1. The Digital Media in Political Discourse in Nigeria
Tunde Opeibi, PhD
Research Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
Chemnitz University of Technology /University of Lagos, Nigeria
A Special Chemnitz-Africa Symposium in English (CASE) for Josef 60
Date: Venue: Chemnitz, Altes Heizhaus

2. Structure of this Presentation
Background
The Project
Objectives
Research Questions
Theoretical Issues
Methodology
Discussion

3. The Project
This presentation reports some findings from an on ongoing project to compile a corpus of Nigerian- based New Media Discourse in English called: CHEMNITZ CORPUS OF NIGERIA NEW MEDIA DISCOURSE IN ENGLISH(CCONNMDE).
The corpus of digital media political discourse is a sub-component of the project. It is called CORPUS OF NIGERIA NEW MEDIA POLITICAL DISCOURSE IN ENGLISH(CONNMPDE).
When CCONNMDE is completed, it will be an open access corpus.

4. Objectives
Explores the use of digital media for political activities in Nigeria
Discusses the potential influence of the use of these new technologies in promoting civic engagement
Identifies and documents some internet-induced linguistic innovations
Compiles a 10-million word corpus tagged: Chemnitz Corpus of Nigeria New Media Discourse in English(CCONNMDE)
Creates a 2 million word specialised monitoring sub-corpus called (Corpus of Nigeria New Media Political Discourse in English-CONNMPDE)

5. Research Questions
How pervasive is the use of digital media in Nigeria politics?
In what ways have the digital media platforms promoted civic engagement?/ or can promote civic engagement?
What linguistic impact can the use of digital technologies have on the development of new media-induced discourse in English in Nigeria?

6. Digital Media & Political Discourse
Digital Media Discourse: Used variously as computer-mediated communication(CMC), computer-mediated discourse(CMD)(Herring, 2001, 2004, 2007), digital discourse(e.g., Thurlow and Mroczek 2011), social digital discourse (Schmied, 2012), New media Discourse( Zappavigna, 2013), Netspeak(Crystal, 2001), Internet discourse
Mayfield (2008) describes these media as “online platforms that promote participation, openness, conversation and connectedness”. They include Facebook, Twitter, SMS, YouTube, Instagram, Web 2.0 etc.

7. The Socio-Political Context of the Study
Nigeria is located in Sub-Saharan Africa and has about 168 million people
English has remained the official language of politics and democracy.
1999: Nigeria returns to democratic governance. With 4 major elections(1999, 2003, 2007, 2011 and now 2015), political activities have been on the increase.
: 2 major parties that have been active within the political space. The ruling Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) and the main opposition, All Progressives Congress(APC)
Significantly, the period of the restoration of democracy coincided with the boom in ICT development worldwide
In 2001, Global System of Communication was launched in Nigeria- Mobile communications and web-based activities started growing
Access to the Internet increased from about 18% to 68% within a decade( Source: NCC)
Nigeria now has the highest internet penetration in Africa(

9. Fig. 1: Growth of ICT in Nigeria between 2000 and Source: [

10. Major New Media Technologies 2012 2013 2014
S/No
Major New Media Technologies
2012
2013
2014
No of Users 1.
Mobile phones
109,822,96m
113,195,591m
126m 2
Internet
45, 040m
57,735,862m
70.3m 3
Facebook 5m
5, 357, 500 7m 4
Twitter 2m 3m
3.8m
Table 1: Subscribers’ base for key digital media technologies in Nigeria between 2012 and (Source:

11. Digital Media and Nigerian Politics
With the growing penetration of Internet and mobile communication technologies, the number of Nigerian citizens and electorate embracing social media platforms are increasing daily.
Most political candidates and stakeholders now use a range of social media tools
Nigeria president is nicknamed “ The Facebook President.”
2010: New media began to receive a wider appeal among political actors. Many started using social media for political activities[ Dr Goodluck Jonathan launched his campaign on Facebook]
2011 General Elections witnessed the use of some digital media tools[ SMS, Facebook, YouTube, Web)
The use of hashtags like #INECRegistration, #NigeriaDecides, and #OccupyNigeria confirm the deployment of these new technologies for political purposes in Nigeria[ Ifukor, 2011; Orji 2012; Opeibi, 2013, 2015)

