PUBLIC AFFAIRS OFFICERS AND EFFECTIVE MEDIA VISIBILITY FOR THE INDEPENDENT NATIONAL ELECTORAL COMMISSION (INEC)

Public and private organizations strive to secure and sustain positive public visibility for them to carry along the people particularly their target audiences in the course of their activities. This is central to organizational success because a hostile environment will create unnecessary diversionary challenges that may lead to failure and subversion of mandate. It is increasingly becoming clear that organizations cannot afford to ignore or isolate themselves from public opinion. This is even more critical for publicly owned organizations like Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) whose operations and outputs have society wide implications.

In the country, the National Electoral Commission (INEC) has the unique mandate of organizing, conducting and managing the electoral process. To be able to effectively perform these tasks, INEC has its national head office located in Abuja with offices in all the thirty six states and the FCT and the 774 Local Government Areas of the country. These offices are coordinated at the different levels by several officials who are all under the National Commission headed by the Chairman. The National and State Offices have several departments with specific responsibilities but all aimed at facilitating the stated mandate of the Commission. One of such departments is the Public Affairs Department under a Director and a host of officers at the headquarters and the state and FCT offices. The PA Department coordinates the interaction of the Commission with the various publics that relate with or are interested in its affairs. The officers of the department are referred to as Public Affairs Officers (PAO) suggesting that they act as the links or bridges in the interactions between the Commission and the general public. In most cases, such officers may have some background in media studies or at least might have some experience of working in the media or related field. The advantage of employing individuals with such background is that they may have a flair for writing for the media and also rely on their connections with some of the professionals and media houses, thus facilitating the Commission’s engagement with the media at least cost and with minimum stresses.

RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE PUBLIC AFFAIRS OFFICE

The PA office at the state and national levels sustains the line of communication between INEC and the various publics of the Commission. Without doubt, INEC by the nature of its mandate is bound to have multiple publics with variety of interests and expectations. These publics cut across many boundaries. In the words of Lattimore and others (2004) public affairs efforts ‘include seeking to shape public opinion and legislation, developing effective responses to matters of public concern and helping the organization adapt to public expectations. Specifically, public affairs may be involved in monitoring public policy, providing political education for employees or other constituents, maintaining liaisons with various governmental units and encouraging political participation.’

In the case of INEC, the department ensures that the visibility of the commission is positively maintained for it to cultivate and sustain the credible image required for successful preparations and conduct of elections at any point in time in the country. Stated differently, the department is responsible for managing the corporate image of the Commission. The preparations and conduct of elections in the country have at most times been characterized by controversies particularly from the politicians and to an extent, the media. Inevitably, the perception of elections in the country would affect the way and manner public affairs officers in INEC undertake their responsibilities in the country. Elections are regarded as battles that must be won at all costs. Equally, INEC is variously regarded as friendly or hostile by the different political interest groups depending on their location in the political spectrum.

Against this background, it can be anticipated that the department and its staff would have enormous challenges in responding to the different expectations in the society. To this end, the department and its staff use multiple approaches to effectively build the expected bridges between the Commission and its publics. Naturally, the principal routes for achieving success are the mass media and other channels of communication to reach the different publics. Over the years, they have been doing just that particularly at the peak of their activities. In fact, to fully understand the periods that usually attract higher performance rate by the department and its staff, it may be useful to note the scope and dimension of the electoral process. At each stage, the department is confronted with challenges that require creative approaches. Usually, excess attention is focused on the Commission during:

· Registration of voters

· Registration of political parties \political party campaigns

· Preparations by the electoral body (procurement of electoral materials and recruitment of ad hoc staff)

· Holding of the elections

· Post elections

In an ideal situation, all steps and arrangements should be clearly explained by the public affairs officers to the various stakeholders and indeed the electorates for the credibility and legitimacy of the process. The quality of each of the steps has profound impact on the subsequent steps and quality of the outcome of the process. Thus, they are not expected to take chances at each stage by ensuring that they have mounted sufficient public enlightenment campaigns through the media and other means of reaching the various stakeholders for maximum understanding and appreciation of INEC’s activities.

