Social Media and Effective Health Communication

Abstract

Social media is coming up as a fast growing tool to reach out to people. The Social Networking sites (SNS) provide cost-effective platforms to communicate with large population. However with issues related to media literacy, institutional support and available mechanisms it becomes pertinent to review the potential uses social media can be put into especially in context of the developing countries for an effective health communication. This paper reviews the disparity that exists in accessibility and usage of social media and its interrelated applications and the multiple benefits these applications can be put to use and points out to the inherent challenges in the way of effective communication.