SAU Journal of Management and Social Sciences www.sau.edu.ng/colmassjournal (ISSN: 2550-7302) Volume 4, Number1 & 2 June/December2019

Exposure to Social Media Political Campaigns and their Influence on the Choice of Candidates during the 2019 Governorship Election in Imo State,

Chike Walter Duru, PhD Department of Mass Communication Madonna University, Okija, , Nigeria [email protected]; +2348036711220

Abstract The study was carried out to determine the influence of political advertising via social media on the voting behaviour of electorates in Imo State during the 2019 Governorship election. The study adopted the survey method, with the questionnaire as research instrument. A sample size of 400 was adopted. Findings revealed that the electorates in Imo State were exposed to political advertising and that the new media were not the most effective channels for political advertising in the 2019 general elections in Imo State. New media political campaigns did not influence the electoral behaviour and voting pattern of Imo electorates in the 2019 governorship election. It was, therefore, recommended that political advertising on new media reflects the basic needs of the people so as to draw public attention and motivate them to make favourable voting decisions.

Keywords: Exposure, Social Media, Political Advertising, 2019 Elections

Introduction Political advertising deals with political messages aimed at promoting a candidate, , or interest. Political advertising describes messages which contents are political and presented to influence voters’ behaviour through its perceived persuasive impact. Political advertising targets the audience, with a view to persuading them to support their candidate(s) through the articulate display of manifesto. The message is to motivate the electorates and encourage them to make meaningful electoral decisions. Owuamalam (2015) posited that the message moves a considerable number of voters, who relate the proposal to their respective needs satisfaction within the political constituency. Owuamalam (2005) also opined that it serves as a major plank for attracting voters’ attention, arousing voting disposition and facilitating favourable patronage at the specific election. Political advertising provides information which voters need to assess candidates’ capability in satisfying their needs. The channels for reaching the audience appear to have changed due to the fact that the new media of communication have taken the centre stage of social interaction. It is through this interaction that political information is exchanged with the electorates. The social media or the new media have been useful in political advertising. The emergence of social media in political advertising came during Barrack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign (Carr, 2008, p. 201):

Like a vote of web innovators, the Obama campaign did not invent anything completely new. Instead, by bottling together social networking 241

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application under the banner of a movement, they created unforeseen forces to raise money, organise locally, fight smear campaigns and get out the vote that helped them topple the Clinton Machine and then John Mc Cain and the Republicans. Obama’s success can be attributed to an array of new incredibly speedy and cheap internet tools-e-mail, social networks, Twitter and the like (and enable him) to run a grassroots campaign that contacted individual voters in personated encounters on a near daily basis.

The new changes in political communication in the era of new media have brought about the engaging of the electorates from the physical campaign ground to their smart phone at the comfort of their closet. The need for political advertising is to win the mind of the electorates in voting for a particular candidate in a general election. Olalekan (2003, p. 9) avers that:

Persuasive communication at this stage is mainly focused on the public opinion leaders, social critics and various pressure groups from the top to the grassroots. The aim is to carry the favour of these influential elements in the society to support the party’s programme, ideological preferences and manifesto.’’

The new media are very crucial sets of communication systems that share certain features, made possible by digitalisation. They are widely available for personal use. Asemah and Edegoh (2012) described new media as digital, having characteristics of being manipulated, networkable, dense, compressible and interactive. The study, therefore, seeks to determine the influence of political advertising via social media on the voting behaviour of electorates in Imo State during the 2019 Governorship elections.

Statement of the problem The power of the new media, particularly, in the area of timely dissemination of information cannot be overemphasised. It is a trend that has gained global acceptance and is now indispensible in every serious communication activity. During the 2019 governorship election in Imo state, as other parts of Nigeria, political parties, no doubt, made use of political advertising to sell their parties and candidates. However, there are doubts, if the introduction of new media in election campaigns was very effective in influencing the political behaviour of the electorates. Imo state appears to be one of the places where such doubts are manifest, as the impact of social media on the voting behaviour of the electorates may have been minimal. This study, was, therefore, motivated by the need to investigate the impact of new media in political advertising during the 2019 governorship election in Imo State.

Objectives of the Study The study sought to: 1. Determine the extent to which the electorate in Imo State accessed political campaign messages via social media during the 2019 governorship election. 242

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2. Ascertain the channels through which the electorate mostly accessed messages on political campaigns during the governorship election in Imo State.

3. Determine how the electorate perceived the political campaign messages via social media during the 2019 governorship election in Imo State.