CAPACITY OF PAOs

Considering the duties and responsibilities expected of the public affairs officers of INEC at the different times, it is imperative that only trained officers who understand the meaning and essence of public communication are employed and retained in the department. They should be capable officers who are fully conversant with their immediate and distant environments. They should be informed about their areas of operation as well as the nation and be adequately equipped with the basic techniques of writing for the media, among others. Equally, they are expected to be conversant with the media terrain for easy engagement. The challenge, therefore, is for the department to ensure that it recruits and retains competent officers who are adequate in the English Language and versed in knowledge of current affairs with analytical minds, able to respond in very creative manners to situations as they emerge particularly during tense moments like elections. Similarly, the PAOs should be well informed about their immediate surroundings and have exceptional interpersonal skills to be able to relate well with the representatives of the various constituent groups like the media, professional associations, civil society organizations, political parties, etc. In addition to all of these, the PAOs should have good writing skills to be able to capture and present the position of the Commission in the most credible forms to the media and in other occasional publications about INEC.

Of the many stakeholders that should continuously engage the attention of the PA department and its staff are the media, pressure groups like NGOs, and the political parties, among others. Specifically, we shall focus on some of the strategies for fruitful and mutual engagement with the media for the credible image and strategic visibility of INEC in and out of the country.

ENGAGING THE MEDIA

The mass media are central in the operations of the PA department in INEC. In this regard, individual officers and the department should strengthen their relationship with the media like the Internet, radio, television, newspaper, magazines, newswires and so on through strategic engagement to gain support for and strengthen relationships between the Commission and their various publics while maintaining cordial and mutual beneficial association with those media.

The role of the Media in promoting the visibility and credibility of INEC

• spotlights Commission’s policies and performance
• develops and maintains opportunities and relationships between INEC and its publics
• objectively, economically and effectively disperse Commission’s news and information to large and dispersed publics in a complex Federal Nigeria
• provides a third-party endorsement (legitimacy) for INEC and its operations
• serves as gatekeeper or filter for the publics and channel through which the Commission’s officials can reach and seek support from the public
• preserves and strengthens Commission’s long term reputation during crisis situations
• serves as source of up-to-date, useful and trusted news and information about the Commission

Expected relationship between INEC and the Media

The relationship between the Commission and the media needs to be based on the principle of mutual dependence that is aimed at:

· publicizing and disseminating reliable/valuable information to its publics

· discharging the constitutional responsibility of the media, as well as that of INEC

· ethical/legal code of conducts of both the media and INEC

· gaining and preserving support from various publics

Media Relations in action

There are various ways of gaining entry into the media space. However, the choice of individual media channel will depend on the objective of the message and what it seeks to achieve in addition to the nature and characteristics of the target audience. Such a choice can intensify or weaken the impact of the objective. These methods include but not limited to the following:

• news/publicity releases:

This is used as an opportunity to spotlight any occurrence(s) within an organization that may have local, regional, national news value. Often times, the news is favourable to the organization, while at other times it is not. These releases could be packaged as kits, distributed by mail, disseminated through press conferences ( Aliagan, 2005). News is a commodity gathered, processed and packaged for onward dissemination as a routine. It could be positive or negative but usually has as its values: unusualness, timeliness, proximity, impact, human interest, magnitude, prominence, consequence, among others, depending on the accepted societal judgment of news values.

Factors that determine the context and content of news

The factors listed below can serve as very important guides to an individual preparing or involved in searching, writing and processing news. Thus, individual PAOs may find them useful in the course of preparing news items that they wish to disseminate through the media. Again, this brings to mind the point that was earlier raised on the need for PA officers to have a good background in media studies or at least writing for the media. However, these factors should be advisedly applied in the context of INEC’s organizational policies and operational conduct. The factors to consider are:

· Characteristics of the intended audience: who are the intended receivers of the information being disseminated? It is always important to have the audience in mind while preparing the news for circulation.

· News value judgments in the society – i.e. negative versus positive news: A good understanding of the elements of news will facilitate the effective writing of news that will be of interest and acceptable to the different media houses as well as the intended audiences.

· Current and expected societal issues, challenges and opportunities: News emanating from INEC should expectedly address issues of concern to the public. For example, at each stage of any of INEC’s tasks, the public will be interested in knowing the processes as well as the outcome of their activities.

· Journalistic assumptions and perceptions: It is important the officers familiarize themselves with the internal working arrangements and behaviour of journalists in different media settings, e.g. deadlines, commercial news, etc

· Intended purpose for initiating the communication process: Every news item emanating from offices of the Commission should have a specified objective it may wish to achieve. That should inform the direction of the write up.

