Functional analysis of political commercials of two presidential candidates at three stages of the Nigerian 2019 presidential election campaigns

Abstract The 2019 presidential election in Nigeria was a clear two-horse race between the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). Many interesting political commercials accompanied the campaign. Nigerian scholars have not adequately studied how APC and PDP used these political commercials to deliver their messages much less how this was done at different stages of the campaign. More focus is on print advertisements despite data evidence that greater resources are dedicated to political commercials. To determine how the two presidential candidates used political commercials to deliver their messages, a functional analysis of the political commercials was carried out. It was anchored on the Functional Analysis Theory of Political Campaign Discourse (FATPCD). Data were collected through code sheet by two coders with coder reliability score of .80 on acclaims, .82 on attacks, and .62 on defenses on Cohen’s kappa. Findings revealed that, acclaims (81.24%) dominated over attacks (16.41%), and defenses (2.36%). Overall, the incumbent acclaimed more (86.32% - 76.15%), attacked less (8.96% - 23.85%), and defended more (4.72% - 0.0%) than the challenger as predicted by FATPCD. At the three stages of the campaign, attacks from the challenger was more than the incumbent at the introductory (20% - 0%), campaign proper (45.45% - 7.14%), but less (40% - 42.86%) at the concluding stage. This study fills empirical, methodological, and theoretical gaps in the study of political commercials in Nigeria. Key Words: Political, Commercial, Functional, Campaign, Presidential About the Author *Fidelis Ndidiamaka Asogwa is a lecturer in Mass Communication at Akanu Ibiam Federal Polytechnic, Unwana, Ebonyi State, Nigeria. He is also a doctoral student of Mass Communication at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria. His academic and research interests span advertising, and political communication. JCMR Journal of Communication and Media Research, Vol. 17, No. 1, April 2025, pp. 168-180 © Association of Media and Communication Researchers of Nigeria (AMCRON). Article Citation Asogwa, F. N. (2025). Functional analysis of political commercials of two presidential candidates at three stages of the Nigerian 2019 presidential election campaigns. Journal of Communication and Media Research, 17 (1): 168-180. Full Article Words: 7,584 Pages: 13 To access full article, click on download.