Abstract
Political campaigns have remained an indispensable means of
garnering support for candidates and their political parties. Though
primaries are internal affairs of political parties, aspirants engage in
or take their campaign for support and votes beyond the confines of
their political parties and their membership roll. This is buttressed
by placement of advertorials in newspapers and other mass media
by various presidential candidates. In the 2011 presidential election
in Nigeria, various presidential candidates across many political
parties used newspapers to sell their aspirations/candidacy to the
electorate for their support/votes in the general elections. This
study investigated the forms, volume and contents of the political
campaigns sponsored by the political parties in the selected national
dailies. The study found out that eight forms or ―message types‖
were used by the four major political parties/candidates. These
included: general campaign information/itinerary, direct appeal for
support/votes, testimonial/endorsements and storytelling/dialogue. Others include attack on opponents,
indirect/subliminal political advertisement by proxy,
dramatization/humour and policy thrust/progress report. 124
political advertisements were sponsored by the four political
parties. Good governance attracted greatest concern of all the
political parties. The study recommends that political parties should
develop strategic communication plan to market their manifestoes
and candidates. This is necessary because a large segment, who are
not members of any political party, have to be either won over or
persuaded to form positive political opinion with the resultant
decision to vote.
Charles Obot. (2017) An Analysis of 2011 Presidential Campaign Advertisements in Nigerian National Press , Journal of Media Studies, Volume 32, Issue 2.
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