Content Analysis Of 2015 Election Political Advertisments In Selected National Dailies Of Nigeria

Abstract

The Nigerian Press in its 156 years of existence from the Reverend Henry Townsend days has been enmeshed in politics and is in fact insoluble from it like Siamese twins. From its debut in November 23rd 1859 with “Iwe Iroyin fun Awon Ara Egba ati Yoruba” (Newspaper for the Egbas and Yorubas) the press has taken centre stage in matters affecting all spheres of individual life and collective existence including religion, education, economy and politics among others. Thenewspaper was actually noted to have educated the growing publics about history and politics of the time. The growth in media has given room for political parties to reach larger groups of constituents, and tailor their adverts to reach new demographics. Unlike the campaigns of the past, advances in media have streamlined the process, giving candidates more optionsto reach even larger group of constituents with very little physical efforts. Political advertising is a form of campaign used by political parties to reach and influence voters. It can include several different mediums and span several months over the course of a political campaign and the main aim is to sway the audience one way or the other. Political advertisements involve the use of advertising campaigns by politicians to bring their messages to the masses or the electorates in order to explain policy, inform citizens and connect people to their leaders. It is a form of campaigning by political candidates to reach and influence voters through diverse media (including web based media). Politics on the other hand has to do with activities involved in getting and using power in public life, and being able to influence decisions that affect a country or a society. Thus political advertisement in the context of this study are strategically placed information deliberately informing the populace or making public activities or personalities as well as political parties and ideologies in order to get and use power by placing such information in the newspapers. The Punch, The Guardian, Vanguard and Daily Trust were purposively selected for the study investigating prominence of political advertisements featured before, during and after the elections; contents as the pictures, logos, texts, and languages majorly used in the political advertisements; and adversarial or the slants/directions of the March 28th Presidential and April 11th 2015 Assemblies Elections.Content categories include language, logo/icon/symbols, issue/personality/event/activity, visuals/pix, size, colour, political ideology among others. The study reveals that political adverts were prominent in the newspapers during the six-month period with the dominance of full page adverts, mostly inside-page adverts, aspirant-filled pictures, PDP-dominated and coloured adverts, largely favourable and friendly adverts with rational appeal going before testimony appeals. It further shows that Punch closely followed by Guardian had the highest adverts, while PDP and APC dominated the political landscape with low presence of adversarial contents. The study recommends more ethical monitoring of political adverts as well as the de-commodification of newspaper contents.