SOCIAL MEDIA AUGMENTATION OF POLITICAL ACTIVITIES AND KNOWLEDGE-GAP OF ELECTORATES: AN APPRAISAL OF PUBLIC OPINION IN SELECT STATES OF NIGERIA

Abstract

This study examined the supposition that social media contents can lead to active knowledge of democratic political development among electorates. The setting is in Nigeria. The objectives were to: ascertain whether social media political contents can alter voting decisions; evaluate whether social media political contents can cause the acceptance of manifestoes of political parties and to ascertain the peculiar age group that are sensitive to political messages by social media exposes. This study was on Agenda setting, the Cultivation and knowledge gap theories. It adopted survey research method in gathering data through questionnaire administered on 578 respondents drawn from the residents of Bayelsa, Imo (Southern) and Kogi (North Central) states of Nigeria at 12,463,500.  The study found that social media political contents can sway the public decision-making on political issues, judged by the extent of agenda-setting function in media contents. It concluded that there is a relationship between media contents exposure and the extent of knowledge about political manifestoes of parties. It recommends that Nigerian politicians intensify the adoption of social media contents in political campaigns to bridge the knowledge gap assumingly created by using other media facilities and contents.