Mediatization in Nigeria: Examining coverage of the 2019 presidential election

There has been an increased discussion and literature on the mediatization of politics since the 1960s following the role that the media plays in the 21st century, especially in democratic states. Using content analysis, this study analyzes mediatization of politics in Nigeria with emphasis on the 2019 Presidential election. This is with the objective of examining how news content was framed and the extent to which news coverage was driven by media logic rather than politicallogic. Data for the study is derived from reports of four randomly selected newspapers in the southern and northern regions of the country published two weeks before the 2019 Presidential election. The newspapers include Thisday, Vanguard, Daily Trust and Blueprint. The study concludes that the 2019 Presidential election coverage was characterized by media logic given that news reports during the election were cast more as a strategic game or horse race. This implies that the news coverage centered on analyzing the performance of politicians, the political institutions, strategies employed by political parties prior to and during the election. Results also indicate that news reportage during the period under review was far more descriptive than interpretive.