Abstract

The media is a vital electoral stakeholder in any democracy. However, there is popular discontent about the conduct of the media in Nigeria’s electioneering campaigns. This study examines the influence of print media organizations on Nigeria’s national unity during the 2015 presidential elections. It adopts secondary sources for data collection, which include national newspapers (The Nation, Guardian, and Nigerian Tribune), journal articles and book publications. The main dataset contains 1,063 campaign related news and 297 campaign advertisements, rigorously cleaned and filtered to remove extra content in order to avoid complications for the sake of perspective and scope.The study discovers that the media hyped bickering of the already polarized and incongruous nation by disseminating ‘fake news’ and ‘hate speeches’. In achieving democratization and national unity, the paper notes that fake news and hate speech must be countered and documented.It concludes that there must be more sense of professionalism among Nigerian journalists and media outlets, based on the principle of political-morality.

Key Words: Mass Media, Election, Campaign, Professionalism, Nigeria

*    Michael B. Aleyomi is of the Department of Political Science and International Relations, Landmark University, Omu-Aran, Nigeria

**  Olanrewaju O.P. Ajakaiye is of the Corporate Affairs Unit, Landmark University, Omu-Aran, Nigeria

***Otu Akanu Otu is of the Department of Political Science, Alex Ekwueme Federal University, Ebonyi State

****Moyo Paul Oluwasegun is of the Department of Political Science and International Relations, Landmark University, Omu-Aran, Nigeria

^AMCRON Journal of Communication and Media Research, Vol. 10, No. 2, October 2018:   174 – 185