MEDIA AND POLITICS By - Enyinnaya Emmanuella - 2020-09-06

THE IMPORTANCE OF MEDIA IN POLITICS 

ABSTRACT

Media are platforms through which communication are passed from one person to another, or from one place to another. Media is an aspect of marketing management. It stimulates citizen engagement in politics; these include, political party’s membership registration, voters registration, elections and electoral campaigns, electorates management, are among the major political activities. There are four major types of media, namely; traditional media, print media, electronic media and social media. Politics is the capacity for power acquisition and its application for governance of the state and influence the allocation of its both human and physical resources. The primary aim of this paper is to critically examine the importance of media in politics. This paper collected its data from both primary and secondary sources and employs the exploratory, historical approach of data analysis. It makes use of analytical tools like historical accounts, structural records, physiological, and philosophical instruments, simple descriptive instrument tools.

It concluded that the importance of media in politics is very enormous; beneficial to all with developmental impacts on politics.

Keywords: Media, politics, development, communication, importance,    

INTRODUCTION

The media has been of great importance in Nigeria history, since pre-independent. The Nationalists used the media in fighting the demons called colonial masters out of their territory. All the en-slavery activities of the colonial masters were exposed through the media; as well as reasons for independent struggle were made to the world through the media. 

Media are platforms through which communication are passed from one person to another, or from one place to another. Communication is the transfer of message, data, information or event from one person to another, or from one place to another place for the purpose of informing, awaking, creating awareness, cause change in attitude, stimulation, improve productivities, defending, etc. Media is an aspect of marketing management. Media platforms include Newspapers, Television, Radio, Hand-bills, Beam-board, and Pamphlet. Mass media is focus on reaching out to large numbers of people at the same time at different locations. 

The history of mass media emanated from man struggle for liberty and freedom, which include freedom of expression, freedom to write and express oneself. This struggle was given consideration in 1700. Since then enriched Elite politicians invest greatly in setting up media industry, in order in order to reach-out to their various target audience across the globe. This instrumental tool has both merits and demerits. Some used it develop their countries, while others used it to pulled down their political opponents and black listed them with all kinds of values aberrations. All organs of government-such as Executive, Legislature and Judiciary- turned public broadcast to an avenue to propagate their political agenda and dissemination of their parties interests. 

Politics is the capacity for power acquisition and its application for governance of the state and influence the allocation of its both human and physical resources in the interest of state development. Power is with people, consequently, how much prepared are you or your capacity to project viable programed to solve the masses’ problems and crises; this will make them to release such power. This is usually through democratic and electoral process. The electorates determine who represent them, and at what capacity, in political and democratic setting.

The importance of media is enormous for politics at different levels of its activities. It stimulates citizen engagement in politics; these include political parties’ membership registration, voters’ registration, elections and electoral campaigns, electorates’ management, are among the major political activities. Journalists perform a duty in ensuring that masses are well informed about the truth state of issues in governance. To borrow a leaf from Jakande Lateef, a veteran journalist has argued that, “the Press is more important than the other functions of government for none of them has so ramifying an influence and great a power on the daily lives of millions of people”.

There are four major types of media, namely; traditional media, print media, electronic media and social media. Traditional media of passing information and communication is an approach based on the use of traditional devices, such as talking drums, flutes, town criers, etc. to deliver information and communicate among the people of a particular locality. The print media are approach of dissemination of information and communication through hard-wares like; newspaper, hand-bills, beam-board, pamphlet, books, magazines, journals, newsletters, novel, etc., while electronic media are methods of disseminating information and communication through electronic devices, such as television, radio, computers, microphone, megaphone, etc. from one person to another person, or from one place to another place. Social media is the newest approach in dissemination of information and communication through electronic social platform that make use of searching engine like internet, Twitter, You-tube,  Google-Chrome, What app, Ya hoo massager, Nimbuzz, Facebook, Instagram, etc. 

Personal communication through media brings politicians and parties closer to their potential voters. It makes parties management more effective and efficient. It enhances politicians communication and information collation faster and easier, and reach citizens in a more targeted manner and vice versa, without the needs of intermediate, like mass media. Reactions, feedback, political campaign, conversations and debates are generated online as well as support and participation for offline events. Information and messages are posted to personal networks are multiplied when shared, which allow new audiences to be reached.

