CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.0 INTRODUCTION
Our focus in this chapter is to critically examine relevant literature that would assist in explaining the research problem and furthermore recognize the efforts of scholars who had previously contributed immensely to similar research. The chapter intends to deepen the understanding of the study and close the perceived gaps.
2.1 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
SOCIAL MEDIA
Social media are computer-mediated technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, career interests and other forms of expression via virtual communities and networks Users typically access social media services via web-based technologies on desktop computers, and laptops, or download services that offer social media functionality to their mobile devices (e.g., smartphones and tablet computers). When engaging with these services, users can create highly interactive platforms through which individuals, communities and organizations can share, cocreate, discuss, and modify user-generated content or pre-made content posted online. They introduce substantial and pervasive changes to communication between businesses, organizations, communities and individuals. Social media changes the way individuals and large organizations communicate. These changes are the focus of the emerging field of technoself studies. Social media differ from paper-based media (e.g., magazines and newspapers) or traditional electronic media such as TV broadcasting in many ways, including quality, reach, frequency, interactivity, usability, immediacy, and permanence (Beth 2010).. Social media operate in a dialogic transmission system (many sources to many receivers). This is in contrast to traditional media which operates under a monologic transmission model (one source to many receivers), such as a paper newspaper which is delivered to many subscribers or a radio station which broadcasts the same programs to an entire city. Some of the most popular social media websites are Baidu Tieba, Facebook (and its associated Facebook Messenger), Gab, Google+, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Reddit, Snapchat, Tumblr, Twitter, Viber, VK, WeChat, Weibo, What sApp, Wikia, and YouTube.
EVOLUTION OF SOCIAL MEDIA
Social media have evolved through Web 2.0, a term coined to describe a new wave of Internet innovation that enables users to publish and exchange content online Kaplan and Haenlein (2010). Social media encompass a wide range of electronic forums, including blogs, microblogs (e.g., Twitter), social networking sites (e.g., Facebook), creative work-sharing sites (e.g., YouTube), business networking sites (e.g., LinkedIn), collaborative websites (e.g., Wikipedia), and virtual worlds (e.g., Second Life). Among these social media, social networks and microblogs are the most popular, accounting for 22.7% of all time spent online in the United States Nielsen (2014). According to Dominick (2009:283) Web 2.0 is the idea of a second generation Internet that is highly participatory, allowing users to improve it as they use it. Social media contents are primarily written and published by their users and not owners or employees of the site. For instance, most adverts, videos and pictures on Facebook and Twitter are uploaded by visitors of the sites.
Jenkins et. alobserve that Web 2.0 has been growing tremendously as it facilitates the production and dissemination of information, allows for the involvements in participatory culture to share individual expressions or creations and bring people with similar interests and goals to connect with each other on blogs, social networking sites and others. Few years ago, websites were quite static and passive. There was no much interaction going on as they were mostly corporate websites. The only way an individual could participate online was to send an email or form to the owners or web master of the website and hope that they would get back to him. This type of arrangement was called Web 1.0, referred to as “first generation Web where users generally consumed content. The audience went to web pages and looked at content provided by the website owner” Dominick (2009:283). But today, users have become producers which mean that they simultaneously consume and produce information (Bruns, cited in Stagno 2010:1). Igbinidu (2011:26) explains that the first exploitation of the potential of the social media especially to spread a candidates message, gain support and get the public engaged was through the 2008 presidential campaign by the then Senator Barack Obama who eventually became American president. The Obama campaign reached five million people on 15 different social media platforms. As at November 2008, Obama had approximately 2.3 million Facebook supporters; 115,000 Twitter followers and 50 million viewers of his YouTube videos. Facebook is a social network for connecting people with those around them,friends, family, coworkers, or simply others with similar interests. Facebook was created by Mark Zuckerberg in 2004 alongside his roommates and fellow computer science classmates Eduardo Saverin, Austin Maskovitz and Chris Hughes at Harvard University in the U.S (Locke cited in Nnaane 2011:15). Initially, Facebook membership was restricted to Harvard students but later extended to other colleges in Boston and Stanford University all in the U.S. “Since 2006, Facebook has expanded beyond Harvard to other 24 schools, corporations, businesses and any user across the world” (Dunay & Krueger 2010:27). Zuckerberg, cited in (Nweze, 2009) explains that advertising on Facebook is an opportunity for companies to reach their exact audience and connect real customers to their business. Facebook allow users to connect and share information in a variety of ways. Facebook allow users to post photos, videos and customize their profile content. Facebook has added a number of features over