Call for Papers : Volume 11, Issue 03, March 2024, Open Access; Impact Factor; Peer Reviewed Journal; Fast Publication

The international politics imperative of nigeria’s 2015 presidential election: the role of the Media

This paper focuses on the international politics nexus of the media role in the outcome of Nigeria’s 2015 Presidential election, harping mainly on the activities of David Axelrod – a world renowned media political strategist. The objective of the study is to attempt to locate the media in the 2015 presidential election in Nigeria within the wider apparatus for the realization of the US foreign policy in the sub-Saharan region and to highlight the favorable disposition of the United States towards Buhari’s emergence, who, in Washington’s view, is more amenable to dispositions compatible with America’s foreign policy objectives in the sub-Saharan region. Data for the study is generated from secondary sources while analysis is purely descriptive. Our theoretical conceptions are Classical Realism as employed by Morgenthau, Kenneth Waltz, Thucydides, and others, respectively, in understanding the object of international politics and relations of states and Media Process and Power as employed by such scholars as Baudrillard, Mcquail, Adegboyega, Habermas, and Castel respectively. The paper concludes that, among others, the media can serve as an instrument of foreign policy since it can serve as an effective tool for propaganda warfare and realization of power. Recommendations is in line with the positions of neo-Marxian and ‘Africanists’ who suggest a ‘constructive engagement’ with the western capitalist economies whose interests may be clouded often in altruistic terms.

Author: 
Hillary I. Ekemam
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