Social Media Advertising and Electorates’ Patronage of Political Parties in Nigeria

Abstract

The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between social media advertising and electorates’ patronage of political parties in Nigeria. The study specifically studied how content sharing, live chatting and status update impacts on voter intensions and voter commitments of political parties and their candidates. Drawing on a sample size of 400 Nigerian electorates, the study adopted a quasi experimental design with emphasis on the cross-sectional type by using a structured questionnaire with a 5 point likert scale. Our hypotheses testing and data analysis employed the Spearman’s Rank Correlation Coefficient and found that there is a strong, positive and significant relationship between social media advertising and voter intention as well as voter commitment among Nigerian electorates. The study further concluded that social media advertising played a pivotal role in shaping and directing voter behavior as was clearly demonstrated in the 2015 general elections. It was therefore recommended that content sharing, live chatting, and status update be adopted by political parties and candidates as primary motivators in encouraging voters to patronize party candidates.