The Role Of Radio In Mobilizing Electorate Towards Participating In Governorship Election

1.1 Background to the Study

Media impact on political campaigns and voting has always been at the center of some of mass communication earliest research. Given that the media (television / radio) had yet to develop into a true mass medium and that the notion of limited effects held sway, the overall conclusion was that the media had little direct impact on campaigns and voting, and when or if they did, such impact was in form of reinforcement but with the fuller diffusion of television and radio and the interest generated in these medium, thinking about media and campaigns began to change. For example after the focus of televised debates on how political candidates used media for image building and “cheapening” of campaigns, it has made these personalities become more important than issues. 

There is no gain saying the fact that the media helps in shaping the perception of the voters during the process of electioneering campaigns as they try to x-ray the various political actors and players. This is so because the media has the power of persuasion.

Perception is the process of attaining awareness or understanding of sensory information. In relation to the media, the implication of the above assertion means that people are often viewed with a preconceived idea. This is because; there is no man without a history. They often bring the history of anybody gunning for any electoral post to limelight and tries to shape or build the perception of the people about the candidate. The media often sets an agenda for the people. The agenda-setting hypothesis asserts that the media have an effect indirectly by choosing certain issues for emphasis, thus making those issues more salient to the audiences.

Another important development in contemporary thinking that came up about media and political campaigns was the agenda-setting. Agenda-setting was used to explain how the media can influence campaigns and voting from the audience. The media has helped to set the issue agenda that dictates the issue on which majority of the people ultimately base their voting decisions. The amount of air time devoted to campaigns coverage on media stations has demonstrated dramatic declines in the amount given to the candidates’ position. The content-free political campaigns, coupled with the increase in negative campaign commercials (advertisement) may be creating an apathetic and alienated public, rather than the involved and informed citizenry that is necessary for democracy. However, though Americans consider or see negative campaign advertising unethical, uninformative, deceptive and lacking in credibility research indicates that negative campaigns are more memorable than positive ones and voters decision making is been influenced to a greater degree by these negative campaign rather than by positive campaign information. Though these negative campaigns might ultimately damage democracy, the voters end up declaring what they want better from their candidates. (Aigbovbiose 2007:399).

The media today have become essential to modern campaigning which has helped to reinforce the disclosure of huge campaign contributions to all political parties. The media should endeavour to make free air time available to political candidates and campaigns and also increasing the length of time the candidates have to present full, cogent explanations of their positions as these gives the audiences or voters better knowledge of their political candidates.

The pattern of audience exposure to the media gives substantial explanation to the nature of political socialization. In their study of the 1968 US presidential campaign, Chaffe, Ward and Tipmon (1970) cited in Aigbovbiose (2007:399) established that mass media use was casually related to political knowledge but less related to political activity among pre-voters.

Audience awareness of events depends on the prominence of the event coverage in the media. The media right from time immemorial has been involved in drawing the attention of voters to the possibility that a new government or party could implement fresh policies which could consequently meet every day’s needs. The media therefore is strongly an instrumental to public opinion formation and change about a political system or government.

Furthermore, the information that is disseminated helps to create awareness of various innovative programme and should be disseminated firstly not only in English language but also in language that is understandable to all the audience members. Another important use of information is that, the media should be accessible and available to the target audience. It is on this note that Ukozor (2003:49) say, “the media should be able of report news events, giving meaning to it in order that their report gets more attractive and useful to the audience” This is done by offering contextual explanations to facts and issues of the day’s news in a manner that the average news consumer will understand their implications to his/her life. The media should be able to dig out some facts that are not immediately visible which the audience did not know about.

In addition, it is the multiciplicity of linkage between the mass media, society and politics that brought about the role which the media has to play in mobilizing the audience politically. In this mobilization, they are expected (media) to be objective and propelled by public interest rather than individualized or parochial interest. The media with their spirit of resilience, have engaged themselves in politically reawakening the citizens and mobilizing them into participating in the nation’s political activities.