4. Find out the extent to which the political campaigns affected the voting behaviour of the electorate during the 2019 governorship election in Imo State

Theoretical Framework, Conceptual Review and Reviw of Empirical Studies The study is anchored on the agenda setting theory. The agenda setting theory’s major assumption is that the media set agenda for the public to follow. The theory holds that most of the pictures we store in our heads, most of the things we think or worry about or even discuss are based on the contents of different mass media platforms. Wimmer & Dominick (2000) observed that the theory holds that the media propose the public agenda or what kind of things people discuss, think and worry about, by what the media choose to publicise. The theory is relevant to this study because it helps the author in establishing the relationship between audience exposure to media contents, particularly, political advertisement on social media and their voting behaviour during the 2019 governorship election in Imo State. Advertising is a planned form of paid communication, with an identifiable sponsor. It is both an act and art of communication used by individuals and government endeavours to communicate their goods, products or services, as the case may be, to the audience (Asemah, 2011). Arens (2008, p. 7) says that ‘‘advertising is the structural and composed non personal communication of information, usually paid for and usually persuasive in nature, about products, services and ideas by identified sponsors, through various mass media.’’ Arens’ opinion agrees with that of Dominick (2007, p. 321), which says that advertising is any form of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods and services, usually paid for by an identified sponsor. Advertising is, therefore, any form of communication that is paid for, directed at a target audience through the mass media, with the aim of creating awareness about goods and services, as well as selling a candidate. As noted by Olujide, Adeyemi & Gbadejan (2010), political advertising is the use of media by political candidates to increase their exposure to the public. Generally, political advertising includes any advertising exhibits, newspaper advertisements, billboards, brochure, signs, tabloids, letters, articles or information on social media for the purpose of persuading the electorate to act in a certain, preferred way. It aims at influencing the opinion and political decision, as well as voting pattern of the electorates in an election. It may also aim at attracting funding support to a political campaign or project. New media are interactive forms of communication that use the internet. They include podcasts, RSS feeds, social networks, text messaging, blogs, irikis, among others. New media make it possible for anyone to create, modify and share contents, using relatively simple tools that are often free or inexpensive. New media require a computer or mobile device with internet access. The new media are important sets of communication techniques that share certain features, made possible by digitalisation. 243

SAU Journal of Management and Social Sciences www.sau.edu.ng/colmassjournal (ISSN: 2550-7302) Volume 4, Number1 & 2 June/December2019

Asemah & Edegoh (2012, p. 54) described new media as ‘‘digital, having characteristics of being manipulated, networkable, dense, compressible and interactive.’’ The new media consist of the new media networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, blogs, etc. Those sites serve the purpose of communication from one person to people or from people to people (Shirkly, 2008). A study by Garrett (2019) focused on the Social media’s contribution to political misperceptions in U.S. Presidential elections. The research used three-wave panel surveys conducted with representative samples of Americans during both the 2012 and 2016 United States Presidential elections to assess whether use of social media for political information promoted endorsement of falsehoods about major party candidates or important campaign issues. Results indicate that social media use had a small but significant influence on misperceptions about President Obama in the 2012 election, and that this effect was most pronounced among strong partisans. Social media had no effect on belief accuracy about the Republican candidate in that election. Another related study in 2012 by Asemah & Edegoh (2012) focused on the new media and political advertising in Nigeria. Findings from the study show that the political parties in Nigeria occasionally recognise and make use of the new media for carrying out their political activities. Findings also show that there are prospects and challenges of new media as a tool for political advertising in Nigeria. One of the prospects is that the new media can reach a very broad audience. One other related study on Social Media in managing political advertising in India by Safiulla, Pramod, Saumya & Ankita (2016) explored the implications of Twitter on political marketing by studying the relationship between tweet followers and vote share gained by political parties, taking Delhi Assembly elections 2015 as a case in point. The findings suggest that there is a positive correlation between the volume of tweet and vote share.

Methodology The survey research method was adopted for the study, aimed at measuring the impact of new media on political advertising during the 2019 general elections in Imo state. For the purpose of this study, a sample size of 400 was used, drawn from a total population of Three Hundred and Fifty Nine Thousand, One Hundred and Twenty Four (359,124) registered voters in Owerri Federal Constituency of Imo State, according to the records of the Independent National Electoral Commission. Owerri Federal Constituency is made up of three Local Government Areas, namely: Owerri Municipal (119, 372 registered voters), Owerri North (114,224 registered voters and Owerri West (125,528 registered voters, totalling 359,124 registered voters, which constitute the study population. The multistage sampling technique was adopted for the study.

