CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1. Background of the Study
Social media have made a way into all the levels of society information and have catalyzed the democratisation process and political development. Social media is a contemporary trend in information and knowledge dissemination, it has taken communication further than the limitations of the traditional way of communicating and socialising, making it a crucial part of individual’s daily lives, which is affecting individual’s social, political and economic activities. A number of decades ago, the Internet was considered a news media, and in this contemporary epoch, societies have turned to social media as s source of information. One major application of social media is social networks, where millions of individuals are connected to utilise an open domain for communicating with others and socialising with all types of media such as text, voice, images, or videos, (Alquraan, Abu-Shanab, Banitaan, & Al-Tarawneh, 2017). The interactive nature of social media makes them fit to be used for a lot of purposes such as job search, socialisation, education, entertainment, governance, political participation, among others. For this reason, social media, as social instruments of communication, promote participation, connectedness, opportunity to disseminate information across geographical boundaries and the fostering of relationships and interactions among people. Commonly used social media platforms are Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, and Telegram.
Social media technologies have engaged a lot of Internet compliant individuals to build their lives around it. However, studies have indicated the increase of the use of social media among the youths, who are considered to be more technology savvy than older adults. The term “youth” can be used to portray individuals from physical adolescents to those in their adulthood. Ahn (2011) opined that, the youth identity presents those in their teens and their 20s as participants in a shared social experience that is dissimilar from that of other age or cultural groups, while Heaven and Tubridy (2007) described the youth as an individual whose identity and age falls between being children and adults. The United Nations (2011) defined youths as individuals between the ages of 15 and 24 years inclusive. The youths are critical to the existence, survival and socio-economic development of nations because they are young, energetic and able. According to the latest United Nations estimates of the world’s population in 2019, there are about 1.2 billion youths aged 15 to 24 years globally, or 16 percent of the global population, accounting for one out of every six people worldwide, (United Nations, 2019a, 2019b).
Youths majorly adopt social networking media for communication with friends, family members and the general public. As far back as 2010, Lenhart, Purcell, Smith, and Zickuhr, (2010) revealed that approximately 72percent of American youths (age 18-29 years) used social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace. Johnston, Chen, and Hauman, (2013) similarly observed that, Facebook and Twitter were two social computing systems that were popular among university students in Cape Town, South Africa, while Onah and Nche (2014) established that, Nigerian youths were more disposed to social media technologies than other types of technologies. Corroborating the above findings are more recent studies, (e.g. Abodunrin, 2017; Ahmad, Alvi, and Ittefaq, 2019; Draškovic, Kuštrak Korper, and Kilian-Yasin, 2017; Jamil, 2018; Mahmud and Amin, 2017; and Williams and Adesope, 2017), who revealed that, youths, especially students of higher institutions, are innovators, early adopters, as well as early majority adopters and users of social media for various activities.
Wilson and Boldeman (2011), as well as Adaja and Ayodele (2013), described youths as ICT natives and prolific users of social media. This assertion was corroborated by Nche (2012), who affirmed that, in the manner of a wildfire in harmattan, the phenomenon of social media (networking) has spread to all nooks and crannies of Nigeria, engulfing a large number of her youths and that social media usage has turn out to be so common among the youths, that it has turn out to be unfashionable for youths not to engage in at least one of the social networking sites. Nnamonu (2013) summed it up by describing the Internet as the chief host of social media sites, while the youths are the most predominant clients.
The omnipresent access to social media has democratising effects as they offer citizens opportunities to engage and participate in political processes. Social media offers engagement in a medium that fits comfortably with peoples’ mode of life and aids political participation of citizens by helping them monitor and influence government decisions, (Jamil, 2018). The growing popularity of social media has motivated scholars to explore the roles social media play in everyday life and democratic society; specifically, the role of the media in facilitating political participation and engagement.
Political participation implies “citizens’ involvement in the acts, events or activities that influence the selection of and/or the actions taken by political representatives, (Okoro & Nwafor, 2013). It is the various mechanisms through which citizens express their political views and/or exercise their rights and influences on the political processes, (Chatora 2012). Thus, it is a civic activity and a critical part of any democracy; an action taken by a citizen to influence the outcome of a political issue. Political participation could as well be explained as a set of activities that citizens carry out to influence government’s structured policies or officials. Through political participation, citizens can elect political representatives, who make policies in favour of the citizens who are the ultimate beneficiaries of social programmes put in place by the representatives, (Okoro & Nwafor, 2013). Political participation as well includes assessing the capabilities of the incumbencies and advocating ways of ameliorating societal ills for a more prosperous country, (Unwuchola, Adinlewa, & Udeh, 2017). Therefore, political participation includes such activities as political discourse, political campaigns, voter registration, voting, writing and signing of petitions, civil protests, public consultations, donating money towards elections, joining interest groups that engage in lobbying, political advocacy, monitoring and reporting of cases of violation of the electoral process such as frauds, rigging, intimidation, violence, monetary inducements, underage voting, etc. (Abubakar, 2011; Gibson, Lusoli, & Ward, 2015)
The dawn of the Internet, which in turn gave birth to social networking sites, brought a paradigm shift in the electioneering process and radical transformation of the society where the populace is no longer passive in government activities; as the media provide new avenues for political engagement, (Unwuchola et al., 2017). The platforms have “exponentially multiplied the possibilities for the retrieval and dissemination of political information, thus affording any Internet user with a variety of supplemental access points to political information and activity that come at little cost in time, money and effort, (Breuer & Groshek, 2014). Diamond (2010) refers to social media as a liberation technology that expands political, social and economic freedom. In addition, Milakovich (2010) presents social media as a tool for increased citizen participation in the political environment. Unlike the other mass media, social networking media provide two-way and even multi-way forms of communication channels (Diamond, 2010; Milakovich, 2010), which enhance the feedback process and encourage interaction among users. It is this interactive nature of social networking media that creates opportunities for citizens to participate in online electioneering processes which Medimorec, Parycek, and Schossböck, (2011) referred to as electronic participation (e-participation). Online political activities (e-participation) include writing emails to politicians, visiting politicians’ campaign websites, donating money online, electronic campaign, electronic voting and so on.