The major challenge of media is that it lacks the principles of objective, fairness and impartial report. It also positively influence organizations and the political terrace and at best provide relatively biased coverage or at worse act like virtual propaganda machines for a particular political party. Certainly, some issues are subjective, hence there can be no universal line of thought, and requiring all news organizations to passively report only what they see and not include an analytical perspective, would to a certain degree, defeat the purpose of having a free press. 

Further, the presence of media is rapidly spreading and the pattern used are changing, online political engagement is largely gaining ground, people are employed to host and manage websites for political activities for some politicians. The latter are restricted to people already active in politics and skillful in handling the Internet. Other audiences are less responsive. For example, television news together with print and online newspapers are still the most important sources of political information. It has re-engineered the structures and methods of contemporary political communication by influencing the way politicians interact with citizens and each other. However, the role of this phenomenon in increasing political awareness, engagement and electoral participation is incomparable.

The primary aim of liberal democracies is the emergence of media empires, here some people have concentrated large amounts of media assets and use influence political activities. Thus, these individuals, from whichever point of the political sphere, can deliver a powerful political message on behalf or against a political establishment through their respective media empires. This is especially damaging if parts of the general public are more exposed to one particular media empire either due to its high popularity or the lack of alternative media sources. 

Moreover the media provides platform for check and balance for governance. Due rapid development in mass media in the past, such as radio, TV, satellite and Internet services, helps in development in political dispensation. This case ensures that political activities are embraced by wider audience. The boom in media services has also allowed various organizations from all over the political sphere to effectively reach their target audiences. For instance, mass media gave Action Group (AG) Party-led by Obafemi Awolowo- an edge above their counterpart NCNC Party-led by Dr. Nmnamdi Azikwe. The latter had majority in both lower house and upper house of parliament; but Awolowo decided to use both print and electronic media he had brought into the country- Nigerian Tribune Newspaper and LTV Ibadan respectively; with a slogan, ‘Omo wa le je o se’, this can be interpreted as, ‘Allow our own child to represent us’. This is because Dr. Nmnamdi Azikwe and majority members of NCNC were mainly from South-East of Nigeria, while Obafemi Awolowo and majority of members of AG were mainly from South-West of Nigeria. This slogan was properly aired that it became an house-hold slogan. And the leaders of Yoruba- who were mainly from South-West of Nigeria responded positively and gave their full support to AG candidates. The implication of this made the AG to clear all the seats in South-West of Nigeria; Obafemi Awolowo became the Premier of the South-West of Nigeria.

The Journalism Acts stressed stated that the independent media is a responsibility of the government for a liberal democracy to strife. This entailed that the government must be able to control all the information regarding its own actions and be accountable to the masses. Consequently, the importance of a free press cannot be under-estimated. In a liberal democracy, the aim of a free press is to continually scrutinize the government and provide people with accurate and impartial information so that they can act on it accordingly. 

Besides, the impact of the media through application of information and communication technology, especially internet on electioneering campaign is rapidly gaining ground. The 2010 general election in the UK, the author analyses new ways of building an online campaign and the trend of personalization in politics. The possibility to communicate directly with electorates via social media is groundbreaking and essential for the development of citizens-initiated campaigning.

CONCLUSION

The media impacts started as dated back as pre-independent era in Nigeria. It is an aspect of marketing management. The history of mass media emanated from man struggle for liberty and freedom. Politics is the capacity for power acquisition and its application for governance of the state and influence the allocation of its both human and physical resources in the interest of state development. Media stimulates citizen engagement in politics.

It can be concluded that the importance of media in politics is very enormous; beneficial to all with developmental impacts on politics.

REFERENCE

Paul, Kegan, (2015), "Journal of Politics". Cambridge Library. 

Clark, William Roberts, Matt Golder, and Sona N. Golder. (2013), “Power and politics: insig from an exit, voice, and loyalty game.” 

Activist Impulses: Campus Radicalism in the 1930s (Cohen) 

Dey, Eric L., (1997), Undergraduate Political Attitudes: Peer Influence in Changing Social Contexts, Journal of Higher Education, Vol. 68,