All Talk, Little Impact: Media Frames and Discursive Strategies of Out-of-School Children in Nigeria

Abstract

Statistics show that Nigeria has 10.5 million out-of-school children (OOSC), the highest figure in the globe. This study investigated the media frames and framing strategies of OOSC in Punch, Vanguard, and Daily Trust Newspapers. Using qualitative content analysis, the study adopted van Dijk’s Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) alongside the thematic and episodic positions of Framing Theory. Analysis showed five media frames and six framing strategies for OOSC. For media frames, OOSC were represented as vulnerable and poor victims; silenced voices; children sprouting from state and policy failure; children sprouting from non-state actors’ failure, as well as children in crisis and need of collaborative responses. For framing strategies, we found source avoidance as a means of masking negativity, authoritativeness as a framing strategy, positive self-presentation, and negative other-presentation, apportioning blame, and foregrounding, alongside direct and implied metaphors. Journalists used these representations to frame opinions and influence people’s perceptions of the OOSC menace. The study recommends that media houses always explore ways of actualizing the truth efficacy of news reportage, and write stories about OOSC more thematically.

Media Power Relations in Politics: Critical Analysis Perspective

“…This research aims to explore an in-depth understanding of the phenomenon of political media power through data collection and critical analysis. The approach in this study is a critical paradigm that views social reality as the result of interactions between social structures and individual actions that believe that knowledge and truth are social constructions that are always open to question and criticism (Imam et al, 2022).…”