Political discourse and public sentiment in Nigeria’s 2023 presidential election: An aspect-based analysis of campaign speeches and social media reactions
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Abstract
The study examines political discourse and public sentiments during Nigeria’s 2023 presidential election with particular attention to how campaign rhetoric and citizen reactions are linguistically constructed and evaluated. Language is a powerful tool in political discourse, shaping public opinion and reinforcing authority. This study analyzes sentiment in six presidential campaign speeches from the All Progressives Congress (APC), People’s Democratic Party (PDP), and Labour Party (LP), alongside sixty social media comments sourced from Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) predominantly considered to have amplified this influence, serves as key spaces for campaign messaging and citizen response also analysis on public reactions using aspect-level sentiment analysis based on Bing Liu’s model. The findings reveal linguistic strategies, opinion types, and emotional polarities embedded in both political rhetoric and public responses in Nigeria’s electoral context. By focusing sentiment analysis within Nigerian electoral discourse and political communication, the study contributes to discourse-oriented sentiment research, political sentiment analysis in emerging democratic settings and offers insights for linguists, communication scholars, and political analysts.
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