12. Digital Media in Nigerian Politics- Specific Timeline
2003- SMS text messages were used for political education, mobilisation and campaigns
2007- SMS, Facebook, Blogs[ political campaigns, mobilisation
2010/2011- Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, Websites, Online Portals of mainstream media houses, Online Newspapers[ political campaigns, mobilisation, election monitoring]
2011- Young people used Twitter and Facebook to ask candidates about their policies(voanews.com report, 2011)

13. 2012- Digital Media and social protest(e.g. #OccupyNigeria movement)
2013- Internet as civic engagement tool, E- Governance initiatives increased
2014: A range of Digital Media applications for advocacy, campaigns, government services, etc.
2015: Popular social media platforms for political campaigns, mobilisation, etc.

14. The tipping point in the use of new media technologies within the last few years was the 2012 fuel subsidy removal protest in Nigeria.
Operating under the hashtag #OccupyNigeria, the civil rights movements awakened the consciousness of Nigerians using a range of social media tools to mobilise Nigerian citizens.
Between and 2014, other important political and policy issues have been given some global context through digital media. E.g. Boko Haram, Bring Back Our Girls, Jonathan’s re- election, Ekiti Election vs Stomach Infrastructure.

15. Humboldt- Symposium, June 6, 2014 - Chemnitz University of Technology
Figure 2: Screenshot- Online story on the use of social media in Nigeria-2012

16. Theoretical Issues
Herring’s (2001; 2004) Computer-Mediated Communication(CMC)/Computer-Mediated Discourse Analysis(CMDA) provided the basic theoretical construct.
Computer-Mediated Communication(CMC) - predominantly text- based human-human interaction mediated by networked computers or other digital media technologies(Herring, 2001)
Herring argues that the study of computer-mediated discourse (CMD) focuses on language and language use in computer networked environments, and by its use of methods of discourse analysis to address that focus.

17. Aspects of a Corpus-Based Approach
Corpus linguistics( CL) (e.g., Baker, 2006 ) - utilises bodies of electronically encoded text. It provides additional model for implementing a more quantitative methodology
CL reveals linguistic patterns and frequency information about occurrences of particular linguistic phenomena(Baker, 2006).
Corpus-based analysis also accommodates functional(qualitative) interpretation of data
Corpus-based discourse(CBD) approach was selected because it offers a more robust integrative methodology(quantitative and qualitative)(Bednarek, 2009)

18. Methodology
We adopted a combination of a variety of procedures to elicit and analyse our data.
Language-focused research on Computer Mediated Discourse (CMD) relies on methods and key concepts from a variety of research traditions in linguistics (e.g. pragmatics, sociolinguistics, genre analysis, discourse analysis and the ethnography of communication) (Androutsopoulos & Beißwenger, 2008).

19. Digital Media as Corpora
Digital Media technologies have become productive discourse platforms: Internet-based media are rich sources for corpus construction.
The Web as Corpora- The world wide web(2.0) with interactive interface has become a very rich source for linguistic investigations
Schmied(fc) argues that new media discourse usually rely on web-based resources
Web-based platforms have visibility and quantity, and a range of variety.
Web 2.0 particularly provides the interactivity mechanisms that enhance participatory democratic conversation

20. Data for the Study
Between 2013 and 2014, over 2 million online texts have already been extracted and archived, and several others are still being downloaded daily. The online political texts in Nigeria thus constitute a very large data base.

21. TWITTER HANDLES OF STAKEHOLDERS
S/NO.
SOURCES OF DATA 1.
WEBSITES OF POLITICAL PARTIES/CANDIDATES, GOVERNMENTS, MEDIA ORGANIZATIONS, PUBIC INSTITUTIONS, CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANISATIONS 2.
FACEBOOK PAGES OF STAKEHOLDERS(Politicians, Civil Rights Campaigners, Save Nigeria Group) 3.
TWITTER HANDLES OF STAKEHOLDERS 4.
REFERENCE CORPORA ( GloWbE; ICE-Nigeria) 5.
SELECTED ONLINE PROTALS OF NATIONAL NEWSPAPERS ARCHIVING ONLINE DATA AND NEWS ON NIGERIA
Table 2: Sources of Data

