Abstract

The study investigated the influence of social media on political participation and mobilization in Nigeria. By the use of purposive sampling, five (5) tertiary institutions were selected for the study. The Instrument used was a well validated questionnaire. Three (3) research hypotheses were tested at 0.05 alpha level. Descriptive design was employed for this study. A sample size of Two hundred (200) respondents from five (5) purposively selected tertiary institutions was used and the data collected were analyzed using Chi-square statistical method of analysis. The study revealed that there is significant effect of social media platform (Twitter, Facebook, and WhatsApp) use by politicians, activists, and citizens to communicate, campaign, and mobilize for political causes and events; there is significant social media users’ engagement with political information, opinions, and campaigns online on their offline political behaviour and attitudes and finally there is significant impact of social media on political participation and mobilization in Nigeria, such as enhancing democratic participation, promoting accountability, fostering dialogue, spreading misinformation, inciting violence, and manipulating public opinion. The study concludes that social media is one of the panacea for Nigeria’s political problems, and that more efforts are needed to address its regulation and accountability. The study recommended that there is need to improve digital infrastructure and affordability among Nigerians. Also, the researcher recommended that there is need for promoting digital education and civic engagement among Nigerians

Keywords

Political participation, political mobilization, social media, governance and Nigeria