Selected Presentations from the Faculty of Arts Monthly Seminars, September 2015 – January, 2017

Music is a powerful means of communication. It serves many expressive purposes and has been used for political communication in post-independence Nigeria. This communication has overtime operated in formal and non-formal settings in many countries. Its use during elections in different parts of the world is remarkable and more recently during the Republican and Democratic National Conventions in July, 2016. Generally, music is known for “its capacity to appeal to the intellect and to the emotions” (Schacter, 2011). It is for this reason that music was effectively deployed for political communication in post-colonial Southwest Nigeria.

Knowledge about the importance of music for political communication looms large. Politicians, musicians, administrators and citizens rely on the platform for political information dissemination, acquisition and interaction. Like other forms of communication, songs are informative and educative. They are deployed for persuasion, mobilisation, socialisation, sensitization and empowerment of the public for informed decision making and actions. Through its entertainment component, music exposes individuals and groups to state matters and imprints political knowledge into their cognitions. Exposure to public matters may generate positive administrative actions that can drive political and socioeconomic wellbeing of individuals and the state. Music facilitates the spread of information, hence, its efficacy for political message dispersal and management in Yoruba communities.

As used in this paper, political communication is purposeful communication about politics (McNaire, 2011). It includes the dissemination of political information, a critique of the opposition and general governance discourse. It captures election campaigns and it is in this sense that the study focused on music and political communication. The objectives of the study are: to examine the use of music for political communication and describe music campaigns between 2011 and 2015 in post-independence Southwest Nigeria. It highlighted the divergent roles of musicians and campaign actors in targeted political music conversations. Analysis of music electioneering was limited to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC)1 within the geopolitical region.

The study was anchored on some propositions of the Agenda Setting theory. Propounded by McCombs and Shaw (1972), the theory assumes that the mass media force attention on certain issues, suggesting what individuals should think about, know about, and have feelings about. The first part of the process lies in the prominence given to some issues, hence, its success in telling people what to think about and how to think about it. The propositions of the theory are unidirectional, stating that: news media make people aware or not aware, pay attention to or neglect, play up or downgrade specific features of the public scene, and include or exclude from their cognitions what the media include or exclude from their content (Shaw, 1979). The role of the music media in political communication and agenda setting in Southwest Nigeria is the focus. Littlejohn (2002: 320) summarises its spiral influence in