22. Statistics of Online Comments Project Name:
Statistics of Online Comments Project Name: CORPUS OF NIGERIA NEW MEDIA DISCOURSE IN ENGLISH (CONNMDE)
S/No
Newspaper online
Topic/ Story
Date
No of Online Comments
URL
Punch
Nigeria can defeat B’Haram, says Buhari
.JULY 25, 2014
427 comments
m/news/nigeria-can- defeat-bharam-says- buhari/ 2.
Vanguard Newspaper
APC Condemns Kaduna Bombings, says FG’s theory on Boko Haram up in Flames
July 24, 2014
550 comments
r.com/2014/07/apc- condemns-kaduna- bombings-says-fgs- theory-boko-haram- flames/ 3.
Obasanjo bombs Jonathan
December 12, 2013
660 comments
m/news/obasanjo- bombs-jonathan/ 4.
Fani-Kayode dares APC to explain link with B’ Haram
July 30, 2014
502 comments
m/news/fanikayode- dares-apc-to-explain- link-with-bharam/ 5.
Punch
2015: It’s Buhari vs Jonathan
December 12, 2014
814 comments
om/news/2015-its- buhari-vs- jonathan/#disqus_thre ad

23. Statistics of Online Comments Project Name:
Statistics of Online Comments Project Name: CORPUS OF NIGERIA NEW MEDIA DISCOURSE IN ENGLISH (CONNMDE) 6.
The Vanguard
Jonathan Knows about Boko Haram Financier in CBN
September 15, 2014
984 comments
dngr.com/2014/09/jo nathan-knows-boko- haram-financier- cbn-soyinka/ 7.
The Punch
Jonathan to Obasanjo: I’m Nigeria’s best leader
November 24, 2014
509 comments
.com/news/jonathan -to-obasanjo-im- nigerias-best- leader/#disqus_thre ad
8..
Vanguard
I don’t want to rule, I want to democratically govern by your help-Buhari
December 10, 2014
639 comments
dngr.com/2014/12/d ont-want-rule-want- democratically- govern-help-buhari/ 9.
Punch
Jonathan to Contest Against semi-literate candidate-PDP
December 23, 2014
1042 comments
.com/news/jonathan -to-contest-against- semi-literate- candidate- pdp/#disqus_thread
10.
Buhari Fails to Submit credentials to INEC
December
1514
comments
dngr.com/2014/12/ buhari-fails- submit-academic- qualifications-inec/

24. Computer Methodologies- A Corpus-Based Approach
In the course of this research, we have been using some corpus-based computer software: Sketch Engine, GloWbE, Twitter Corpus Creation Tool(TwitCorp)
The main focus has been to extract, download and archive Nigeria-based online political discourse texts.
In analysing some of the texts as shown later, we identified some key topics on politics/democracy in Nigeria and provided some quantitative information
Corpus annotation tools and standard corpus linguistics methodologies such as frequency list and concordance
Concordance searches and analysis of significant key words or texts that portray political issues in Nigeria such as good governance, re-election, Boko Haram, among others.

25. Digital Media as Civic Engagement Strategy
President Goodluck Jonathan now has about 1.8m fans on Facebook and about 40,000 followers on Twitter
The major political parties also have Facebook and Twitter accounts
The key political actors have been using the digital media protocols to conduct political tasks
As found in some existing literature( e.g. Rasmussen, 2013) these wireless technologies are being used for some of the following functions:
(i) Direct message to citizens- special occasion addresses by the president or national leaders of the parties-e.g. speeches delivered during Independence Day, Party Conventions etc (ii) Reactions to Opposition/Critics/Ruling party- (iii) Message on the State of the Nation- (iv) Response to Emergencies- communication of crisis or emergency e.g. Ebola outbreak (v) Campaign Messages-pictures and news stories from recent campaigns activities of the parties, e.g. Anambra, Ekiti and Osun States (vi) Presentation of Score Cards- Presidential addresses on achievements of his government (vii) Report on On-going Projects, government activities-e.g. Transformation Agenda (viii) Routine – Press releases, Newsletter etc (ix) Information-, Advocacy, appeal, recruitment(x) Personal Message- Festival, Holiday messages (xi) Intra-party communication-notice of meetings, invites etc. (xii) Request to remain connected via the online platform and other social media plug ins on the page.

