New Media Consumption, Electorate's Political Participation and Candidates' Preference during 2019 Presidential Election in Oyo State, Nigeria

Abstract

The incorporation of new media has widened the electorates’ horizons of political participation during Nigeria's electioneering process. These new media platforms such as whatapp, Facebook, Instagram, digital billboards and others have become ingrained in electioneering in recent Nigerian Politics. This study used Technological Determinism Theory. This study investigates New Media Consumption, Electorate Political Participation and Candidate Preference during 2019 Presidential Election in Oyo State. The study adopted survey methods research design. Snowball sampling technique was employed to collect the needed data for the study. Sample Size of 400 respondents was drawn from a population of 2,934,107 registered voters for the general elections in Oyo State. Data was collected through the use of structured close ended questionnaire. Descriptive Statistics were used to statically analyze the data collected for the study using statistical package for social science. Findings showed that Twitter and Whatapp were dominant new media platforms through which the electorate in Oyo State got engaged with politicians. Many of the respondents voted for their preferred candidates during elections as a result of what politicians posted on new media platforms. Participations in elections by the electorates were also as a result of engagement by politicians on new media platforms. However, affordability of data subscription are major challenges that the electorates encountered to ultimately be active on the new media platforms during the 2019 Presidential elections in Oyo State. The study recommended that politicians should develop websites that will be pretty much interactive, informative, dynamic to disseminate information about their activities during elections.