ABSTRACT
The study examined AUN students’ awareness of the All Progressives Congress, APC,use of the social media in the 2015 Nigerian presidential election. The study sought to gauge how much AUN students know about APC’s use of the social media in the 2015 Nigerian presidential election. The study is anchored on two relevant theories: Media Dependency and Agenda-Setting theories. The researcher used survey method,with questionnaire as the instrument for data collection. The data gathered from the closed- and open-ended items of the questionnaire were analyzed using simple percentages and frequency counts. Findings show that majority of the students know enough about the party’s strategic use of the social media in the 2015 presidential election to state that doing so made the party popular, publicized its manifestoes, as well as made it to emerge victorious at the poll. Therefore, political parties should embrace the social media wholly as a veritable toolfor carrying out electoral campaigns.
CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION
- Background to the Study
The Meriam-Webster dictionary (2008) defines social media as “forms of electronic communication (as websites for social networking and blogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other contents (as video)”. The same source defines networking as “the exchange of information or services among individuals, groups, or institutions, specifically the cultivation of productive relationships among young adults.”
In the 21st century, the means of communication has risen to many platforms; technology has created new templates of communication everywhere — from person to person, person to mass media and vice versa. As computer technology increases, the coming of social media has become so popular that it is completely changing the way people view, send, respond to societal issues and, is opening up new ways for people to interact with one another and across the world at large without having to step a foot out of their homes or beyond the shore of their countries (Alysse B. 2010).
Social media arrival has greatly changed human way of communication. Marshal McLuhan in 1964 predicted that the world would someday become a “global village” where things that happen in some part of the world would be instantly known worldwide. People can stay directly in their homes and get latest events, information and entertainment happening around the world and enjoy full interaction with the world by pressing that single button.
Individuals, groups, organizations and even political parties are taking advantage of the opportunities which is provided by social media to mobilize millions of people to support and advance their course in many parts of the world today.
In the political sphere the social media have become a veritable tool for mobilizing citizens towards active participation in the political process and democratic projects, hence, the use of social media in politics has experienced a tremendous growth. Since Barack Obama broke the world record in the history of social media use for political purpose during the 2008 US presidential elections, many nations and politicians across the globe have continued to embrace the platform to mobilize their citizens and candidates towards active participation in the political process (Pew Research Center, J&M 2012).
On the African continent, the power of the social media is being felt during political crisis and elections among others. For instance, social media played a significant role during the Arab Spring crisis. The Arab Spring was referred to as Twitter or Facebook Revolution as modern technologies were used for communicating and interacting between participants in political protests. Social media played a central role in spreading awareness and shaping political debates about ongoing events all over the world. According to Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre (2012), the 2011 elections in Nigeria witnessed a remarkable use of the social media as a tool for political communication. Personal websites, blogs, and many social media platforms were used for campaigns. Aside from this, the social media was equally used as a weapon to undermine and even destroy the image of other political parties, especially the ruling party at that time, the People‟s Democratic Party, PDP.
In the 2015 general election, the social media became more potent tool and even a more lethal weapon. There were releases in the form of videos, voice notes, headlines, and broadcasts that made and marred many political parties and individuals. For example, a publication on Senator Buruji Kashamu, an Ogun State aspirant to the Nigerian Senate, almost marred his political ambition and eventually his swearing- “some people after me for political reasons” (Benameisigha, 2016). A hate video was broadcast on both General Muhammadu Buhari and the national leader of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Senator Bola Tinubu.
The impacts of the social media were mostly recognized in the 2015 Nigerian presidential elections. In the election, the opposition APC, used different social media platforms to disseminate ideas or information to targeted audiences, especially during the presidential campaigns.
Brief History of the American University of Nigeria
The American University of Nigeria, AUN, was founded by His Excellency Atiku Abubakar, a former vice president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. AUN is located in Yola, Adamawa State, Nigeria. The university offers American-style education at undergraduate, graduate and professional levels. Its mission is to pioneer service and learning and transform them into Africa‟s tomorrow leaders equipped with skills to tackle continental concerns: economics and social difficulties. Since its establishment, the university has produced problems solvers at different societal levels. Some of AUN‟s products have launched the software that are being utilized by the university today, including OpenERP, Quest, and NHIS PATEXP for Federal Medical Centre, Yola (Orakpo, 2016). This is goes to show that AUN is technology-driven and its students are technology-savvy. Thus, the social media is widely used in the institution.
In this information age, social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Instagram, Snapchat, and WhatsApp seem to be growing in popularity and at a fast rate, especially among young adults (Pempek, Yermolayeva, & Calvert, 2009). The new social media have become an important part of our lives because they promote the social networking and independence of our culturally diverse world, and this includes the fact that interconnectivity and social interaction is used as a platform for education, information, and entertainment.
Brief History of APC
After some decades of military rule in Nigeria, a successful transition from the military to a democratic system of government took place on 29 May 1999. After the death of General Sani Abacha in 1998, General Abdulsalam Abubakar took over and handed over to the 4th republican president of Nigeria, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, who defeated Chief Olu Falae of Alliance for Democracy, AD, in 1999. The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, had been in power since the regimes of Obasanjo, Umar Musa Yar‟adua and Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, who became president after the death of Yar‟adua in 2010. The PDP had been in power for 16 years. Because Nigeria was a young democracy, some opposition political parties felt that 16 years was too much for only one political parties to be in power; chief among these political parties were the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, the All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP, the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, and All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA. These parties later merged to form the APC in February 2013, and wrestled power from the PDP in the 2015 general elections.
- Statement of the Problem
In the build-up to the 2015 general elections in Nigeria, social media provided a platform that amplified the voices of APC members, taking ordinary voices and making them extraordinary by bringing them to a good number of homes, offices, and places most of them would not have probably reached under different circumstances across Nigeria.
