A Multimodal Interaction Analysis of Selected 2015 Nigerian Election Campaign Adverts

ABSTRACT

Politics is intrinsic to the human societal structure and the exploration of language in politics has attracted the attention of social scientists and discourse/linguistic analysts. The role of mass media in framing political discourse has also been explored, particularly as the media is often exploited as a resource for influencing the audience. With the proliferation of the Internet and its democratising potentials, graphics and audio have become veritable tools for courting political patronage and maintaining positive perception by politicians. The present study analyses campaign videos from the two dominant parties during the 2015 Nigerian election. Six videos—three for each party—were selected and downloaded for the study. Employing the Multimodal Interaction Analysis theory as its framework, the research accounted for embodied and disembodied communicative modes in linguistically constructing and infusing meanings as campaign strategies to win the confidence of the voting public. The study identified history, declaratives, subtle imperatives, and linguistic tagging as discursive strategies used in political campaign videos. The study concluded that multimodal political advertisements strengthen Nigerian politics and engender positive citizenship participation in democratic practices.     

The broadcast media: A persuasive institution

At present, the broadcast media (radio and television) because of their pervasive presence in society are a “taken‐for‐granted” part of the social environment, as natural as the air one breathes. The persuasive power of the media is not so readily ascertained by all who watch and listen. Looking at the growth and spread of the media in three highly industrialized countries, namely Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, each with its own particular broadcast system, one can see the variety of emphasis on commercial and public broadcasting. Since the media have more in common with interpersonal communication than they have differences, the public is constantly open to media messages, continuously processing as well as responding to information received via media sources. The persuasive effect of these broadcast media in terms of the latent function of commercial messages needs deep and careful analysis.     

Evaluating Measures of Campaign Tone

Research on framing effects has demonstrated how elites can influence public opinion by the way they present and interpret political issues. However, these findings overwhelmingly stem from experimental settings that differ from how issues are typically discussed in real-world political situations. This study takes framing research to more realistic contexts by exploiting a natural experiment to examine the neglected role of political parties in framing effects. Examining the effects on public opinion of a sudden shift in how a major political party frames a salient issue, I demonstrate that parties can be powerful in shaping the policy preferences among their supporters. Yet, even strong partisans do not follow the party line uncritically. Rather, they judge the party frame according to their own beliefs about the problems surrounding the issue. Thus, party elites face the challenge of developing frames that resonate with their voters' preexisting beliefs if they want to shape policy preferences, even among their otherwise most loyal supporters. These dynamics have important implications for understanding interactions between political elites and the public.     

The Benefits of Experimental Methods for the Study of Campaign Effects

Researchers rely heavily on observational designs to study the effects of political campaigns. In doing so, scholars often overlook serious threats to causal inference that bedevil their research designs. The strategic nature of campaigns leads to serious selection biases in voter exposure to campaign stimuli and, ultimately, generates biased estimates of campaign effects. Standard approaches to establishing causal effects in observational research, such as the collection of panel data and the inclusion of covariates, are often inadequate. In contrast, experimental approaches offer researchers a more promising way to estimate accurately the causal effects of campaigns. In this essay, I discuss the recent renaissance of experimental research in the study of campaigns and illustrate how scholars can use lab, field, and survey experiments to good effect. When experimental methods are not feasible, studies of campaign effects would benefit from paying better attention to the causal identification strategy. In closing, I discuss how the logic of experimentation can be applied to some observational settings.     

Bringing the Sociology of Media Back In

In political communication research, news media tend to be studied more as a dependent than independent variable. That is, few studies link structural characteristics of media systems to the production of journalistic discourse about politics. One reason for this relative silence is the inadequacy of prevalent theories. Influential scholars in sociology and political communication such as Jürgen Habermas, Manuel Castells, and William Gamson provide only sketchy, institutionally underspecified accounts of media systems. Likewise, models in the sociology of news have tended to either aggregate societal level influences (chiefly political and economic) that are analytically and often empirically quite distinct or overemphasize micro-level influences (news routines, bureaucratic pressures). In between such micro- and macro-influences, the mezzo-level "journalistic field" represents an important shaping factor heretofore largely ignored. As path-dependent institutional logics, fields help ground cultural analysis; as interorganizational spatial environments varying in their level of concentration, they explain heretofore undertheorized aspects of news production. Drawing on the sociology of news and field theory (Bourdieu and American new institutionalism), this essay offers a series of hypotheses about how variable characteristics of media systems shape news discourse. Since variation at the system level is most clearly seen via cross-national comparative studies, international research is best positioned to build more generalizable theory about the production of journalistically mediated political discourse.     

