EFFECTIVENESS OF SOCIAL MEDIA AS A TOOL FOR POLITICAL MOBILIZATION

📁 Format: MS WORD | 🗂️ Chapters: 1-5 | 📄 Pages: 65

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1       Background to the Study

The mass media have since emerged as the most common source of information about election campaigns in democracies and societies in transition around the world (Macnamara, 2008). In terms of the sheer volume of information available to citizens via the media on issues – political parties and leaders; electioneering often represents a high point for political communications. The fact is, there is a great need for the people to be informed during elections and other exercises in the whole political processes leading up to the election (Denver, 2007, p. 125).

The electoral body in Nigeria-Independent National Electoral Commission, and political parties, as well as aspirants uses various platforms to reach the widely dispersed electorate- for mobilization, political participation or registration, voting process, politicking, and to sensitize the people on the best conduct during the election exercise.

Communication is at the center of all political activities, and the new Internet technologies offer various platforms where information and other socio-political communication can be constructed and discussed. This has made the medium become a formidable one; the mobilizing structure of the social networks and all resources necessary for popular mobilization, which in this case is contained in social media as the fastest and cheapest way to mobilize (Stark 2010). Increasing use of the new media has extended interaction in time and space.

In Nigeria, though presently popular amongst the elite, the social media (and other social networks, SNS) are gaining currency in politics. Amongst the elite, the social media provide unhindered communication with Internet users anywhere, anytime almost simultaneously (Nwoye, & Okafor, 2014:36). Individual users of the social media steer the use of verbal and non-verbal communication and accessories to remove territorial boundaries in their interaction with others. Thus, the Internet has enhanced access which is both open and close.

The throng of population social media has attracted in these years, as well as its unrestrained ubiquity and multimedia capabilities have all contributed to the success of new media technology and its growing popularity in political communication. It is an undeniable reality that the emergence of the Internet and other social networking sites available to the people in this information age have revolutionized and redefined the entire mass communication process (Sunstein, 2011).

With social media recently evolving as a platform for social, informational, and political exchange, it has become an influential tool used to effectively target numerous sectors in our society. It comes as no surprise that politicians are using these channels to influence attitudes about themselves, set agenda, and even shape outcomes of campaigns (Gale, 2010). The recently evolved “micro-blogging” social media site, Twitter, is the ideal vehicle for this kind of self-promotion; thus, giving politicians the ability to inform mass number of people about their political activities almost instantaneously (Aharony, 2010).

Twitter’s short posts, called “tweets,” enable users to share updates with friends, colleagues, and in a politician’s case, potential voters, giving users the ability to influence, inform, and engage each other in topics across the board. This implies that the use of social media for socio-political engineering has continued to grow. The technology is participatory, interactive and cost-effective making it a potent medium for communication in the twenty-first century (Okoro and Nwafor 2013:31). No doubt, they added that social media is ubiquitous. Their submission vividly captures the potency of the new media. In their words, Okoro and Nwafor opine that:

The new media is flexible, accessible and affordable. They promote democratization of media, alter the meaning of geographic distance, and allow for ease in the volume and speed of communication. The potency of the social media is becoming even more pervading by the day with the mobile social media now in vogue. Given the abrupt rise in mobile computing, most popular social media platforms of the past years now hinge on the capabilities of smart phones and tablets (Digital trends, 2014).

As evident in the February 22, 2019 Presidential elections, political parties, including the two prominent parties took to social media platforms such as online networking sites, blogs, twitter, Facebook, mobile newspapers, news ads, etc. to campaign and mobilize not only youths but all class of internet users to vote for them (Okoro & Nwafor 2013; PLAC 2011). Adding to this, are variety of interesting news and drama online providing opportunity for users to read, respond, interact, argue and sort out issues online. Twitter, Facebook, blogs, online newspapers etc. became platforms for people to air their thoughts on various candidates, and sway others towards their line of thinking with various debates, hashtags and online campaigns (Michael & Ajakaye; PLAC, 2011).

