POLITICAL DIGITAL ADVERTISING: IMPLICATIONS AND WAY FORWARD FOR NIGERIA'S 2023 GENERAL ELECTIONS

This study looked at the Digital Political Advertising: Implications and Way forward for Nigeria's 2023 General Elections. The objectives of the study were to examine the extent of digital media advertising in the 2023 general election; find out the effectiveness of digital media political advertising on Benin City residents’ choice of 2023 presidential candidates in Nigeria; find out the factors (if any), which hinder the effective use of the digital media advertising for the 2023 presidential election and x-ray the ways forward to the impediments of digital advertising usage in the 2023 Nigerian presidential election. The theoretical framework was Cultivation theory and survey served as research instrument. The study found that digital advertising has come to stay and that amidst it is being extensively used by political stakeholders in projecting the agenda and ideologies of the political contenders in the 2023 general elections in Nigeria. As such, political digital advertising cannot be jettisoned by any political party or stakeholders who wish to effectively sell their ideologies irrespective of the presence of traditional and media advertising. It was recommended that political parties and stakeholders who are yet to adopt digital advertising should do so as it has various higher imperatives over traditional political advertising. It was also recommended that political parties and stakeholders who are using digital advertising as their only advertising method should complement their efforts using traditional media in order to get a higher reach especially from political stakeholders who do not have digital advertising reception gadgets.