Strategic Communication is ubiquitous. It is applied across different fields; this is evident from its historical beginnings to date. In the modern era, the common application of Strategic Communication can be seen in the corporate world where business organizations consciously integrate communication into their mission and efforts to profitably reach diverse and specific audiences.
Furthermore, Strategic Communication it is applied in the political landscape, especially during electioneering. With growing technology and access to information about political happenings, through technological devices like social media, citizens are more complex to convince to vote for a particular candidate. Thus, politicians around the world are adopting Strategic Communication to communicate their ideologies and to influence favorable voting (Perloff, 2014). A typical example is Barack Obama who used strategic communication to reach out to diverse groups during his campaign which he subsequently won as the first and only Black President of the U.S.
Strategic Communication is also applied in modern governance. Perloff (2014) asserts that Strategic Communication should be prioritized by the government to be successful. This is because Strategic Communication helps the government to be able to communicate its policies clearly to the citizens in a manner that the citizens can appreciate and likely show support. Many governments have agencies and institutions that handle their Strategic Communication.
For instance, the United States Government has an Office of Strategic Communication which designed a framework that enables the government to be able to reach all major U.S. and global media outlets instantaneously (Caddy, Peixoto & McNeil, 2007). In the same vein, the Government of the United Kingdom has a Strategic Communication framework with the capacity to deliver a flyer propagating the domestic and foreign policies of the UK, to every UK household within 24 hours (Aday, Brown & Livingston, 2008).
The above cannot be said of most governments in developing countries, including Nigeria. Though there are government institutions, such as the National Orientation Agency, and the Ministry of Information and Culture that by design should champion Strategic Communication for good governance in the country, the agencies are often left in the hands of low-skilled officials who see themselves as propaganda tools of the government. Therefore, they mostly disseminate skewed information to random target citizens, predominantly through the traditional press release, TV, and radio jingles, without a second thought. This has made many Nigerians lose touch with, and passion for, the government and its activities.
Now and then when a new government emerges in Nigeria, an attempt is made toward engaging in Strategic Communication to promote the government’s ideologies and seek support from the citizens. This trend gave birth to several known national campaigns such as “Transformation Agenda”, “Change Begins with Me”, and “Nigeria: Good Nation, Good People”. These campaigns, though with good intentions, have made little or no impact in achieving the needed behavior change. The major problem with the campaigns stems from a lack of adherence to the principles of Strategic Communication and a lack of professionals at the vanguard of the campaigns.
Similarly, different government institutions with specific visions or goals can utilize Strategic Communication. Examples of these institutions in Nigeria include EFCC, ICPC, NDLEA, NCDC, and FRSC among others. Specifically, the FRSC has distinguished itself in the application of Strategic Communication. The agency has engaged in different Strategic Communication activities to achieve specific goals in to the core vision of preventing and minimizing accidents on Nigerian roads. Examples of Strategic Communication programs of FRSC in the past include the “Don’t Drink and Drive” campaign, “Ember Months” campaign, and “Tyre Safety” campaign (Shadrach, 2019).