There are a lot of benefits to be derived from using social media for political participation which are; granting citizens the chance to take part actively and get involved fully in the political discourse by adding their voices on issues posted on social media sites. In addition, social media provide electorates a friendlier avenue of assessing candidates for political offices and promoting transparency in governance, thus, advancing the tenets of participatory democracy that sees the media as debate avenues which aid tremendously the actualisation of involvement in politics, (Okoro & Nwafor, 2013). Similarly, social media offer diverse potentials for innovating governance and developing new ways of governing by creating an avenue of listening to citizens’ opinion pool online, thereby setting ideas about citizenry needs as well as the possible reaction of people towards public decision-making processes, (Gibson et al., 2015). Social media also provide politicians with the opportunity to be informally free with the public as politicians can reach the public to assess the political atmosphere even before venturing into the campaign. This connection helps politicians to appeal to citizens, communicate their humour, indicates their approachability, as well as accessibility to the public, thereby making them seem more personable and in constant contact with their supporters.
1.2. Statement of Research Problems
The advent of social media in the political arena has considerably impacted the politicians and voters alike; the use of social media for political participation has its negative aspects such as, misinformation, political harassment, rumours, fake news, propaganda and trolling are a number of the problems of using social media for political participation. Furthermore, social media has been used to leak fake news stories, spread dissension and create fake profiles on social media platforms that sow divide between people and political parties. Usage of social media for political participation as well aggravates the problem of echo chambers, with everyone feeling the need to be on one side or the other.
Quite a number of studies have examined the use of social media for political participation in Nigeria. For instance, Chinedu-Okeke and Obi (2016) explored the extent of South-eastern Nigeria electorates’ involvement with social media for electioneering process and found that political campaigns through the social media had a significant effect on electorate’s decision-making and participation in Nigeria’s 2011 and 2015 elections. In the same way, Okoro and Santas (2017) appraised the utilisation of social media for political communication in the 2011 Nigerian presidential election to determine whether voters’ choice of presidential candidates was influenced by their social media use. The findings showed that, the majority of the respondents’ choices of presidential candidates was influenced by the use of social media. Similarly, the respondents were of the opinion that the two selected presidential candidates were popular because they used social media in their political campaign. Ekwueme and Folarin (2017) examined the role of social media in the Nigerian 2015 presidential electioneering processes. Their results revealed that, social media played a major role in mobilising people, creating awareness, as well as participation and circulation of information about candidates. In addition, Apuke and Tunca (2018) examined the implications of social media usage in the electoral processes and campaigns in the Nigerian 2011 and 2015 general elections. Findings indicate that social media was employed due to its participatory nature and that social media was applied to influence the thoughts of many young people, increasing their political awareness.
There are quite a lot of studies which have investigated the influence of social media on the political dimension in Nigeria most especially in the area of election (such as, Abdulrauf, 2016; Onyechi, 2018; Dagona, Karick, & Abubakar, 2013), however, despite the importance of social media, there is dearth of study on social media influence on Nigerian youth political participation, therefore, necessitates this research.
1.3. Research Objectives
The primary objective of this study is to evaluate social media influence of social media on Nigerian youth political participation. However, the specific objectives will be to;
- examine the most used social media platform by youths for political participation in Nigeria
- identify the type of political activities youths used social media to participate in
- investigate the factors influencing the use of social media for political participation among the youths in Nigeria
1.4. Research Questions
Based on the above, the following research questions are poised.
- What is the most used social media platform by youths for political participation in Nigeria?
- What type of political activities does youths used social media to participate in?
- Are there any factors influencing the use of social media for political participation among the youths?
1.5. Significance of the Study
This study will be beneficial to stakeholders such as political parties, candidates, and even the civil society on how social media can bring about awareness and campaign opportunities if properly utilized, and how it can be used to engage the youths in political discuss
This research study will help political aspirants and other individuals at large understand that maintaining a good and healthy profile online with a cordial relationship between the party and voters can positively influence youths’ participation.
In addition, the findings of this study will enlighten the youths on the need to utilize social media effectively so as to be heard
Further, this research work will add to the body of knowledge on the already existing scholarly materials on the impact of social media on voter behaviour.
Lastly, this study will be of significance to other researchers who would like to carry out a research in this field.
1.6. Scope of the Study
The study focused on social media influence on Nigerian youth political participation. The study is confined to youth political participation in Nigeria. The data for this study will be gathered using a self-structured questionnaire.
1.7. Operational Definition of Terms
Social Media: is the website and application that enables users to create and share content in social networking.
Youths: is the part of life following childhood. Youth is the time of life when a young person has not become an adult.
Influence: is the capacity to have an effect on the character, development, or behaviour of someone or something, or the effect itself.
