Communicating voters’ education for democracy

Abstract

A vote is the greatest power of choice and participation in electoral process, but an uninformed voter can become the worst danger to democracy. Newspapers in Nigeria face challenges of inculcating and disseminating informed voter educational messages for the development of higher participatory democratic system. Educational stakeholders in the country are facing the problem of different political messages used in educating voters during electoral periods and are becoming track of the influence of political culture as well as content and approaches of message delivery of the newspapers. This paper examined the different aspects of voter education and approaches used by the selected newspapers to guide voters for informed participation in the 2011 presidential election. The results showed the newspapers approaches in guiding the masses on voter education. The result showed that newspapers approach in guiding the masses on voter education were affected by undemocratic principles and low voters’ participation. The paper recommends the use of interpersonal communication in our schools and communities and mass communication methods in educating voters on their rights and responsibilities in electoral politics which is the foundation on which democratic government stands.