Osun 2018: How emotional laden social media campaign messages will affect Adeleke, Oyetola’s triumph

The two leading political parties in Osun State have elected their governorship candidates for the September 22 election, giving ways for inter-party campaigns in the physical and virtual spheres. As the election draws near, parties and their supporters are making frantic efforts to market candidates to the electorate in the state using various media or communication tools.

Infoprations' observation reveals that since the emergence of Alhaji Gboyega Oyetola and Senator Ademola Adeleke as candidates for the All Progressives Congress and the People’s Democratic Party, followers and parties-politicians induced social media users have been campaigning using different tactics.  

In the last few weeks, social media, especially Facebook has been awash with emotional and issue-based messages from the supporters and communications teams of the political parties. However, Infoprations' analysis shows that issue-based messages would have positive impact on the voters than emotional based messages being spread by some followers on Facebook.

Analysis of three select campaign messages laden with anger, sadness, fear, disgust, surprise and joy from one of the social media promoters reveals that name calling and candidate’s character played up, and playing up candidate’s qualifications would have negative impact on the people’s interest in the two candidates.

Further analysis indicates that issue-based messages such as outstanding salaries of civil servants in the state is likely to help oppositions in getting voters’ support for the September 22 election. These insights imply that both candidates and their supporters should understand that running a positive campaign increases candidate’s favourability among voters than negative campaign.