THE ROLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA IN CONTEMPORARY DEMOCRACY: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF APC AND PDP CAMPAIGNS DURING THE 2015 AND 2019 GENERAL ELECTIONS IN NIGERIA

Abstract

The study focuses on the use of social media in the 2015/2019 general elections in Nigeria. The study focuses on how the PDP (Peoples Democratic Party) and APC (All Progressive Congress) made use of social media in political mobilization, political communication and spreading information in the two general elections. In the course of the study, several literatures and researches about the elections and use of social media in Nigeria were studied to get different perspectives of how the political parties made use of several social media platforms in their political campaigns. Based on the study it was found out that both parties made use of twitter more than any other platform for political mobilization, communication and campaign. The use of party sponsored hashtags was prevalent in the political process while social media influencers were majorly used by party officials. False propagandas shared by both political parties were prevalent in the political process using social media as the appropriate tool. Social media was also used by supporters of both parties, civil societies, electorates and the electoral commission to monitor the electoral processes in the different polling areas. Keywords: Social media, general election, Twitter, democracy, communication, political mobilization . DOI: 10.7176/NMMC/96-09 Publication date: July 31 st 2021