FROM ALL POWERFUL MEDIA TO ALL POWERFUL AUDIENCE: EXPLORING AUDIENCE SOCIAL MEDIA ENGAGEMENT ON NIGERIA’S STUDENT LOAN SCHEME
Abstract
Nigerians have recently been major users of social media platforms, either to seek entertainment, education, information or form opinions and decisions on government policies, actions and programmes. This study, premised on the “all powerful audience” perspective of the Uses and Gratification Theory, examined Audience Social Media Engagement and Perception on Nigeria’s Student Loan Scheme. Specifically, the study investigated the frames employed by Nigerian X (formerly Twitter) users in their tweets and discussions on the Student Loan Scheme as well as the direction of Nigerian X users' tweets on the Student Loan Scheme. Using Qualitative Content Analysis, 175 tweets were purposively chosen for this study because they all met the study’s inclusion criteria which include; must be related to student loan in Nigeria, must be in text format and must be within the time frame of March 13, 2024 and March 25, 2024. Findings revealed three dominant themes: toxic discourse, loss of trust/loss of patience and hope. Tweets containing the toxic frame were the dominant theme among the themes used by Nigerian X users on Nigeria’s student loan scheme while majority of the tweets were also in the negative direction. It was recommended that adequate awareness, education, publicity and reorientation via all media, especially the new and social media platforms on all governmental issues, policies and programmes must be prioritized in order to curtain the different frames with which government’s policies, programmes and actions can be viewed from (because of the all-powerful audience notion made possible by social and new media platforms) which might be contrary to the intentions of the policies, programmes and actions.
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