the past few years, including instant messaging/chat and apps (and their developer platform).Users communicate with one another through different methods, for instance, private messaging as well as writing on another user’s wall. Wall posts are visible to that user’s friends, but usually not to the general public. Users can also change their privacy settings to allow different users to see different parts of their profile, based on any existing relationships (the basic privacy settings are “only friends”, “friends of friends”, and “everyone”). Users can post notes that are visible to all of their friends. Users can also comment on or, more recently, “like” the posts of their friends, and conversations often occur within the comment sections among multiple people (Dunay & Krueger2010:27). Facebook pages are online location for businesses, organisations, public figures, entertainers, professionals of all types and individuals with the intention of marketing themselves to the Facebook community. Facebook Pages provide a powerful set of online tools for engaging with customers (or, as they are called in Facebook, fans). Every day, 3.5 million people become fans of a Facebook Page. According to eMetric’s February 2009 Facebook Usage Metrics Worldwide Study, although popular consumer brands enjoy large installed fan bases, smaller brands, business-to-business (B2B) companies, consultants, and personalities can also build a loyal following by using Facebook Page (Dunay & Krueger2010:27). He notes further that if Facebook were a country, it would be the sixth most populated nation in the world. This is because the site has grown to be perhaps the most popular all over the world with a user base of over 660 million (Amaefule 2011:20). The number of users continues to grow steadily. 25 Tyler (2010: para 3) explains that there are currently 1.7 billion Internet users worldwide, almost 57% of them have joined a social network, 66% of all Internet users visit social networks, Facebook is used more than 80 million hours daily and that close to 15million photos, wall posts, links, news, notes etc. are shared on Facebook every day. According to Idaresit (cited in Ofose, 2010) about 39.6 percent of all Internet traffic from Africa is from Nigeria and 29.8 percent of the population access the Internet. As at 2009, there were 30 million Nigerians on Facebook. Of this figure, 67% were males while 33% were females. These figures have changed since then. Lagos alone now has about two million subscribers to Facebook (Ogunbayo, 2011: 44). Supporting the above, Solaja and Odiaka (2010:32) state that “such a large population naturally offers a good basis for the adoption of the platforms for marketing purposes”. Facebook offers targeted communication initiative to select customers groups for product development as well as service enhancement and also be able to engage their customers and non-customers on platforms they are comfortable with while recovery real-time feedback on what they have to say about their brand, products and services (Wmworia (2010, February 11). In Nigeria, President Goodluck Jonathan boasts of the highest fan base with 97,000 Nigerian Facebook users. Both local and international brands would consider placing an ad on the presidents Facebook fan page as traffic to the site is unbelievably high Adebija (cited in Ofose 2010:4). Twitter was launched in 2006 and founded by Dorsey Jack, Biz Stone and Evan Williams as a free micro blogging social network that enables users to post short messages known as tweets that could be viewed by other subscribers, more commonly referred to as followers. Tweets of not more than 140 characters can be sent from and received by almost any kind of electronic equipment, including desktop computers, laptops, Black Berrys, iphones, and other mobile devices (Farhi 2009). According to D’Monte (cited in Nnaane 2011) Twitter has gained popularity worldwide and is estimated to have 200 million users, generating 65 million tweets a day and handling over 800,000 search queries a day. Message brevity, in contrast with lengthy e-mail marketing messages, has been hailed as an asset of microblogs; which 26 enables consumers to browse a large amount of updates efficiently (Zhao and Rosson, 2009). Aided by increases in smart phone sales and the continued rollout of Internet and mobile network infrastructure, Twitter is poised for even more growth (Wauters, 2010). Users broadcast messages to the masses, without visiting a particular person's profile to do so. By following other users, people automatically receive messages on their own Twitter home pages tweeted by those whom they are following. Even though some Twitter accounts are kept private, and some users require that they offer approval to people who wish to follow them, messages exchanged on this microblog are public by default, thus everyone can read and comment on a Twitter message (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010). Chiang (2011) explains that visitors increased by 1,382, to 7 million in February 2009, up from 475,000 in February 2008, “making it the fastest growing social media site for that month” (McGiboney, 2009)
Twitter is an American microblogging and social networking service on which users post and interact with messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and retweet tweets, but unregistered users can only read them. Users access Twitter through its website interface or its mobile-device application software ("app"), though the service could also be accessed via SMS before April 2020.The service is provided by Twitter, Inc., a corporation based in San Francisco, California, and has more than 25 offices around the world. Tweets were originally restricted to 140 characters, but the limit was doubled to 280 for non-CJK languages in November 2017.Audio and video tweets remain limited to 140 seconds for most accounts (D'Monte, Leslie 2009).
