NJOMACS

The study set out to investigate if exposure to online political advertising was responsible for voting decisions during the 2019 general elections in Akwa Ibom State and also to ascertain if campaign issues in online political advertising were responsible for voters' decisions during general elections in Akwa Ibom State. The study was anchored on the technological determinism theory. The survey research design was adopted, with the questionnaire serving as instrument for data collection from 400 sampled respondents. Findings from the study showed that majority of the respondents were exposed to online political advertising messages, which had contributed to their decisions in making a choice of candidates, which influenced their decision to vote for the candidates that were advertised The study also showed that at least one of the campaign issues, which is road infrastructure in online political advertising was responsible for voters' voting decisions during the 2019 general elections in Akwa Ibom State, it was concluded that, online political advertising had played a major role in voters' voting decisions in Akwa Ibom State. It was also found that, online political advertising can be used to help voters gain exposure to policy statements of candidates and their political parties. The study recommended that voters' education should be intensified by political parties and candidates, to enable voters' gain more exposure to online political advertising, campaign issues by political parties as part of campaign tools, should be more realistic in convincing voters to vote for political parties.