Font Size:
Influence of the social media on political engagement with the electorate during the 2015 presidential election campaign in Nigeria
Abstract
The emergence, popularity and ubiquity of the social media havecreated enormous potential and impact in many spheres of life inNigeria. This has been amply demonstrated in all the stages of the 2015elections in Nigeria. This study focused on the influence of the socialmedia on political engagement with the electorate during 2015Nigerian presidential election campaign. The research design adoptedis survey through 2304 questionnaires distributed across the selectedcity, in each state and in each of the six geopolitical zones of Nigeria,while 2054 copies, representing 89.1% are found usable. The samplingtechniques used are multi-stage sampling and simple randomsampling techniques. One of the key findings of the research is that therespondents through the social media engagement with the twoleading candidates and their respective political president GoodluckJonathan (PDP) and General Muhammadu Buhari (APC), rated themon some core campaign issues like corruption, insecurity, education,health, and infrastructure, among others. The study howeverrecommends that presidential candidates and their respective politicalparties should hire experts in marketing communication who canmanage their social media accounts so that political engagement on thesocial media should not degenerate to personality attacks, as wasevident during the campaign.
References
Akinola, T. (2013).UNDP, stakeholders rate 2015 polls on social media.The Guardian Newspaper, February 22, p. 32.Alagbe, J. (2015). Elections: PDP, APC deepen campaign war online.The Punch newspaper, January 17, p.13.Asehinde, T. (2014). Social media as strong campaign strategy for#election2015. http://nigeriacommunicationsweek.com.ng.Accessed April 10, 2015.Babbie, E.R. (2010). The practice of social research. Belmont, C.A.:Wadsworth Publishing Company.Biagi, S. (2012). Media/impact: An introduction to mass media (10th ed.),United States of America: Wadsworth Cengage learning.Burton, G. (2010). Media & society: Critical perspectives (2nd ed.),Berkshire, England: Open University Press.Cozby, P.C. (2004). Research methods in the social sciences. MountainView, California: Mayfield Publishing Company.Dagona, Z.K., Karick, H., & Abubakar, F.M. (2013). “Youthparticipation in social media and political attitudes in Nigeria”.Journal of Sociology, Psychology and Anthropology in Practice, Vol.5, No. 1, pp. 1-7.Ebhota, E. (2015). Nigeria: How social media shaped 2015 electioncampaigns. Daily Trust newspaper, March 29, p.14.Habermas, J. (1996). Between facts and norms: Cambridge, MA: MITPress.http://www.cp-africa.com. (2014). “Over 11 million Nigerians onfacebook: Largest facebook user country in sub-saharanAfrica”. Accessed January 28, 2015 http://www.Saharareporters.com. (2015). “Within four days, BuhariTwitter followers, over 45,000”. Accessed January 28, 2015.Igbinidu, c. (2011).“Social media and the 2011 elections”. Businessday,May 3, p.18.Jacobs, R.N. (2000). Race, media, and the crisis of civil society: From Wattsto Rodney King. New York: Cambridge University Press.Kaplan, A.M., & Haenlein, M. (2010). “Users of the world unite! Thechallenges and opportunities of social media. Business Horizon,53, 59-68.McQuail, D. (2005). McQuail’s mass communication Theory (5th ed.).London: SageNarasimhamurthy, N. (2014). Use and rise of the social media aselection campaign medium in India. International Journal ofInterdisciplinary and Multidisciplinary Studies, 1(18), 202-209.Nnaane, B. (2013). “Evaluation of the awareness and use of the socialmedia among students in south-south, Nigeria”. Ph.D ThesisSubmitted to the Department of Mass Communication, Facultyof Arts, University of Nigeria, Nsukka.Ogwuche, F.(2014). “Social media and 2015 polls: Seizing the moment”.http://www.thecable.ng. Accessed August 4, 2014.Ohaja, E.U. (2003). Mass communication research and project report writing.Surulere: John Letterman, Ltd.Okoro, N., & Nwafor, K.A. (2010). “Social media and politicalparticipation in Nigeria during the 2011 general elections: Thelapses and the lessons”. Global Journal of Arts, Humanities andSocial Sciences, 1(3), 29-46.Pavlik, J., & McIntosh, S. (2012). Converging media: A new Introduction tomass communication (2nd Edition). Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress, Inc.Rodman, G. (2010). Media in a changing world (3rd. ed.), New York:McGraw Hill Companies, Inc.Sen, A.F. (2012). “The Social media as a public sphere: The rise of socialopposition”. A Paper Delivered at the International Conferenceon Communication, Media, Technology and Design, Istanbul,Turkey, May 09-11.Skoric, M.M., Pan, J., & Poor, N.D. (2012). Social media and citizenengagement in a city-state: A study of Singapore. http://www.aaai.org. Accessed April 10, 2015.Tang, G., & Lee, F.l.F. (2013). Facebook use and participatory: Theimpact of exposure to shared political information, connectionswith public political actors, and network structuralheterogeneity. Social Science Computer Review, 31(6), 763-773.The Pew Research Center (2012a). Social media and politicalengagement. http://www.pewresearchcenter.org. AccessedApril 10, 2015.The Pew Research Center (2012b). Politics on social networking sites.http://www.pewresearchcenter.org. Accessed April 10, 2015.Towner, T.L. (2013). New media and the 2012 election. Social ScienceComputer Review, 31(5), 527-541.
Full Text: PDF
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.
