PERCEPTION OF RESIDENTS ON THE ROLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA DISSEMINATION OF NEWS AND INFORMATION DURING NIGERIA 2023 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

This study sought the opinions of Enugu residents in Enugu State of Nigeria on the role of social media dissemination of news and information during the 2023 presidential election Nigeria. Anchored on the agenda setting theory of the media, the study aimed at examining the utilization of social media for political communication, particularly among the three leading political parties - All Peoples Congress, Labour Party and the People’s Democratic Party. Among the specific objectives were to discover the kind of information available in the social media about the 2023 Presidential elections and to find out the effect of news and information about the 2023 general election in the social media on the residents of Enugu metropolis. The result of hypothesis testing showed that there is a statistical relationship between news and information about the 2023 presidential election in the social media and the voting behaviour of the residents of Enugu metropolis. Other findings of the study revealed that the kinds of information in the social media about the 2023 presidential election included information that influenced the choice of candidates, manifestoes of political parties, misleading contents and hoaxes; Facebook and Whatsapp were the commonest social media platforms where residents of Enugu metropolis sourced news and information on the 2023 presidential election. Among the recommendations is that the use of social media for electioneering campaign should be intensified so as to reach the heterogeneous audience that heavily depends on the social media for different kinds of news and information.