Beyond the political communication context, non-verbal communication cues are so potent that their interpretations may outweigh the intentionality of the interlocutors that produce the cues. This study analyses the communicative and rhetorical strategies in seven purposively selected political memes created by Nigerians before Nigeria’s ruling party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) held her presidential primary election ahead of the country’s 2023 Presidential Election. The study focused on how the memes marketed and de-marketed the candidacies of Nigeria’s Vice-President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo (the star boy), and Former Lagos State Governor, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu (the city boy). Driven by the set-up-incongruity resolution theory of humour, rhetorical framing and socio-semiotic model for visual analysis, the study identified two general themes and five sub-themes from the memes. In the first theme— collective framing of political actors—, Tinubu and Osinbajo were framed as combating competitors. For the second general theme— individuated framing of political gladiators—, sub-themes such as Osinbajo as a kind politician, Tinubu as a kingmaker, Tinubu as a thug and Osinbajo as a betrayer dominated. The study recommends that to establish a better democratic atmosphere in Nigeria, political stakeholders should emphasise accurate civic education on the Nigerian public space and stress pertinent campaign issues instead of irrelevancies.
For decades, the socio-political environment the press operates in had conditioned it to always build prominence around phenomena and people, using language as a strong carrier. Knowing full well that the press can escalate or de-escalate the salience of events through news reportage, media scholars saw the necessity for the institutionalization of some regulatory principles for the press. This is known as social responsibilities. This position paper interrogates the connection or disconnection between two media theories (framing and identity construction) and Nigerian journalism practice as codified by Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) code of ethics, using the farmer-herder crisis and Independent People of Biafra’s (IPOB) call for secession as cases. Having identified a plethora of negative frames and constructed identities around the two cases selected from 19 empirical papers conducted between 2015 and 2021, the findings show that the Nigerian press (newspapers) lean more towards war and ethnic journalism than peace/solution-driven journalism while reporting issues related to the two cases. The paper argues that the journalism practice of the Nigerian press, most times, aligns with the propositions of framing and identity construction theories, but largely disconnects from its ethical principles. In order to have a socially responsible journalism practice in Nigeria, this paper joins the conversation on advocacy for peace/solution-driven journalism.
Media convergence is not a new concept in journalism studies, though available evidence indicates that convergence studies have been explored more in the global north than the global south. This study, contextualised in Nigeria, joins the media convergence conversation by exploring the sustainability of Facebook-radio convergence for distributing broadcast programmes by seventeen (17) licenced radio stations in Oyo State, Nigeria. As a computational content analysis study, researchers analysed 85 purposively selected programmes of the stations as broadcast live on their Facebook pages alongside the 9527 likes, 10,314 shares, 7007 comments and 170,681 views the programmes generated. Stakeholders’ interviews were also conducted for a broadcasting expert, presenters of some of the stations, together with audience of the selected stations. The main finding shows that programmes that focussed more on socioeconomic problems and opportunities, and were broadcast in the afternoon, evening and at night received more digital engagement than other programmes’ formats and time belts. Although high cost of Internet data subscription in the country, absence of Internet-enabled mobile phones among many adherents of radio programmes (both in rural and urban areas), epileptic power supply that sometimes leave many people with unpowered mobile phones as well as weak Internet broadband connectivity common to many locations in Nigeria threaten the sustainability of Facebook-radio broadcasting in Oyo State. Deployment of 5G network, installation of more network masts with strong bandwidth and training of radio presenters and radio stations' social media handlers on innovative and audience-participatory programme production are recommended.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.