2023 Presidency: Why Politicians Use Public Relations as Propaganda Tool, Media Researcher Reveals
Editor's note: All eyes are on the campaign strategies of the leading presidential candidates ahead of the forthcoming general election. Some experts have focused their searchlights on the campaign messages of the candidates of the ruling party, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, his PDP counterpart, Atiku Abubakar and Labour Party's candidate, Peter Obi.
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In this exclusive interview, a media researcher and big data expert, Lasisi Mutiu Iyanda, tells Legit.ng that the essence of the deployment of different tools by politicians ahead of the election, is to manage the reputation of the candidates going for elections.
Lasisi studied Communication and Language Arts at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, where he obtained a Bachelor of Arts in 2010. Over the years, media research, journalism, big data, computational journalism, and digital humanities have been his areas of interest.
Source: UGC
He started working as a management consultant at Enterprations Limited, Lagos, Nigeria in 2015, where he managed a number of projects using theoretical and practical approaches.
He started publishing in national and international journals as well as books in 2017. Since 2017, he has had more than 15 academic and technical publications in reputable journals and books. These publications range across his areas of research.
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Apart from his contributions to the academic community, he has also made and still makes significant contributions to the development of civic society space. He is currently Director of Research and Strategy at the Positive Agenda Nigeria (PAN) and the Center for Research on Development of African Media, Governance, and the (CEREDEMS-Africa).
As a director in the two organisations, his efforts and support of members have led to the creation and implementation of several action-based and participatory studies. Under the PAN’s Open Governance Project, Changing Civic Engagement: Creating Better Processes for Broad, Balanced and Connected Public Communication in Osun State was published in 2019.
In 2022, after 10 weeks of monitoring the governorship election campaign, Deconstructing and Reconstructing Election Campaign Strategy in Nigeria: Managerial and Policy Insights from Osun 2022 Governorship Election was published under the organisation’s Open and Transparent Election Environment Project.
At the CEREDEMS-Africa, his contributions led to the initiation and execution of the first symposium on Information Pollution Ecology in Africa, where academics, citizens and media practitioners deliberated on the nature and threats of information pollution on the continent’s socioeconomic and democratic institutions.
Currently, the 2023 Presidential Election Campaign is being monitored by the Center (CEREDEMS-Africa) with the theme: Intensive Information Pollution, Personality Disparagement or Informed Policy Engagement in Nigeria 2023 Presidential Election Campaign.
Governing society doesn't start without political stakeholders fighting for it through the electoral system. In the course of doing this, they deploy many tools including PR. What is your assessment of PR use in the ongoing presidential election campaign in Nigeria?
Lasisi said:
"It is first important to establish the fact that electoral campaigns involve a potpourri of communication tools such as advertising (as used in jingles on radio and TV, print media, billboards etc.) but the essence of the deployment of the different tools is to manage the reputation of the candidates going for elections.
"The end game is to present such candidates as the best and only available option for the electorate in terms of competence, capability and the ability to manage human, natural and financial resources.
"In the ongoing campaigns in the presidential election coming up in February, I have noticed that the reputation of the candidates is at the forefront of the campaigns with politicians aiming to discredit the competence, qualification and capability to govern."
He added:
"I have been part of a team that has monitored the campaign in the last 100 days, I can categorically say that the campaigns have focused more on reputational damage than the issues that matter to the socio-economic development of the country.
"In our categorization of the campaign, messages that demean the personality of candidates were in abundance more than those messages that promote the plans, programmes and policies of the candidates and their parties. Religious and ethnic affiliations of the candidates were under searchlight more than their ability to proffer solutions to the existing problems.
"So, to answer your question, there is a need to go back to reputational promotion rather than reputational damage. This would go a long way to assist the electorate to pick the best of the available candidates. Sheer propaganda and information pollution cannot help the course of democracy."
From your assessment, you are saying PR has been used as a propaganda tool instead of being adopted for promoting the values, capabilities and abilities of the candidates. Can we now say voters would bear the brunt the most when they make choices based on sentiments sold to them?
The media expert further stated:
"Yes. The essence of campaigns is to give the opportunity to the electorate to choose from the available alternatives. This choice would be made easier if the candidates, their parties and supporters supply information that would enable the voters to make wise voting decisions.
"However, in a situation where the public is being led to scrutinizing the religious and ethnic affiliations of the candidates, then, there are bound to be serious issues with the voters’ choice at the end of the day. So, the voters would bear the brunt if they do not choose to select the right.
"The campaigns are supposed to enable the voters to make a choice between the available plans, policies and programmes of the competing candidates. With this election campaign so far, the tendency is for the voters not to choose rightly and we would all suffer for it."
In the next few days, you would be launching your book on PR Practice. To what extent do you believe that the book will address the challenges of practising the profession in the current fourth industrial revolution?
He added:
"Well, the book is both a resource material for teaching and practice so it would go a long way in assisting both the classroom and the industry. This is more so because it is a book of case studies which presents real PR issues and examines how such cases are handled especially looking at the strategic and tactical moves made by the professionals or organizations concerned.
"It is interesting to note that all the cases involve issues relating to issues on digital or social media platforms. More so, the cases are diverse ranging from governmental PR, corporate social responsibility, customer relations and stakeholder management. It is good material for both learning and teaching.
"The introductory chapter dwells more on digital and data-driven PR providing theoretical background, strategies, tactics and tools. Overall, the book is material to update knowledge and learn from strategic decisions analyzed therein."
Presidency: Influential APC Governor Reveals Who Can Stop Tinubu From Taking Over Power From Buhari
Meanwhile, Legit.ng had previously reported that Governor Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa State said only God can stop Asiwaju Bola Tinubu from succeeding President Muhammadu Buhari.
It was reported that speaking in Kokona Local Government Area while flagging off the campaign of the party’s senatorial candidate for Nasarawa West, Architect Shehu Tukur, Sule said APC governors in the north would use their resources to ensure Tinubu emerges victorious.
The governor also dismissed reports that 11 APC governors were secretly holding meetings with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar.
Source: Legit.ng