What Voters Want From Political Campaign Communication

Implicit and explicit norms in broadcasting require that interviewees be treated in a fair and objective manner and given an equal chance to express themselves, regardless of interviewers' personal liking or preference. Nonverbal behavior of seven Israeli televison interviewers was investigated to discover whether they treated politicians from opposing camps and other interviewees in a differential or fair manner. Very brief clips (averaging 7 seconds) showing the interviewer alone were judged by American students who had no comprehension of speech content. In Study 1, all six interviewers were found to demonstrate differential nonverbal behavior toward interviewees, and four of them treated Labor versus Likud camp politicians in a differential manner. A range of individual differences in effect magnitudes of the differential behavior effects was found. Study 2 focused on two lengthy parallel interviews conducted by a prominent interviewer during the 1996 election campaign with the two candidates for prime minister. The interviewer's nonverbal behavior was found to be blatantly preferential in favor of one candidate. Study 3 examined micro behaviors contributing to the formation of global negative/positive impressions. Correlational analyses yielded several global (presumably universal) mediators: smiling, rhythmical beating hand movements, leaning forward, sarcasm, and attempts to regulate the interviewee. Each interviewer was found to demonstrate a unique personal style in which different nonverbal behaviors mediated the overall impression. The tentative conclusion is that more dominant and aggressive interviewers show more differential/preferential behavior. Social and ethical implications, as well as implications for nonverbal research, are discussed.     

Exposure to the Newer Media in a Presidential Primary Campaign

Cable television news channels and online news sites appear to offer interested voters the ability to follow presidential election campaigns more closely than ever before. However, survey research looking at the extent to which Americans are taking advantage of these newer media is incomplete. Rarely is new media use adequately assessed in surveys, and no extant study has simultaneously examined exposure to contemporary news channels over the course of several weeks. The present study uses an aggregate-level analysis of naturally occurring news consumption behavior to determine whether public selection of broadcast news programs, cable news channels, and online news outlets follows the primary election schedule and fluctuations in voter interest in the election. The results suggest that people turn to cable news and online political content during key political events (i.e., the Super Tuesday primary period) but less so when the political stakes are much lower. In addition, the data reveal that news reading at local news sites during key events takes on a more local character than does reading at other times. In sum, the study demonstrates that aggregate-level use of the newer media is responsive to changes in the political environment. Audiences seem willing to take advantage of a growing number of options for finding information about politics.     

The 2015 National Elections in Switzerland: Renewed Polarization and Shift to the Right

The 2015 election to the Swiss Parliament marks a return to an already observed trend that was only interrupted in 2011: a shift to the right and an increase in polarization. The vote share of the nationalist-conservative Swiss People's Party (SVP) has now reached a historical height of 29.4% (+2.8). This note discusses why cantons matter in the Swiss national elections, and to what degree elections have become nationalized. Institutionally, the 26 cantons serve as electoral districts. This leads to a highly disproportional electoral system and has magnified the minor vote shifts to a slightly more pronounced shift in seats, with the right now holding a tiny majority of 101 of 200 seats in the first chamber. The two winners, the SVP and the Liberals, also had most campaign funds at their disposal. They were able to guide an extensive nationwide campaign in which they advocated their core issues instead of candidates. Other parties only advertised at the cantonal level.     

To Trap a 'Tiger'

正A formal probe of a once-powerful top leader showcases the determination of the Party's anti-corruption drive By Li LiOn July 29,the Communist Party of China(CPC)announced an investigation into Zhou Yongkang.the latest high-ranking"tiger"to find himself in the anti-corruption campaign's crosshairs.The investigation into Zhou—a former standing committee member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee—for     

YouTube: A Political Advertising Tool? A Case Study of the Use of YouTube in the Campaign for the European Parliament Elections 2009

Political campaigns are made to attract the attention from citizens. The beginning of its adaption is linked to the appearance of the social media and user-generated content. Since the number of users of social network sites in Europe constantly grows, 2009 was the first time that these websites were used in political marketing purposes for the European Parliament elections. This is an exploratory study of the nature and extent of video-based social media, studied through the content analysis of YouTube videos created for the electoral campaign for the 2009 European Parliament . ( 2009 ). European elections . Retrieved from http://www.europarl.europa.eu/elections2009/default.htm?language=en  [Google Scholar] European Parliament elections by 13 political parties from four EU states. Results have shown the specificities of political advertising on the YouTube, a raising interest in social media among citizens in Europe, and the development of this way of campaigning.