The Publisher of PREMIUM TIMES, Dapo Olorunyomi, has called for a concerted effort to address the ‘crisis of knowledge’ created by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and social media algorithms, which threatens to undermine Nigeria’s fragile civic space.
Mr Olorunyomi said the social media algorithms, which determine what many citizens see long before they choose to see it, are actively transforming the way in which democratic power is organised in Nigeria.
“The urgent task before Nigeria is to ensure that this transformation bends towards freedom, justice and a more thoughtful public life,” he said.
Mr Olorunyomi, who doubles as the Chief Executive Officer of the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID), stated this on Tuesday while delivering a lecture on “AI, Social Media and the Reconfiguration of Democratic Power in Nigeria” at the Faculty of Arts Alumni Lecture, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State.
In his opening remarks, the Dean of the Faculty, Gbenga Fasiku, a professor, said the Alumni Lecture Series was designed to strengthen ties between the faculty and its alumni who have excelled in their chosen paths and contributed to national development.
AI, social media’s multifaceted transformation
Mr Olorunyomi, an alumnus of the faculty, said AI and social media have become the new power reorganising democratic power in Nigeria by reconfiguring the conditions under which knowledge perception and political action are formed.
He said the transformation cut across several spheres of the nation’s democratic institutions.
“Electoral commissions must now manage not only the physical polling process but also the digital information environment. Courts confront new questions about online speech and evidence. Political parties organise around war rooms that monitor online sentiments in real time,” he said.
He warned against leaving decisions on governing the space to engineers, corporations and politicians alone.
“It must involve journalists, scholars, teachers, activists, policy makers and citizens committed to defending knowledge as a practice of human flourishing,” he said.
“If we can reclaim AI and social media as instruments of agency and engines of manipulation, they may yet strengthen Nigerian democracy by expanding participation, deepening accountability and enabling new forms of solidarity.
“If we fail, these same technologies will entrench inequality, hollow out public reasoning and concentrate power in opaque government and corporate hands,” he added.
He explained that power flows through the ability to shape communication networks and to influence the cultural codes through which people interpret reality.
This, he said, is visible in how electoral campaigns are not only held through rallies and traditional media but through targeted messaging on social media platforms like Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, and X.
“Protest movements, for instance, gain extraordinary momentum by leveraging digital networks, but also struggle with fragmentation and disinformation that spreads through the same channels,” he added.
He, however, expressed worry that academic and policy analysis still treat media as secondary to ‘real politics’.
“We have been slower to grasp that in a network society, politics itself is increasingly conducted through the programming and contestation of digital publication networks,” he said.
The other side of Social Media
Mr Olorunyomi said AI and social media have helped Nigerian journalists and newsrooms to deploy Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) tools like satellite imagery and data analysis to challenge official narratives, counter disinformation, and hold power to account.
“But on the other hand, the same technological infrastructure has transformed media practice in ways that threaten its civic mission,” he said.
“Attention-driven advertising models reward speed and outrage; algorithmic curation determines what many citizens see long before they choose to see it.”
He said AI-driven social media platforms encourage rapid sharing, short attention spans, and continuous engagement.
This favour of viral sensations, he noted, can drown out careful reasoning,
“As thought accelerates, the capacity for sustained reflection and careful judgement diminishes,” he said.
“For a democracy like Nigeria, already strained by economic hardship, institutional fragility, and deep social cleavages, this acceleration has serious implications. It can render politics more volatile, intensify ethnic and religious polarisation, and create incentives for political actors to govern by spectacle rather than by policy.”
When Social Media becomes ‘The Media’
Mr Olorunyomi noted that the media today are the social media platforms that serve as the primary platforms where citizens encounter public issues and form opinions.
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“The biggest newsroom, the most influential newsroom in Nigeria today, sadly, is not Nigerian newspapers or radio stations. It’s Facebook. Every day, 27 million Nigerians are knocking gear or X with seven to nine million people,” he said.
He argued that the survival of democracy hinges on the quality of knowledge practices that sustain public life.
He also expressed worry that the quality of knowledge appears to be continuously watered down by the social media algorithm that favours sensationalism over nuance.
“By structuring visibility, shaping attention and mediating knowledge, AI-driven platforms influence who can participate in public life, what kinds of claims gain traction and how citizens form judgments,” he said.
He, therefore, called on the media to harness new tools to support public accountability and informed citizenship, and to resist becoming institutions that undermine reflection and democratic responsibility.
He warned against the media allowing the push for engagement to erode editorial judgment.
Mr Olorunyomi also called on media institutions to see themselves as custodians of meaning and stewards of the conditions under which public judgment can occur.