CHAPTER
ONE
INTRODUCTION
Political analysts, researchers and
communication experts have established that, for the first time in the history
of politics in Nigeria; media were used to the fullest especially with
proliferation and growth of new media otherwise known as social media.
Social media was a major platform for
political mobilization, education, debate and opinions generation on political
matter which gave Nigerian home and Diaspora an opportunity to play their part
and share their views on different issues especially as it occurs to them
rather than objectively.
The tone, theme, and language used on
citizen media reflected biases, hate statement, regionalism, tribalism,
ethnicity, zonal, religion difference, political difference and
others.
According to Greg, S. (2007:1) writes
that, the art of politicking has always relied upon the promotion of one
candidate or point of view over another. The only thing that has changed is the
method and techniques made available to political communicators.
In the early days of political
communication and advertising; politicians, supporters, political parties,
INEC, civil social society and other stakeholders relied upon the use of
handbills, word of mouth, billboard, newspaper and later to radio, television.
Also, as technology evolved the channels available to political stakeholder
expanded and interactive in nature with the proliferation of new media (social
media/blogs).
The twentieth century marked the first
time in political communication history in Nigeria that political communicators
had the means to reach audiences on a mass scale. Politics was no longer local
at least in its reach and ability to communicate with the electorates while
electorate also contributes, to political debates, comments etc meaning that
electorates were not a passive member of political debate, mobilization like
they used to be before, but rather they were active member at that time.
In the just concluded 2015
general election, lots of media were used at that time, both the traditional
mass media represented by the radio, television, newspaper, magazine, etc and
new media represented by the facebook, twitter, youtube, instagram and other
forum/blog/websites such as naij, linda ikeji blog, afriwatch, eyenigeria,
nairaland, naijamouthed among others. Olayinka, (2015). But the most visible
competition lies in the two major political parties i.e PDP and APC and all
media houses, social media platform were consciously and unconsciously divided
into two in mobilizing citizen for political participation.
Political participation means the
involvement of the citizenry in the process of governing their state affairs.
In other words, political participation means the proposed or conscious act of
involvement of the citizens to influence the pattern, structure and composition
of the government of the state.
It also involves the citizenry
participation in the formulation and execution of laws, policies and
regulations for their governance, and their choice making for decision-making
representative or leader in their society.
Political participation involves all
the political activities of citizens, either as individual or groups geared
towards or designed to influence the political process. It is the citizen’s
involvement, actually to influence directly or indirectly the ways, directions
and methods of governance or more specifically, the output or outcome (results)
of political process. It is a political activity which is directed at selecting
rulers in influencing the decision of government and the way government
governs. Chudi-Oji C. (2013)
Facebook.com which started as a local
social network made for the students of Harvard. It was developed by a
sophomore, Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook was actually made by making Harvard’s
data base containing identification images of students. The initial idea was
actually to compare the faces of students with images of animals, for
entertainment purposes. However, due to the potentially damaging contents of
the site, the creators decided to put it down before it caught the attention of
school authorities but today it is a tool and platform for political debate,
mobilization and education that was extensively used during the 2015 general
election in Nigeria.
questionnaires
were administered to 200 respondents within Lagos metropolis who were selected
using accidental sampling technique. Data collected were analyzed and
interpreted using table, frequency and percentage method. It was recommended
that billboard should be erected in a strategic place with adequate monitoring to
avoid been pulled down by the wind while reasonable font and graphics should be
moderately used.