S = N 1 + n (E) 2 Where S = Sample size N = Population of study E = Margin of error which is put as 0.05 or 5% for this study.

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Data Presentation and Analysis Out of the four hundred (400) copies of the questionnaire distributed, three hundred and ninety-three (393) were retrieved, upon which the analysis and interpretation was based.

Table 1: Responses on Extent of Access to Political Messages during the 2019 Governorship Election in Imo State Responses Frequency Percentage Very high 180 45.5% High 89 22.75% Can’t tell 35 9% Low 89 22.75% Very low 0 0% Total 393 100

Responses from table one above show that majority (45.5%) of the voters, to a very high extent, had access to political messages during the 2019 Governorship Election in Imo State.

Table 2: Responses on the Social Networking Sites through which the Electorate Accessed Political Messages Responses Frequency Percentage Facebook 130 33% WhatsApp 106 27% Instagram 43 11% Twitter 46 12% LinkedIn 36 9% Zoom 0 0% Skype 32 8% GooglePlus 0 0% Telegram 0 0% Tancent QQ (QQ) 0 0% Total 393 100

Table two above shows that majority (33%) of the respondents accessed their political messages via social media on Facebook.

Table 3: Types of Political Messages exposed to during the Campaign via Social Media Category Frequency Percentage (%) Electoral welfare 186 47.8 Infrastructural development 101 25 Economic development 106 26.7 Total 393 100

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Table Three above shows that majority (47.8) of the respondents got more of electoral welfare messages from the political parties and actors during the 2019 Governorship election in Imo State.

Table 4: The Political Parties more Messages were received from Political Party Frequency Percentage Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) 92 22.75% All Progressives Congress (APC) 45 11.37 % All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) 36 9% Action Alliance (AA) 182 45% (LP) 0 0% Young Progressives Party (YPP) 45 11.37% 0 0% Others 0 0% Table four above shows that majority (45%) of the respondents said they received more political messages from Action Alliance than the other over sixty political parties that participated in the Governorship election in 2019.

Table 5: Responses on the effectiveness (clarity) of the Campaign Messages Responses Frequency Percentage Very effective 133 32% Effective 246 59% Can’t tell 0 0% Less effective 0 0% Not effective 14 9% Total 393 100

Responses from table five above show that majority (59%) of the respondents agree that the campaign messages were effective.

Table 6: Responses on the Campaign influencing the Choice of Candidates during the Election Responses Frequency Percentage Strongly agree 0 0% Agree 138 35% Undecided 0 0% Disagree 24 6% Strongly disagree 231 59% Total 393 100%

Responses from table six above show that majority (59%) of the electorate strongly disagree with the campaign influencing the choice of candidates during the election, despite the effective delivery of the messages. 246

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Table 7: Responses on the extent to which the Campaign influenced the Choice of Candidates during the 2019 Governorship Election in Imo State Responses Frequency Percentages Very great 0 0% Great 104 27.7% Can’t tell 0 0% Low 101 25% Very low 186 47.8% Total 393 100%

Responses from table seven above show that majority (47.8%) of the electorate are of the opinion that the extent to which the campaign influenced the choice of candidates during the 2019 governorship election in Imo State was very low.

Discussion of Findings From the findings of the study, political advertising on new media was used by politicians in Imo State during the 2019 governorship election in the state. Aspirants and candidates used social media campaigns to create awareness about their political ambition. This aligns with Asemah & Edegoh (2012) who opined that political parties in Nigeria recognise and make use of the new media for carrying out their political activities and that the new media can reach a very broad audience. The political messages disseminated using the new media were more of awareness advertisements and electoral welfare. Findings also show that the political campaign messages were effectively delivered, as they were understood by the electorate, but the messages did not influence the electorates’ choice of candidates and voting pattern. This is evident in the fact that despite the fact that the Action Alliance, which candidate was the choice of the then Governor of the State had more of its messages received by the electorate, their voting pattern and the final result of the election did not favour the party’s candidate. The finding also showed that majority of the respondents accessed their political messages through Facebook.

Conclusion and Recommendations It is safe to conclude that while political advertisements on new media have the likelihood and the capacity to reach millions of target audience, particularly, the electorates, it does not automatically translate to influencing their voting patterns and choice of candidates. Based on the findings and conclusion, the following recommendations are hereby given:

1. Political advertising messages on new media should reflect the basic needs of the people so as to motivate them to make favourable voting decisions. 2. Political parties should endeavour to feature popular and acceptable candidates during all such elections.

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3. Political parties and actors should always engage the services of professional communication practitioners for political advertisements on new media so that the objectives of the campaign would be achieved.

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