Yesterday’s Senate plenary session was indeed rowdy, with Senator Natasha Akpoti of Kogi State at the centre of the controversy. The drama unfolded when she was asked to vacate her seat and move to a newly allocated one, a necessary rearrangement due to the recent defection of two senators to the ruling party. Thousands of commentaries have since flooded the social media. I have noticed the biases and sentiments but that is not the centre of this piece. I will surround this discourse entirely within the theories of communication. By doing so, I am not interested in judging the rightness or wrongness of either Senator Natasha or the President of the Senate Godswill Obot Akpabio. Hence, the piece is focused on exploring the spectacles of Agenda Setting and Selective Exposure and Selective Perception to analyse the yesterday’s situation.
Videos from The Cable, TVC News, the Channels TV, etcetera, appear to have been edited to exclude the context leading up to the altercation. The first set of videos from these National TVs instead focused on Senator Natasha being denied a point of order. This selective editing created the impression that she was being unfairly denied her rights. In this article, we shall mainly consider this perspective, especially as a deliberate agenda setting tool by the press.
In reality, Senator Natasha had refused to comply with the new seating arrangement, prompting the Chief Whip, Senator Tahir Monguno to raise a point of order, citing Senate rules to justify the reassignment. The situation escalated, with Senate President Godswill Akpabio ordering the Sergeant-at-Arms to remove Senator Natasha from the chamber. Of course, this is not the first time, and certainly cannot be the last time the Senate would conduct reassignment in its sitting rearrangements. Senator Natasha, in particular, felt targeted, claiming that Akpabio had deliberately silenced her voice and denied her opportunities.
The media’s portrayal of the Senate session can be seen as a classic example of selective storytelling. By only showing a portion of the session, the media created a narrative that elicited emotional sympathy for the female senator, Natasha Akpoti. This editing choice can be interpreted as an attempt to set a negative agenda against the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, and the ruling party. From an interpretivist perspective therefore, this media representation can be viewed as a social construction, where the media’s selection of what to show and how to frame the story, influences the audience’s perception of reality. The media’s narrative becomes a tool for shaping public opinion and creating a particular interpretation of events.
In this case, the media’s focus on Senator Akpoti’s seeming mistreatment by the Senate President, creates a sympathetic response from the audience, potentially overlooking the context and nuances of the situation. This constructed reality then influenced public opinion and shaped the discourse around the issue, and expectedly, to the detriment of a more nuanced and balanced understanding of the events. Question is, was that initial standpoint by early critics able to stand the test of time, when the full video of the session surfaced on social media? We will consider this shortly.
The Agenda Setting Theory of Mass Communication, on the one hand, suggests that the media has the power to influence public opinion by determining what issues are important and worthy of attention. This theory proposes that the media sets the agenda for public discourse, shaping the way people think about and prioritize certain issues. The concept was first introduced by Bernard Cohen in 1963, but it was further developed and popularized by Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw in their 1972 study. However, researcher G. Ray Funkhouser is also credited with contributing to the theory in 1973. Despite his contributions, Funkhouser’s work did not gain much traction, partly due to his geographical isolation and lack of follow-up research. In contrast, McCombs and Shaw’s work sparked widespread interest in agenda setting research, cementing their place as key proponents of the theory.
The Selective Exposure Theory, on the other hand, proposes that individuals tend to favour information that reinforces their pre-existing views, while avoiding contradictory information. This theory was first introduced by Leon Festinger in 1957 as part of his Cognitive Dissonance Theory. Festinger suggested that people experience mental discomfort when confronted with conflicting ideas, leading them to seek out information that supports their existing beliefs.
Joseph T. Klapper further developed the theory in the 1960s, arguing that audiences are not passive targets of mass media propaganda. Instead, he says, people selectively expose themselves to media messages that reinforce their existing attitudes and beliefs. Klapper’s research shows that individuals tend to filter out information that contradicts their pre-existing convictions, and that mass media has a limited power to influence people’s opinions.
Applying these theories to the situation in the Senate now becomes important at this point. In the initial stages of the controversy, many people were exposed to edited clips of the Senate session that showed Senator Akpoti being asked to vacate her seat. Selective perception comes into play as people interpreted the information they were exposed to in a way that was consistent with their pre-existing attitudes and beliefs. Many individuals perceived the edited clips as evidence of Senator Akpabio’s alleged mistreatment of Senator Akpoti, without considering the broader context.
As a result, initial public opinion was largely shaped by a selective and incomplete presentation of the facts. It wasn’t until the full video of the Senate session was released, providing a more complete context, that public opinion began to shift. The full video revealed a different story. The Senate Chief Whip cited relevant points of order, explaining why the seat change was necessary due to the defection of two senators to the ruling party. This new context shed light on the reasoning behind the seat rearrangement, which was not apparent in the initial edited clips.
As the full video spread online, public opinion shifted. Many netizens who initially criticized Senator Akpabio for allegedly ignoring Senator Akpoti, later sided with the Senate President. This dramatic shift in narrative highlights the dangers of window dressing in public communication, where selective presentation of information can create a misleading narrative.
The press, undoubtedly and absolutely undeniably, played a significant role in pushing this narrative, which was later proven to be incomplete. All of them covered the event live and could have presented the situation completely, without cutting out sections that would have presented the whole scenario in a balanced way. By promoting edited clips without providing the full context, the media contributed to the spread of misinformation and fueled public outrage. This behaviour is unacceptable and underscores the need for responsible journalism that prioritizes accuracy and fairness.
To put it straight, the press jettisoned the principle of responsible journalism in their reporting, and risked the temptation to sensationalize or manipulate information for the sake of attracting attention. We cannot be pretentious to wrongly admit that the media held up to the time tested moral grounds of transparency and accountability. Therefore, whether negative or positive, the media is completely responsible for the backlash and preponderance of negative opinions flooding the media on the Natasha Akpoti Vs Godswill Akpabio dark moments.
Joseph Atainyang is a journalist and public affairs commentator.