26. Facebook Wall of Goodluck Jonathan
Figure 3: Screenshot- Facebook Wall of Goodluck Jonathan

27. Screenshot of Facebook Page of PDP
Figure 4: Screenshot- Facebook Wall of PDP

28. Homepage of Peoples Democratic Party(PDP)
Figure 5: Screenshot- Homepage of PDP

29. Homepage of All Progressives Congress(APC)
Figure 6: Screenshot- Homepage of APC

30. Figure 7: Screenshot- Homepage of APC

31. Social Monitor on #APCDecides( Analytics by Keyhole)

34. Globalising Political Issues: KWIC Analysis
The Internet has succeeded in globalising some key national political topics/policy issues in Nigeria.
This study examines a few of such topics by concordance searches.
The searches gave us a sense of the text data with particular information on specific search terms/topics that illustrate our discussion
The searches on selected topical issues confirm the use of new media to globalise political issues in Nigeria.
The currency and topicality of a particular political issue may be evaluated by the number of ‘mentions’ in digital various online platforms

35. The Corpus of Global Based English
Country
Code
General (may also include blogs)
(Only) Blogs
Total
Web sites
Web pages
Words
Nigeria NG
3,448
23,329
30,622,738
2,072
13,956
11,996,583
4,516
37,285
42,646,098
The Corpus of Global Web-Based English (GloWbE) is composed of 1.9 billion words from 1.8 million web pages in 20 different English-speaking countries. The corpus was created by Mark Davies of Brigham Young University, and it was released in 2013. (

36. KWIC on Good Governance(GloWbE)

37. KWIC on Stomach Infrastructure ( Twitcorp)

38. KWIC on Stomach Infrastructure (Sketch Engine)

39. KWIC on Stomach Infrastructure (Sketch Engine)

40. KWIC on Re-election (Sketch Engine)

41. Screenshot of Online Comments

42. Some Preliminary Findings
Construction of Identity-( Political actors now use the resources to construct and re-construct their identity)
Topicalisation of conversation( Important and key political issues are often brought to the public sphere for debate and sometimes useful suggestions are presented)
Conceptualisation of governance issues( The new media now reveal how democratic governance is understood and practised in Nigeria)
Contextualisation of socio-political agenda( Socio-political factors and variables that inform the construction of democratic matters are revealed through online discussions. Non Nigerians can get information of social and cultural factors influencing the practice of democracy in Nigeria via online platforms)
Globalisation of local politics( E.g. #BringBackOurGirls which has been (re-) tweeted more that 6 million times helping to bring local issues into global context to attract a global response)
Improvement in democratic practice: The new media has promoted: (i) political awareness (ii) political mobilization (iii) political participation
creative and innovative use of language(media multilingualism, deictic, figurative expressions, pragmatic force of the semiotic features etc.); emergence of new concepts, new words, and new expressions;

43. Conclusion: General Observations
This study observes that Digital Media Discourse(DMD) is a rapidly evolving field of research in Nigeria
That digital media has provided multi-platform and integrated channels to improve multidimensional political communications in Nigeria.
That the deployment of social media technologies in political activities in Nigeria has helped to promote deliberative democracy, civic engagement and principles of good governance.
That the new media data emerging from the public sphere demonstrates an emerging features of computer-mediated discourse that may contribute towards the nativization process( Schneider 2001).
The new media technologies have demonstrated the potential to upload national politics into global context for international responses. It has attracted international attention to many issues that would have gone unnoticed in Nigeria(e.g, Boko Haram).
However, the extent of the impact has not been empirically-verified. We assume that the use of digital media has begun to force political actors to play by the rule as much as possible(accountability, transparency, openness, compliance with rule of law, respect for fundamental rights, etc.).

44. References
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46. Research Fellow of the Alexander Humboldt Foundation
Thank you for your kind attention
Tunde Opeibi, PhD
Research Fellow of the Alexander Humboldt Foundation