Analytical Study of the Role of Graphic Arts in Political Communication During Nigerian Electoral Campaigns

Graphic arts including poster design, political cartooning, social media visual content, and banner design play a significant and underanalysed role in Nigerian electoral communication, and systematic analysis of the visual communication strategies deployed in recent elections provides important insight for both creative arts scholarship and political communication research. This study analytically examined the role of graphic arts in political communication during the 2023 Nigerian general elections, focusing on materials produced for the three major parties across the six geopolitical zones. A systematic visual communication analysis methodology was applied to a corpus of 240 political graphic artefacts, including 80 campaign posters, 80 social media visual posts, and 80 newspaper political cartoons from four national newspapers. Visual analysis coded for colour symbolism deployment, typographic authority construction, photographic manipulation evidence, cultural iconographic referencing, and message persuasion strategy. Results showed that green-white-green national colour appropriation was deployed in 79.2 percent of ruling party materials versus 43.8 percent of opposition materials. Ethnic cultural visual codes were used significantly more in materials targeting regional rather than national audiences. Misinformation-enabling image manipulation was detected in 14.6 percent of social media graphics through metadata analysis. Political cartooning maintained satirical independence, with negative portrayals of candidates distributed relatively evenly across party affiliation. The study fills an analytical gap in Nigerian visual political communication research and recommends media literacy training integrating visual political communication awareness.

Keywords: political graphic design, electoral communication, visual persuasion, Nigeria 2023 elections, political cartoons