Rural communities in Africa can have their stories shared with the larger audience using video blogging which is a Web 2.0 application to amplify the voices of the grassroots in the future.

Sharing his experience as a Vlogger, Prince Deh said he had been creating videos and posting them on a blog and hence received feed back from all over the world. “How do we solve the problem of rural connectivity in order to extend the benefits of Web2.0 tools much wider beyond the scope of the cities?” he asked.

It was interesting to note that vlogs provided an alternative media. Deh observed that his videos have an added helped promote deeper understanding of stories, especially for people with less educational background. He added that they also had the power to reach an unlimited audience with minimal cost as the vlogging process does not require specialised expertise and can be easily controlled by any non-technical person. “It is technologically simpler and cheaper to maintain than a website. Videos are interactive medium often encouraging readers to comment” said Deh.

On local language, Deh said there will be need to create local language videos with a translation text as it was important for increasing participation and sharing. Vlogging major challenges were outlined as connectivity or access and getting people to share Information and Knowledge and cost of equipment. He pointed out that it was important to have knowledge of video editing and innovativeness in order to create story telling videos.

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