Twitter was created by Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams in March 2006 and launched in July of that year. By 2012, more than 100 million users posted 340 million tweets a day,and the service handled an average of 1.6 billion search queries per day.In 2013, it was one of the ten most-visited websites and has been described as "the SMS of the Internet". As of Q1 2019, Twitter had more than 330 million monthly active users.Twitter is a some-to-many microblogging service, given that the vast majority of tweets are written by a small minority of users( twitter search team 2011).
In April 2014, Twitter underwent a redesign that made the site resemble Facebook somewhat. On June 4, 2014, Twitter announced that it would acquire Namo Media, a technology firm specializing in "native advertising" for mobile devices. On June 19, 2014, Twitter announced that it had reached an undisclosed deal to buy SnappyTV, a service that helps edit and share video from television broadcasts.The company was helping broadcasters and rights holders to share video content both organically across social and via Twitter's Amplify program.In July 2014, Twitter announced that it intended to buy a young company called CardSpring for an undisclosed sum. CardSpring enabled retailers to offer online shoppers coupons that they could automatically sync to their credit cards in order to receive discounts when they shopped in physical stores. On July 31, 2014, Twitter announced that it had acquired a small password-security startup called Mitro. On October 29, 2014, Twitter announced a new partnership with IBM. The partnership was intended to help businesses use Twitter data to understand their customers, businesses and other trends.
On February 11, 2015, Twitter announced that it had acquired Niche, an advertising network for social media stars, founded by Rob Fishman and Darren Lachtman. The acquisition price was reportedly $50 million. On March 13, 2015, Twitter announced its acquisition of Periscope, an app that allows live streaming of video. In April 2015, the Twitter.com desktop homepage changed.
Howbeit, Twitter’s mission is to serve the public conversation. We want to ensure that the conversations on our platform are healthy and characterized by openness, civility, and diversity of perspective
Concept of Election
In a democracy, election is a fundamental ingredient and a litmus test of voters‘ education and political participation. Election has been defined as the process by which a people decide their rulers and assign persons to ruler-ship positions. Elections denote voluntary participation in the choice of leaders and therefore bequeath or invest legitimacy (Uhunmwuangho, S.& Aibieyi, S 2017). Election is the central institution of democratic representative governments. This is because, in a democracy, the authority of the government derives solely from the consent of the governed. The most common electoral systems can be categorized as either proportional or majoritarian. Among the former are party – list proportional representation and additional member system. Among the latter are first-past-the-post (relative majority), and absolute majority. Several countries have growing electoral reform movements, which advocate systems such as approval voting, single transferable vote, voters‘ education and/or instant run-off voting or a Condorcet method (Ikelegbe, 2004 cited in Uhunmwuangho, & Aibieyi, 2017)
Importantly, the principal mechanism for translating that consent into governmental authority is the holding of free and fair elections. Kirkpatrick (2018) identified the criteria of democratic election to include voters education and democratic elections amongst others.
Opposition parties and candidates must enjoy the freedom of speech, assembly, and movement necessary to voice their criticisms of the government openly and to bring alternative policies and candidates to the voters. Simply put, permitting the opposition access to the ballot is not enough. Elections in which the opposition is barred from the airwaves, has its rallies harassed or its newspapers censored are not democratic. The party in power may enjoy the advantages of incumbency, but the rules and conduct of the election contest must be fair and just ((Ikelegbe, 2004 cited in Onyekwelu. & Akomolafe 2015).
