{"id":206,"date":"2019-01-18T17:08:17","date_gmt":"2019-01-18T17:08:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mukatoinvestment.com\/blog\/?p=206"},"modified":"2019-01-18T17:30:57","modified_gmt":"2019-01-18T17:30:57","slug":"effects-of-social-media-on-the-on-going-political-campaigns-i-n-nigeria-by-olaoluwa-mufutau-k-fnim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.mukatoinvestment.com\/blog\/2019\/01\/18\/effects-of-social-media-on-the-on-going-political-campaigns-i-n-nigeria-by-olaoluwa-mufutau-k-fnim\/","title":{"rendered":"EFFECTS OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON THE ON GOING POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS I N NIGERIA BY: OLAOLUWA MUFUTAU K. (FNIM)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Nigeria is in high mood on the preparation for the next general election. The election fixed for 16th<\/sup> February, 2019 is to usher in a new president and new members of the senate and the national House of Representatives at the Federal government level. It will be followed by another election fixed for March 2, 2019 for the governorship elections in  all the States of the Federation ( except for Anambra, Bayelsa, Kogi, Edo, Ondo, Ekiti and Osun States) and  the state Houses of assembly election in all the States of the Federation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Campaign by contestants and their\npolitical parties is a major aspect of preparation for election in Nigeria just\nlike any other democratic countries of the world. Campaign is defined in\nEnglish Dictionary as \u2019\u2019a series of operations undertaken to achieve a set goal\u2019\u2019.\nPolitical Campaign engenders interaction and familiarization of Contestants and\ntheir Political parties with the Voters. It enables the parties to transmit\nmessage to voters and convince many of the registered voters as to why they\nshould vote for them and not their opponents. \nCampaigns, if properly done, can create awareness about the oncoming\nelection and assist the voters to vote intelligently. Reasonable campaigns\nshould also be an account of what contestants and their political parties have\nachieved in the past and what further improvements, progress and developments\nthey are capable of bringing up if they are voted in the next election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

FORMS OF CAMPAIGN:<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Campaigns, from the past experience, take different forms\nsuch as:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Door to door campaign<\/li>
  2. Town hall meeting<\/li>
  3. Jingles on the electronic media such as Radio\nand TV.<\/li>
  4. Advertisement on the Print media.<\/li>
  5. Town crier.<\/li>
  6. Personal contact with the presumed influential\npeople or group of people such as traditional rulers, clubs, clan\/village heads,\nbusiness class, trade unions, market associations, artisan groups, etc.<\/li>
  7. Street parades<\/li>
  8. Public rallies in which the members of the\npolitical parties, their contestants and general public are brought together in\na public gathering to introduce contestants to the public. In this medium of\ncampaign, mammoth crowd is expected, festivities engendered, and a media coverage\nof the event gives it an enhanced coloration.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    However, none form of campaign is undertaken by political\nparties in isolation. It is usually a mixture of them that are put to use by\nthe contestants and their political parties; they all reinforce one another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Technology and Campaign:<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

    Modern technologies in Computers and cell phones have\nincreased the medium of reaching people for political campaigns. These machines\nare now household material in many homes. When they are put on line, communication\nwith anyone else in every nook and cranny of the world is made possible.\nPoliticians now use facilities such as sms, mms, e-mail, and websites on the\ninternet to transmit political campaigns to the cell phones and computer users.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    E-mail: <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    E-mail is a system of sending messages from individuals to\nindividuals via telecommunication links between computers or terminals. To get an\nallocation of a space on the internet for the purpose of sending or receiving mails\non your computer or handsets, users must register their addresses with any of\nthe following websites: www.yahoo.com<\/a>, www.Hotmail.com<\/a>, www.gmail.com<\/a>, www.lynx.com<\/a>,\nwww.cbf.com<\/a>, etc. Bulk sms on e-mail has\nhelped many contestants to pass their campaign messages to so many computer and\nhandsets users with ease of access and cost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Websites:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    Websites are personal domains on the World Wide Web. Like\nthe e-mail, you have to register a website address to get a space allocated for\nyou on the World Wide Web.  A popular\nwebsite has an unimaginable outreach in term of information dissemination to\nthe computer and handset users.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Political parties and many of the contestants now have their\nown websites with which they advertise their profiles and campaign contents to\nthe computer and handset users.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Social media:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

                   Social media is a free on line\nservice which offers opportunity for social interaction among uncountable\nnumber of people on the handsets and computers. Social media can be categorized\ninto: social networking (building friendships and relationships online,\ncharting and instant messaging (IM), online publications, blog networks, etc.\nSome of the Popular social media platforms are: Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp ,\nYou tube, Linked in, My space, Friendster, Delicious, Discuss, live journal,\nFlickr, Wikipedia, Google+, Instagram, Pinterest, Podcasting, Snap chat, etc.\nAll these have gained more than one billion users worldwide and they have made\nit easy for users to create and exchange user-generated contents. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Political Participation in Social Media:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    Getting connected to the public on social media has become a\nvital tool for the politicians for their campaigns in many countries of the\nworld. With the rise of social media all over the world, politicians use the\nsocial media for communication on a larger scale with minimum effort.  Narendra Modi social campaign in 2014, Barack\nObama presidential campaigns in 2008 and 2012, Arab Spring in 2011 have\nactivated the interest politicians in networked digital connectivity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Effects of social media in the ongoing political campaign in Nigeria:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    In Nigeria, the largest percentage of voters is the youths.\nThe youths are also the largest users of social media in Nigeria. Social media\nhas therefore provided an opportunity to reach a larger percentage of voters in\nthe individual constituency of contestant with ease of cost and widespread. The\neffect of social media in reduction of the cost of ongoing campaigns in Nigeria\ncan therefore not be over looked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Another significant observed impact of social media on the\nongoing political campaigns is that many contestants and their political parties\nhad started to market themselves to the public in and outside their\nconstituencies much earlier than the campaigns for the election became a\ngeneral issue in the public domain. By the time the ground is set for it there\nwas already a feeling of satisfaction in some contestants that a lot of underground\noutreach has been covered. Since no medium of campaign is self-sufficient,\nsocial media is now a medium of campaign that has effectively reinforced other\nmedium of political campaigns in Nigeria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Adverse effects of the social media\nas a tool of political campaign in Nigeria<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    The Adverse effects of the social media as a tool of political\ncampaign in Nigeria are: the incidence of fake news, hate speech, and the\nnuisance of unsolicited messages and media hype. The low level of literacy\namong the Nigerians in general is also a critical limitation to the potency of\nthis medium of campaign among Nigerian voters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Conclusion<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    To improve the acceptability of social media as veritable\nmedium of campaign in Nigeria now and in the future, Politicians need to\nexercise more maturity and discipline in their campaigns. Campaigns should be\nissue based rather than avenue for fake news, hate speech media hype, and media\nassault.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Social media is really a very good medium to undertake\nvoters\u2019 education and voters\u2019 conviction if it is properly utilized by\ncontestants and their political parties. Thank you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Nigeria is in high mood on the preparation for the next general election. The election fixed for 16th February, 2019 is to usher in a new president and new members of the senate and the national House of Representatives at the Federal government level. It will be followed by another election fixed for March 2, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":171,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mukato-discussion-blog","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mukatoinvestment.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mukatoinvestment.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mukatoinvestment.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mukatoinvestment.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mukatoinvestment.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.mukatoinvestment.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":212,"href":"http:\/\/www.mukatoinvestment.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206\/revisions\/212"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mukatoinvestment.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mukatoinvestment.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mukatoinvestment.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mukatoinvestment.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}