Nigerian Electorates’ Perception of Political Advertising and Election Campaign

摘要

Political advertising has in recent time become popular in Nige ria; this is in contras t to the pas t when politic al s trategies such as political rallies , speec he s and pe rs ona l contacts we re used. T his paper exam ine s the effectiveness of political advertising on Nige rian e le ctorates a nd problem s associated with negative politic al advertising. The research was conducted through the adminis tra tion of 1650 questionnaires to re spondents in E kiti S tate , Nigeria; out of which 1500 were completed a nd returne d. Chi - s quare , Ana lysis of Varia nc e (ANO VA) a nd Descriptive E xploratory S ta tis tics were used. Chi – square was us ed to determine the diffe rence in the m ean age dis trib ution of the elec torates. ANOVA was us ed to de te rm ine the level of effe ctivenes s of political advertising on Nigeria n elec torates while Descriptive E xploratory Analysis was conducted to e xa mine the political behaviour and level of partic ipa tion of the Nigerian Electorates in Politics. Results indic ated that political advertising has s ignific ant effe ct on the electorates; the mean age dis tribution of e le ctorates is not uniform and mos t participate in Comm unity developments and other civic resp onsibilities. T he study concludes tha t though political advertising is intere sting, negative advertis ing s hould be totally disc ouraged.