Discursive Strategies in Facebook Posts of Party Supporters on Nigeria's 2023 Presidential Candidates

Abstract

The use of social media has become widespread in political campaigns, and Nigeria is no exception. The 2023 electioneering in Nigeria saw even more widespread use of social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and WhatsApp which are increasingly becoming tools for political campaigns, with politicians and their followers using the platforms to drive home their agendas and amplify their messages. This study aims to identify and analyse the discursive strategies used by party supporters in order to reveal their ideologies. Data were obtained from the Facebook posts of the supporters of the three main political parties – APC, PDP and LP. Drawing on van Dijk's socio-cognitive approach to critical discourse analysis, this study analyses the discursive strategies in the posts. The findings show that politicians and electorates employ positive self-representation and negative other representation, lexicalization, labelling, metaphorisation and hyperbole to portray the ideological stances of polarization and resistance.