1.2       Statement of the Problem

In spite of the huge potentials of the new social media for consolidating democracy, they equally have their challenges. No doubt, the new social media platforms can be misused in disseminating unfiltered/unverified information and rumours which are inimical to strengthening democracy. The increasing use of social media and other online tools has indeed led to greater privacy challenges. This is to say that with the great potentials of the internet and other digital social media platforms, is included the challenges of monitoring and regulation. Obviously, the new social media require some sort of regulation if our society is not to degenerate into a state of anarchy.

 Social media despite its numerous advantages in fostering politics, democracy and good governance is also a very volatile platform to trend politics. A viral video of immoral conduct or lurid sex photo can instantly infect a political campaign or career, dooming it to untimely termination. Anonymity of sources makes it difficult for strict regulation, monitoring and prosecution of illicit acts. This makes it a vulnerable instrument for perpetuating fraudulent acts. It also promotes piracy. This is partly because the question of copyright and intellectual property are more complex and difficult to define and even more difficult to regulate online. Similarly, images and sounds can be digitally manipulated, so truth and reality are difficult to ascertain. Social media is addictive in nature, making work/life balance hard to achieve. With the new technologies, users get more than they bargain for because of their information overload and social network overload. There is also the problem of continuous partial attention which removes social media users from the real world.

1.3       Objective of the Study

The main objective of the study is to examine the effectiveness of social media as a tool for political mobilization. The specific objectives are to:

1. To determine the level of political awareness created on the social media among Nigerian electorates during the 2019 election.
2. To find out which social media platform people mostly used during the 2019 election.
3. To determine the influence social media have on voter behaviour in Nigeria during 2019 election.
4. To determine the extent of the effectiveness of social media as tools of political mobilization in 2019 election.

1.4   Research Questions

The following research questions have been raised:

1. What was the level of awareness created by the social media in the 2019 presidential election?
2. Which social media did people mostly use during the 2019 election?
3. To what extent did the social media influence electorate in the 2019 election?
4. How effective is social media as tools of political mobilization in Nigeria during the 2019 election?

1.5       Significance of the Study

Even though other academic studies may have been carried out in this area, this work will fill some literature gaps and also serve as additional body of knowledge in mass communication field. This work will immensely benefit the following end users:

The society: the society is the primary beneficiary of democracy, thus this work will expose members of the society to different ways the social media can be utilized to improve Nigerian electoral processes.

Government: Government as the machinery of the state will derive benefits in so many ways to properly harness the social media to engender effective campaign communications and cut down cost of spending in disseminating electoral and political information. Policy makers will see the need to make favourable policies that will advance further use of social media in Nigerian elections.

Media industry: media professionals/ owners will learn various ways to tap into the new online revolution. This study will enable them see better ways the mass of Nigerian publics can be reached simultaneously in order to dissemination proper political communications to media consumers through the social media.

Academics: this study will be an additional body of knowledge in the field of mass communication. It will also provide researchers stimulus for further research efforts in this area.

1.6       Scope of the Study

This study will cover various activities of Abeokuta South Local government on effectiveness of social media as a tool for political mobilization.

1.7         Limitation of the Study

A problem in gathering facts and figures for a project of this nature is inevitable. The researcher encountered some problems in administering the questionnaire. It look a lot of time and patient to get the appropriate people to fill and return the questionnaires, and getting access to the necessary documents was even more difficult.

Finally, time constraint is another limitation in the conduction of this research work. Although, despite the researcher work-load in preparing for the final examination during this research work, serious efforts were made to keep appointments with respondents and collection of other data that are objective factual and adequate for this research work.

1.8       Operational Definition of Terms

The following terms are hereby defined for the purpose of clarity.

Social media: Social media are interactive computer-mediated technologies that facilitate the creation or sharing of information, ideas, career interests and other forms of expression via virtual communities and networks.

Election Elections are can be assumed to be the crucial component of a democratic government or a political process. Going by this word, elections then can mean a tool for selecting 10 representatives in modern democracy. According to how the word was rendered in Merriam Webster, “it a process of choosing someone for a public office by voting

Political mobilization refers to “the process by which candidates, parties, activists, and groups induce other people to participate” in politics “to win elections, to pass bills, to modify rulings, [and] to influence policies”. Political organizations may contact people and provide a specific “opportunity for political action.

Democracy: a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.

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