CONTEXT, MULTIMODALITY AND PERSUASION IN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN ADVERTISEMENTS IN SELECTED NIGERIAN NEWSPAPERS

Abstract

Presidential election campaign advertisements in Nigerian newspapers deploy multimodal and persuasive discourse strategies, which are contextually predetermined to influence voters’ decisions before an election. Existing linguistic studies on presidential election campaign advertisements in Nigerian newspapers focused mainly on persuasive effects from stylistic, metaphoric and satirical perspectives. However, little attention was paid to context and multimodal resources used in creating the effects. This study was, therefore, designed to investigate contextual representations in election campaign advertisements in selected Nigerian newspapers. This was to determine context types, discourse issues, multimodal resources and persuasive structures in the advertisements. Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen's Multimodality Theory, complemented by Richard Petty and John Cacioppo’s Elaboration Likelihood Model, served as the framework. The descriptive design was adopted. Presidential election campaign advertisements of the two major and most popular political parties in Nigeria, All Progressives Congress (APC) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) were purposively selected. The advertisements published in 2015 and 2019 were purposively selected based on the transitional uniqueness of the period. Quota sampling was used to select two newspapers from the Lagos/Ibadan axis (Punch and Nigerian Tribune (NT)) and one from the Kaduna/Abuja axis (Daily Trust (DT)). Quota sampling was also used to select 40 advertisements from the newspapers (10 from DT, and 15 each from NT and Punch). The data were subjected to multimodal discourse analysis. Three projected context types were identified: context of victory (CV), context of defeat (CD) and context of countering opponent’s strategies (CCOS). Context of victory involved use of peripheral route of persuasion (PRP), which was characterised by low elaboration, credibility issues, positive self-presentation, emotional inducements and celebrity endorsements, requiring no critical thinking for readers’ comprehension (DT). Context of defeat exhibited central route of persuasion (CRP) in high elaboration and logical presentation of facts aimed at provoking critical thinking (Punch and NT), while CCOS (NT and Punch) reflected integrated use of PRP and CRP made coherent through comparative listing of achievements and change of slogan to reflect new realities. Seven discourse issues were identified: leadership attributes (DT, NT and Punch), unemployment, insecurity, poverty reduction (NT and Punch), economic problems, education and infrastructures (Punch, DT and NT). In 2015, APC, as challenger, deployed more of CV and PRP, but as incumbent in 2019, it used more of CD and CRP (Punch and NT). Conversely, PDP, as incumbent in 2015, utilised CD and CRP, and as challenger in 2019, deployed CV and PRP (Punch and NT). Eight multimodal resources were identified: written words, pictures, drawings, typography, slogans, colours, statistical elements and logos (DT, NT and Punch). Four persuasive structures were identified: request and explication, problem and solution, question and answer, and quotation and question (Punch, DT and NT). These were used to indicate information value, salience and coherence in the advertisements and to justify the political parties’ stances on various discourse issues before the elections. Presidential campaign advertisements in Nigerian newspapers deploy context-determined persuasive designs meant to consolidate envisaged support, prevent likely defeat and anticipatorily counter opponent’s strategies before an election.