THE POLITICS OF INSECURITY REPORTAGE IN NORTHERN NIGERIA
Nigeria is faced with different challenges that nearly comatose the security architecture of the country. In the geopolitical North, it started as mere conflict over access to land largely involving herders and farmers. It metamorphosed to gangsterism that was restricted to cattle rustling. The cha...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Federal University Wukari
2024-05-01
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| Series: | International Studies Journal |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://wissjournals.com.ng/index.php/wiss/article/view/295 |
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| Summary: | Nigeria is faced with different challenges that nearly comatose the security architecture of the country. In the geopolitical North, it started as mere conflict over access to land largely involving herders and farmers. It metamorphosed to gangsterism that was restricted to cattle rustling. The challenge has now snowballed into full-pledged entrepreneurial terrorism where the actors amass wealth through kidnapping, banditry, and other forms of criminal activities. Nowadays, no one is guaranteed of his safety in Nigeria, North in particular. With the use of the Political Economy of Communication, Framing, Social Responsibility, and Agenda Setting Theories, the paper reviewed relevant literature and established how Nigerian media used their organisations to report the phenomenon of insecurity both for and against the country’s national interest.The study found that many media outlets, both new and conventional, have over the years engaged inan unethical practice that both exacerbates security challenges as well as threatens Nigeria’s corporate existence. It is based on the foregoing that this paper analyses the politics – issues of religion, market, ideology, ethnicity, regionalism, and ownership - that shrouded the coverage of security challenges and the role being played by journalists in fueling or taming the security challenges in Nigeria.This is the major contribution of the paper to the existing literature, as it brought to the fore the character of the media in its reportage of insecurity in Nigeria, and this makes this research unique. Documented literature and participant observationmethods form the basis upon which the paper was constructed. The coverage of insecurity must be married with patriotism to safeguard the sovereignty and corporate existence of Nigeria. It is therefore instructive for Nigerian media to always report insecurity and conflict from a nationalistic perspective, which entails restraint in language use, framing of stories to promote national interest as well as de-escalation of tension.
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| ISSN: | 2756-4649 |