· Journalistic principles and ethical code of conduct: Accuracy, attribution, objectivity, neutrality, balance and fairness, language simplicity, expression and consistency, etc. should guide the PAO in drafting news items, features or any other release meant for general circulation through the media.

Other means of engaging the media to reach the public which PAOs can use either by themselves or by the Commission’s senior officials are:

• Discussion (conversation, phone calls, press conference, meeting or interview):

This requires careful and thorough planning. Interested media are notified ahead to send in representatives. Appropriate venue is selected for convenience and accomplishment of purpose; the senior officials are prepared alongside other interviewees for the interactive session which has to be transparent. Such an avenue can provide a good opportunity for the officials to speak extensively on the scope and details of the Commission’s activities.

• video news releases (satellite interviews or media tours and public service announcements):

This is in form of a short news package presenting the news items from the Commission’s viewpoint (usually about 90 seconds or longer) accompanied by still or motion background videos of photos, releases, fact sheets, interviews or other pertinent information with an accompanying audio in high broadcast quality.

• news posted to web pages (intranets and extranets):

Web pages (intranets and extranets) are used to refer to the Internet. Intranets simply refer to computer-based systems for communicating with employees and other insiders. Extranets refer to the same process but for reaching external publics. Dedicated locations that could be of interest for breaking news, press releases, speeches, and filings are used as direct links and accessible at the click of buttons to searchable databases, access to online media kits and additional useful tools.

News gathering sources

As indicated earlier, PAOs are expected to be equipped with the skills of effective news gathering techniques to be able to journalistically capture and reproduce events as they occur. News gathering as a process involves self-conscious seeking and digging beyond surfaces for ignored, unseen, or hidden facts. In this case, PAOs are also expected to ask questions on behalf of the general public. This may require asking probing questions internally through interviews, keenly observing issues or events, engaging in objective research, monitoring public opinion, etc. Through these methods, relevant information about the Commission can be packaged and presented to the public instead of waiting for outsiders to demand for answers from their own perspectives. In other words, the Commission will be appropriately positioned to define its agenda to the public instead of being reactive at most times.

Managing Rumours

INEC has on several occasions been reported out of context or based on entire rumours that often turned out to be false. It is not unusual to read in the press stories that relate to the Commission without credible attribution. Thus, it is important to prepare on how to respond to rumours that may be circulated about the Commission. Many a times, such rumours may be circulated for the wrong reasons by some interested party.

• always strive to increase and maintain trust and credibility by making the activities of the Commission visible
• keep audiences regularly informed through a variety of communication channels
• tailor each message to the receiving audience to minimize misconceptions
• establish and sustain two-way communication channels, e.g. telephone or public debates to seek and clarify fears and concerns
• monitor possible effects of rumours to allow early intervention or response

CONCLUSION

The PA department and its staff have very important responsibility of ensuring that the image and credibility of INEC is preserved and promoted at all times. INEC is bound to attract multifarious perceptions from the different publics based on their interpretation of the activities and outcomes of the Commission’s mandate. Elections are competitive exercises that usually make winners happy and losers unhappy or even angry. Sometimes, such anger may be exaggerated and mischievously circulated to poison public mind against the umpire (INEC). Similarly, there could be several other sources of negative publicity against the Commission which are often as a result of breakdown of communication or the total absence of it thereby creating gaps for suspicions, rumours and unfounded allegations, which in the end affect the image and credibility of the Commission. It is therefore important that the PAOs devise creative strategies that will continuously address the minds of the public to erase stereotypes, deconstruct mindsets and offer credible information that will facilitate the perception of INEC’s assignments in the appropriate perspectives. But for all of the challenges to be addressed and the desired results achieved, the Commission should equip the PA department with the necessary facilities and continuously build the capacities of the staff to be able to appreciate the enormity of their individual and collective responsibilities in the context of INEC.

References

Aliagan, I. (2006). Fundamentals of Newspaper Journalism. Ibadan: Kraaft Books Limited.

Burns, T. (1977). “The Organization of Public Opinion”, In Curran, J. Gurevitch, M. and Woollacott, J. (ed). Mass Communication and Society. London: Edward Arnold Publishers.

Lattimore, D. et al (2004). Public Relations: The Profession and the Practice. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Uwakwe, O. (2005). Media Writing and Reporting. Owerri: Afrika-Links Books.