HAITI Media and Telecoms Landscape Guide - Infoasaid

125On-line mediaOnly a small minority of Haitians have regular access to the internet.However, the web plays a major role in connecting the 10 million people who live inHaiti with four million or more who live overseas.The diaspora read Haitian news websites and can access many of the larger Haitianradio stations online if they wish.Haiti’s two main newspapers, Le Nouvelliste www.lenouvelliste.com and Le Matinwww.lematinhaiti.com , are widely read online, both at home and abroad.According to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), 8.4% of Haiti’spopulation had access to the internet at the end of 2010. That equates to more than800,000 people.The DAGMAR media audience survey of 4,907 people in November 2010 found that84.6% of all internet users went online at an internet cafe. Only 12.3% said they hadaccess to the internet at home or at work.Research by the US-based media development organisation Internewswww.internews.org in 2011 indicated that fewer than 3% of Haitians owned acomputer.The DAGMAR survey showed that most Haitians who used the internet, did somainly to contact friends and family, rather than to seek news and information fromindependent sources.DAGMAR found the most common reason for using the internet was to make cheapVoice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) telephone calls (35.5%).The next most popular activities were sending personal emails (16.2%) and instantmessaging (9.6%).DAGMAR found that very few Haitians used social media, such as Facebook andTwitter (5.3%).However, the internet analysis website www.socialbakers.com estimated inSeptember 2012 that 41% of all internet users in Haiti were on Facebook.125