Employing digital development media to contribute effectively to achieving sustainable development goals

This study aims to identify, analyze and interpret the effectiveness of employing digital media for development in addressing societal development issues, and influencing citizens' interest and attitudes towards participation in achieving sustainable development goals SDGs.
The researcher relied on the "Dependency Theory" as a theoretical framework for study; Being the closest to the subject of the study, as it can explain the role of Social Networking Sites as a Digital Media for Development tool in raising citizen’s awareness of sustainable development issues, and the need to participate in achieving its goals, in addition to that it helped define questions and categories of content analysis study.
This study belongs to the "Qualitative" research with Thematic Approach that adopting the survey method with its analytical part. Content analysis study was conducted on a purposive sample of (5) development pages on Facebook related to community development activities and initiatives and the sustainable development goals in Egypt; to analyze the content of the posts on it, its objectives, forms, development issues raised, information and services provided, language used, interactive tools employed, levels and forms of interaction, types of comments and their relevance to the topics and the development issues under discussion. The objective analysis was done for a whole month (31 days) for a total of 191 posts.
The study revealed that Facebook has been employed as a digital media for development in focusing on addressing issues of the three main sustainable development axes (economy, society &environment). The interest in economic and societal issues, and the provision of services that contribute to addressing these issues. The development pages have benefited, to varying degrees, from the available technological, technical and interactive capabilities in attracting the attention of large numbers of followers, influencing the attitude and interest of medium numbers of users, and motivating them to interact with the issues at hand, and societal participation.