Negative image formation: a multimodal critical discourse analysis of political campaign songs in Nigerian electoral discourse

Abstract

Politicians strategically use language to degrade their opponents and persuade the electorate to think, behave, and vote in certain ways. The 2023 Nigerian General Elections witnessed an interesting use of various communicative modes for meaning-making. This study employs a qualitative research method, using a case-study design, to examine negative image formation in Nigerian political settings. While past studies have examined different political discourses in Nigeria, the present study focuses on how politicians use language to misrepresent their opponents and manipulate the electorate in the 2023 Nigerian General Elections’ campaign songs. To deconstruct the language and imagery used in these songs, I employ Fairclough’s three-dimensional framework of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) as the main theoretical framework and Kress and van Leeuwen’s visual grammar framework of Multimodal Discourse Analysis (MDA) as a supportive framework. The findings reveal how politicians craft their messages by exploiting socio-political situations and using various discursive strategies, linguistic features, and modes to construct negative images of their opponents and manipulate the electorate through different means. I argue that such strategies are problematic to a democratic system, as they create negative images of others and manipulate voting behaviours, resulting in poor electoral outcomes.