A Textual Analysis of 2015 Presidential Election Advertisements in Selected Nigerian Newspapers

Abstract

This study textualized some political campaign advertisements for the 2015 presidential elections in Nigeria with a view to unearthing the development issues raised, religious and personal attacks inherent in the published advertisements. Data for the study comprised 8 purposively selected adverts published in two Nigerian newspapers from January to March 2015, which was the peak period of electioneering campaigns for the 2015 presidential elections in Nigeria. The advertisements generally focused on the two leading parties in the country (People’s Democratic Party and All Progressives Congress). The data obtained were analysed using the Textual analysis research design. The analysis shows that the political adverts producers employed creatively constructed verbal and visual strategies to project political aspirants for acceptance by the Nigerian electorates. The appeal to history for the education of the electorate about the previous deeds of certain political contestants, making the campaigns evidence-based, the foregrounding of credibility matters and the emphasis on change serve as useful rhetorical appeals in the discourse upon which the analysis were anchored and which allows for their effective interpretation. The study further reveals that other noticeable discursive themes in the discourse are attacks and counter attacks, hate and brand association. It recommends amongst others that APCON should be legally empowered to penalise both the advertisers and the media firms that fail to comply with legislation on political advertising and that electoral agencies should apply punitive sanctions on political advertisers who disobey the laws on political advertising.