- Democratic elections are periodic: Democracies do not elect dictators or president-for-life. Elected officials are accountable to the people, and they must return to the voters at prescribed intervals to seek their mandate to continue in office. This means that officials in a democracy must accept the risk of being voted out of office. The one exception is judges who, to insulate them against popular pressure and help ensure their impartiality, may be appointed for life and removed only for serious improprieties (Onyekwelu. & Akomolafe 2015).
- Democratic elections are inclusive. The definition of citizen and voters education must be large enough to include a large proportion of the adult population. A government chosen by a small, exclusive group is not a democracy, no matter how democratic its internal workings may appear. One of the great dramas of democracy throughout history has been the struggle of excluded groups, whether racial, ethnic or religious minorities, or women to win full citizenship and with it the right to vote and hold office. In the United States for example, only white male property holders enjoyed the right to elect and be elected when the Constitution was signed in 1787. The property qualification disappeared by the early 19th century and women won the right to vote in 1920. Black Americans, however, did not enjoy full voting rights in the southern United States until the civil rights movement of the 1960s. And finally, in 1971, younger citizens were given the right to vote when the United States lowered the voting age from 21 to 18 years (Tomwarri, 2009 cited in Uhunmwuangho, S.& Aibieyi, S 2017).
The Electoral Process in Nigeria
The electoral process in Nigeria began immediately the country gained independence in 1960. The Nigeria Electoral system is the single member constituency type with competitive multiparty and the first past the post winner system. The method of voting used in five out of six past elections, that is, in 1979,1983, 1999, 2003 and 2007 was the Open Ballot System (OBS).
The OBS entails a procedure in which the prospective voter goes through a process of accreditation, receives a ballot paper from the appropriate poll official and thereafter makes the confidential thumb impression in favour of the political party or candidate of choice in a secret voting compartment before dropping the ballot in the box positioned in the open, in the full glare of officials, security agents and party agents. (Okop, 2006 cited in Uhunmwuangho, S.& Aibieyi, S 2017).
There are five key groups involved in the electoral process and these are the electorates, the political players, the electoral officials, the Judiciary and the Government. Each of these groups has their distinct roles in the electoral process which includes the following parties:
- The Electorates
These are the citizens, and they make up the general populace; the people of the land. In any democracy, there is a clear difference between citizens and subjects. The subjects passively allow the Government to initiate and carry out public policies, while the citizens actively participate in the rituals of democracy (Lyons and Alexander, 2016). The difference between the two is determined by their level of awareness. This group usually takes active part in two major events in the electoral process, which are voters’ registration and voting. In Nigeria, as in most other nations, the voting age is 18 years and above. This group constitutes the most vital component of the electoral system and they determine the success or failure of the system. Consequently, they are supposed to be made aware and sensitized of every development in the electoral process.
- The Political Players
These are the main players in the electoral process. They include the political aspirants as well as everyone who is registered as a member of a political party.
Some of the key events that involve this group, apart from the registration and voting, are:
‐ Registration of parties
‐ Registration of members into each party
‐ Registration of candidates
‐ Establishment of strategies of wining elections
‐ Primary Elections
‐ Elections
‐ Proper monitoring
‐ Presentation of candidates for elective positions
- The Electoral Body
Nigeria as a country has a population of about 120 million people, out of which, there are about 60 million registered and eligible voters spread across 120,000 polling centers. As a result of this, election supervision and manning of the centers require about 500,000 officials, a greater number of which are temporary or ad-hoc staff, recruited and trained, usually very late in the elections process (Okop, 2006 cited in Onyekwelu B. & Akomolafe D. 2015). The officials are usually appointed and coordinated under the umbrella of the electoral body which is put in place by the government. This has always brought the electoral body under fire from many quarters, such as political parties and civil society any time there is a failure in the electoral process. They have accused the commission of being susceptible to pressure from the ruling Party (Owen, 2003).
