AUDIENCE' SHIFT IN DECODING OF POLITICAL MEDIA MESSAGES CUM IMPACT ON CITIZEN ACCOUNTABILITY DEMANDS IN GOVERNANCE IN NIGERIA

This study examines the interplay between critical media theories and the workings of political media in Nigeria,
focusing on how audiences decode political messages and how these interpretations influence citizen demands for
accountability. Based on the Marxist theory, the Frankfurt School, the conceptualization of Ideological State
Apparatuses as developed by Althusser, the idea of cultural hegemony by Gramsci, and the framework of
encoding/decoding as proposed by Stuart Hall, the given work defines the dual role of media both as the means of
elite control and as the space of citizen action. The study, with a qualitative and conceptually analytical approach,
combines both empirical literature and theoretical approaches in order to demonstrate the active interpretation,
negotiation and even resistance of the mediated political discourses by the Nigerian audience, and thus shape their
understanding of governance and accountability. The results show that media influence is not deterministic; instead,
it is mediated by the social, cultural, and political context, which highlights the need to evaluate the audience agency
along with structural and ideological media forces. As a result, the study contributes to the existing body of knowledge
on political communication in the context of the emergent democracies because it highlights the possibilities of media
as a source of power and a channel of participatory democracy.