CHAPTER ONE

1.0 INTRODUCTION

For any democratic system to thrive, it is vital that political parties and candidates provide the electorates with adequate information on party policies, clear-cut vision as well as their political agendas to enable electorates actively choose their candidates based on full information. To achieve this, political parties use the media in campaigns. Curran (2005:129) adds that the media assists voters to make an informed choice at election time. This is done in form of paid political advertising, social media campaigns, commentaries and news stories. In fact, for an election to be considered free and fair, electorates must have adequate knowledge of the candidates, political parties and election policies

Recently, political parties and their candidates are becoming increasingly aware of the effectiveness of advertising and its role in getting the electorates to choose a particular candidate or party over the other by way of informing them. The use of political ad campaigns has become increasingly popular and is very important to the electoral process and voting behavior because it bridges the communication gap between political parties, political candidates and electorates. Hence, political parties and candidates all around the world devote a lot of financial resources to political ad campaigns to sell themselves as the preferred brand to the electorates. Interestingly, the most questions raised in elections are concerned with voting behavior i.e. why the electorates voted for a candidate over the other and the implication of their choice.

Scholars and communication experts argue that, when the politician crafts his campaign messages as being the fight to improve voters‟ lives, or something similar and come with some good measure of integrity, the voters are more likely to believe him (Feyipitan 2015). In other words, the electorates are most likely to trust candidates whose political ad campaigns offer to satisfy their basic needs as opposed to those who dwell on their personal achievements. However, these same experts also argue that personality, appearance and language use play crucial roles in political ad campaigns. Still, many political experts question the efficacy of political ad campaigns in getting the electorates to vote in a candidate‟s favour.

The recently concluded 2015 gubernatorial elections in Lagos state, witnessed political parties and candidates flooding various forms of media with ad campaigns all struggling to win electorates‟ votes. At the end, Akinwunmi Abode who was the candidate of the All Progressive Congress (APC) emerged as the governor of Lagos State. Before the elections, his ad campaigns filled media airwaves, social media and billboards with messages for every class of people who made up the electorates. His pervasive jingles dominated radio and television stations, social media sites while his messages streamed the print and outdoor media with promises to deliver. However, the extent to which his media campaigns fostered his win remains unknown.

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Politics is a struggle for power in order to put certain political, economic and social ideas into practice. In this process, language plays a crucial role, for every political action is prepared, accompanied, influenced and played by language (Garret, 2001, p.626). This research analyzes discourse of political speech, namely by the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan during a debate. Given the enormous domestic and global significance of the said speech, it is crucial to decipher ideological traits typical of Erdogan enshrined in his political discourse. The aim of this paper is to examine the impact of identity and linguistic background on Prime Minister Erdogan‟s political discourse and the ideological components of his speech.

ABSTRACT

In recent times, the use of political advert campaigns has become increasingly popular; this was evident in the just concluded 2015 gubernatorial elections in Lagos state. From billboards with obvious slogans, to jingles which took up both radio and television air spaces, ad campaigns by several candidates dominated the media. However the extent to which these ad campaigns influence voting behaviour is unclear. This led the researcher to a discourse analysis of the past election (2015) in order to discover if political ad campaigns actually influences the voter?s choice of candidate or not. This research work specifically examined political ad campaigns (Flayer & Posters) of the All Progressive Congress (APC) and that of the People Democratic Party (PDP) gubernatorial candidate in Lagos state. A field survey of eligible voters in Lagos State was carried out to further ascertain the efficacy of political ad campaigns on the electorates. From the field survey, results were collated, analyzed and summarized using simple frequency tables. Findings from the study showed that political ad campaigns have a minimal effect on electorate?s voting behaviour but still plays a role in the electoral process. This study recommended that political candidates and parties should concentrate on other election campaign strategies and for further studies to be carried out on the application of wilcoxon sign rank test on APC and PDP rule.

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