This group is made up of the electoral commission set up by the government to conduct elections and personnel employed either as a full or ad hoc staff. These are the personnel employed specifically to implement the various key events that make up the electoral process as contained in the laws that set up the body. They can be described as the bridge between the electorates and the political players. They are involved in most of the activities of the electoral process. The events that involve the electoral officers, as described by (Nelson, 2001 cited in Onyekwelu B. & Akomolafe D. 2015), are:
• Registration of voters or updating of registration records;
• Parties and candidates’ registration;
• educating voters;
• accrediting observers and monitors;
• establishing an electoral campaign period;
• oversight of the process and its machinery;
• preparing for, and then holding the vote and count;
• announcing the results; and
• inauguration of the newly elected officials
- Judiciary
The judiciary is charged with its normal responsibility of dispensing justice in the electoral process. Any dispute, complaint relating to the election as it affects any of the players and intra-party disputes are adjudicated upon by the judiciary.
- The Government
This includes the ruling party, as well as the political office holders who might belong either to the ruling party or an opposition party. The Nigerian Government has always played an active role in the electoral process, and particularly in the putting in place the electoral bod y. In 1992, the ruling Government went as far as creating two political parties, and creating the guidelines and manifesto guiding each of the parties.
Concept of Political Campaign
A political campaign is an organized effort which seeks to influence the decision making progress within a specific group. In democracies, political campaigns often refer to electoral campaigns, by which representatives are chosen or referendums are decided. In modern politics, the most high-profile political campaigns are focused on general elections and candidates for head of state or head of government, often a president or prime minister. The message of the campaign contains the ideas that the candidate wants to share with the voters. It is to get those who agree with their ideas to support them when running for a political position. The message often consists of several talking points about policy issues. The points summarize the main ideas of the campaign and are repeated frequently in order to create a lasting impression with the voters. In many elections, the opposition party will try to get the candidate "off message" by bringing up policy or personal questions that are not related to the talking points. Most campaigns prefer to keep the message broad in order to attract the most potential voters. A message that is too narrow can alienate voters or slow the candidate down with explaining details (Udende (2011) .
The role of social media in political campaign
Social media tools have become commonplace in political campaigns around the world. One of the distinctive features of such tools is that they create an immediate and informal way for users to respond to candidate messages and publicly display their support. The new media‟s influence on elections has been substantial. Campaigns provide a laboratory for the development of political applications that carry over to post-election politics and establish new norms for media politics in subsequent contests. The social media innovations that rose to prominence in the 2008 presidential contest became standard practice in the 2010 midterm elections and set the stage for the development of political applications for handheld devices.
In Nigeria, several political actors have now turned to social media platforms to seek political support. Some of them now hold online political talks that are intended to sway voters from their rival political parties. This has been common in especially new political comers who are mostly young politicians and intent to attract and convince the minds of young people that they claim to have been poisoned by the lies of the ruling government. Therefore, political communication on most of the social media platforms benefits a lot to the political actors whereas some of them tend to polarize the voters by preaching hate speech among voters. Considering the power of social media platforms presently, politicians in Nigeria tend to embrace social media communication as one of their strategies to communicate with their potential audiences as Nulty et al. (2016) concluded in their study. furthermore, alongside traditional media, social media have now been turned into the main platforms for a political campaign to gain support from potential electorates, to raise funding for political parties, and other political activities.
There are several important roles social media plays in political communication. It increases the effectiveness and efficiency of a political campaign. Also, a political campaign using social media can be more effective and efficient in targeting potential electorates.Secondly, it plays an important role in bringing politicians closer to their electorates. Unlike traditional media, social media allows politicians and their audiences to directly communicate. This communication can take place everywhere at a different time and with different agendas. Finally, it can also mediate political communication with broader audiences. Social media usage in international political contexts has time and again helped politicians to communicate with broader audiences from different nationalities and languages. This helps people who live in those places to connect and be alive to what is going on in their mother countries (Nulty et al., 2016).
EFFECT OF TWITTER BAN ON POLITICAL CAMPAIGN
One of the tenets of a democratic society is established on due electoral processes andfundamental human right of electorates which encompasses freedom of speech, associate, the right to vote and be voted for.
