportunity to speak directly to the people.
“I think this digital age presents a fresh opportunity for media and political leaders in the pacific to take stock and engage more effectively in getting the relevant information out in a responsible manner, while allowing the media to continue to hold political leaders accountable to the people who put them in positions of power in the first place.
“Power is not contested. Power is balanced in the realization that media, that political leadership need each other in the still young democratic societies that we have in the pacific,” Kenilorea said.
