The Use of Social Media and Participation in Political Communication in the 2019 General Election in Nigeria

Emmanuel Ufuophu-Biri

doi:10.7176/ikm/10-3-03

Abstract

Research findings have shown that the social media are very active in promotion of citizens’ participation in political and electoral procession in many countries. However, the Nigerian voters before the advent of the social media have been mainly receivers of information on election without being active participants in the electoral information flow. The voters did not have access to the mainstream media which had hitherto been the main conveyors of electoral information. Therefore, the purpose of the study is to examine how the electorate in Delta State, Nigeria used the social media for participation in political communication during the 2019 Nigerian general elections. The study is guided by the Technological Acceptance Model which explains how users come to accept and use a technology. The study used survey and questionnaire as method and instrument respectively to gather the data. We used both simple random sampling technique and purposive sampling technique. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The results show that the voters are highly exposed to political communication in the social media; they have favourable perception of the social media usage for political communication; they prefer the social media to the mainstream media in participation in political communication; and they participate more actively in political communication during the said election through the social media more than they did previous elections through the mainstream media. We recommend that that the voters should sustain their exposure to the use of the social media for political participation so that can also be kept abreast of the happenings in the political terrain and they should continue to use the social media to interrogate political leaders, election candidates during elections and after the election period. Keywords: Silenced electorate; Nigerian general elections; social media and elections; political participation; participation in political communication, participation in political discourse. DOI: 10.7176/IKM/10-3-03 Publication date: April 30 th 2020

Highlights

Elections in Nigeria are taken very seriously by all the stakeholders
The results show that the voters are highly exposed to political communication in the social media; they have favourable perception of the social media usage for political communication; they prefer the social media to the mainstream media in participation in political communication; and they participate more actively in political communication during the said election through the social media more than they did previous elections through the mainstream media
Summary and Conclusion The study was designed to interrogate the extent of the social media by the electorate in Delta State Nigeria to participate in the 2019 general election in Nigeria

Summary

Introduction

Elections in Nigeria are taken very seriously by all the stakeholders. The stakeholders include political parties, candidates, the electorate, the electoral umpire, government, law enforcement agencies and organized civil societies. Before the adoption of the social media for political communication, political communication had largely been a one way communication basically from the political contestants, political parties, government and the election umpire to the electorate. Sauter and Bruns (2013) write that the major means of mass communicating with the voters before the use of the social media was through the mainstream media of newspaper, magazine, radio and television. These media houses only paid attention to the political gladiators and the election umpires without given adequate opportunity to the voters to participate in the political discourse

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Conclusion