Bizarrely in a moment of anger and lack of critical reflection unbecoming of a democratically elected government, and with complete disregard to fundamental rights of the electorates, the Buhari led Administration on June 4th 2021 announced an indefinite ban on the operations of amicroblogging and social networking service Twitter in Nigeria after the management of Twitter took down a post made by President Muhammadu Buhari’s Twitter handle on what what was interpreted as a threat of genocide or bloody suppression against a section of the Nigerian populace. In defence of this, Segun Adeyemi, a Special Assistant to the President (Media) in the office of the Minister of Information and Culture, (Minister, Lai Mohammed) opined that the reason for the ban is attributed the it persistent for activities that are capable of undermining Nigeria’s corporate existence (CNN 2021).
Consequently, the ban was rightly opposed by Nigerians who feared that they would serve as witch-hunt apparatuses against those who exercise the right of dissent. More so, is the couple with the notion that events around the Twitter ban confirmed the fear of the civil society, media outlets and groups, professional bodies, of an episode of an authoritarian regime which do not consider how the new media has been of great I,mportance in political communication, business activities, security information and the civil space. To buttress this, A lawyer and human rights crusader, Inibehe Effiong, described Twitter and other social media platforms as “veritable tools for civic engagement”, which gives the ordinary people a voice to air their grievances and bring to public attention, crisis and injustice that has been done to them and seek both institutional and public support. More so, many citizens have got redress for injustice done to them on account of the polarization of such cases on Twitter. Therefore a ban on micro-blogging site limits access to (justice) and in a way shrinks the civic space of Nigerians and people can no longer organize effectively as they are supposed to (premium times 2021).
In a an editorial by PREMUIM TIMES (2021), the describedtwitter-ban in Nigeria as a real risk to our democracy on five notions thus: First, the ban constitutes a gross abuse of office, as it elevates the personal interest of the President above that of the country and her citizens. The President is indeed NOT the state and disagreements over the personal terms he voluntarily entered with Twitter should not be allowed to threaten the public and national interest. Moreover, we are not aware of any law of the federation that allows the President or a Minister to whimsically deny Nigerians access to social media services of their choice. Secondly, the ban is a grave violation of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, which the trio of the President, the Minister of Information and the Minister of Justice swore to uphold. By infringing citizens’ fundamental right to the freedom of expression and association, it violates section 39 of the Constitution, while undermining the social and economic rights guaranteed Nigerian citizens by Chapter 11 of the Constitution.
Thirdly, the ban is a violation of and assault on a number of international, continental and regional instruments that Nigeria willingly subscribes to. Indeed, the ban clearly falls below their expectations of the realm of the rights and freedom that citizens should freely enjoy. Among these are the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the Universal Declaration of Peoples and Human Rights. Pursuant to the provisions of the African Charter, Resolution 362 of 2016 of the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights expressed concern at the practice by State Parties to the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights, of “interrupting or limiting access to telecommunication services such as the Internet, social media and messaging services.Thus UN Human Rights Council also has a subsisting resolution of July 2018 that demands the promotion, protection and enjoyment of human rights on the Internet.
Fourthly, the ban constitutes an unwarranted attack on the corporate, business and professional interests of organization and individuals legitimately managing their affairs on Twitter, including but not limited to the media, entrepreneurs, researchers, educational institutions, NGOs and CCSOs. As at the third quarter of 2020, Twitter accounted for 61.4 per cent of Internet users in Nigeria, coming after WhatsApp and Facebook messenger, according to ‘Statista’, while ‘Quora’ estimates the number to be about seven million. Even if the number of users is considerably less, it still does not justify a ban that is jeopardizing the means of business and social communication of citizens. Fifthly, the ban further underscores the investor community’s growing concern over the unpredictability of the domestic policy environment (Wu, 2016). The consequences of a subsequent attenuation of investment for an economy whose recovery from the initial stages of the pandemic has been described as “fragile” are better imagined ((Nielsen & Kuhn, 2014).
In regards to the effect of twitter ban on political campaign,the ban will increase the amount of distrust, together with institutional changes at every level as exhibited on social media platforms and in particular lessened the ties between government and the ordinary people. More so, the ongoing trend towards the abandonment of new media (Twitter) in traditional party politics will aggravated the political alienation of electorates, and this situation has been exploited by majority forces.
Additionally, in a politicized environments,where the presence of different messages can help wage directional goals of achieving attitude consistency, twitter ban can even in the face of attitude-disconfirming information alter the beliefs of the electorates based on information one believes to be true. Also, Partisan news and absence of viable party information on Twitter can plays an important role in voters’ likelihood of believing in rumors (Tomwarri, 2021).
Finally, the twitter ban has a potency of denying the voters information necessary for their political education during election period which is a requisite for motivating them to participate in the voting process, all these are detrimental to the electoral process of a democratic society hence capable of demeaning sustainable democracy.
2.2 THEORITICAL FRAMEWORK
For the purpose of this study, normative democracy theory and agenda setting theory will be considered.
Normative Democracy Theory
Normative democratic theories like all normative theories of politics assume that people are able to and may want to act in a different way than they usually do. Normative democratic theory as propounded by Dewey (1958) deals with the moral foundations of democracy and democratic institutions, as well as the moral duties of democratic representatives and citizens. It is distinct from descriptive and explanatory democratic theory, which aim to describe and explain how democracy and democratic institutions function. Normative democracy theory aims to provide an account of when and why democracy is morally desirable as well as moral principles for guiding the design of democratic institutions and the actions of citizens and representatives. Of course, normative democratic theory is inherently interdisciplinary and must draw on the results of political science, sociology, psychology, and economics in order to give concrete moral guidance.
Uses and Gratification Theory (UGT)
Developed by Blumler and Katz (1974), The uses and gratification theory (UGT) refers to the study of the gratifications or benefits that attract and hold users to different media and various contents that fulfil the user’s emotional and social needs (Harridge-march et al., 2010). The primary objective of UGT is to clarify the reasons why people choose a specific type of medium to improve the understanding of social and individual gratifications and also to explain users’ motives when interacting with the media. For example, Cheung et al. (2011) stated that the UGT explains why people use specific media as an alternative communication medium and discovers the needs that motivate the user to use a particular medium. They also noted that users are very much aware of their needs and their behaviour is goal-directed.
For social media gratifications, scholars (Park, Kee, & Valenzuela, 2009) found out four needs for Facebook group participation. These included socializing by staying in touch and meeting people, entertainment through the use of Facebook for amusement or leisure, seeking selfstatus by maintaining one’s image, and seeking information to learn about events and products. Similarly, Chen (2011) in his study on the gratifications of Twitter uncovered, that Twitter users gratified their need for connection through it. Besides, its increased usage, in terms of active time on Twitter and in terms of the number of hours one spends using the platform, increased the gratification of the need for connection. From the discussions above, it is crystal clear, that UGT was the right choice of theory to help in guiding the current study considering that some of the gratifications and uses that have been explored before as a result of using the UGT include information seeking and social influence, attributes that politicians often aim at while distributing their political material on the different social media platforms for the ultimate consumption of their followers.
2.3 EMPIRICAL STUDIES
Tumasjan et al. (2010) in their study from data collected from Twitter show that, Twitter is extensively used for political deliberation and that the mere number of party mentions accurately reflects the election result. In other words, microblogging messages on Twitter reflect the political landscape in Uganda and can be used to predict election results especially among the youths who often use the platforms in most parts of urban areas in Uganda. In addition, Conover et al. (2011) examined two networks of political communication on Twitter, comprised of more than 250,000 tweets from the six weeks leading up to the 2016 U.S. elections. The authors revealed that the network of political retweets exhibited a highly segregated partisan structure, with extremely limited connectivity between the users.
Considering the power of social media platforms presently, politicians in Uganda tend to embrace social media communication as one of their strategies to communicate with their potential audiences as Nulty et al. (2016) concluded in their study. furthermore, alongside traditional media, social media have now been turned into the main platforms for a political campaign to gain support from potential electorates, to raise funding for political parties, and other political activities.
In another study by Kasirye, (2021) on Using Social Media for Political Campaign Communication and Its Impact on Political Polarization among Youths in Uganda, 192 valid responses were extracted from youths residing in Kampala and Wakiso districts in Uganda as the respondents of the study. The findings of the study reveal that youths in Uganda often use Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, and Instagram while looking for political-related information to help them form a decision on who to give their support in the election. In addition, the study also reveals that the more the youths look for such political information, the more they become polarized because all the politicians just feed them with information that is divisive and there exists a huge amount of hatred as a result of the consumption of such information on the Ugandan internet space. The uses and gratifications theory is also supported in the study.