Prevalent news frames in news reports about military operations against Boko Haram in North-East Nigeria

Abstract

The media have been accused of bias against the military by framing Boko Haram group as being superior thereby making better-armed soldiers afraid of confronting the group in open battle. This accusation was without any empirical underpinning, thus this study objectives were to identify the framing patterns used by Nigerian newspapers in the coverage of military operations against the Boko Haram group in NorthEast Nigeria. Four national dailies, Daily Trust, Premium Times, The Nation and Vanguard, were analyzed to find out the framing patterns in the reportage of military operations against Boko Haram to ascertain if the frames were more pro-military or anti-military. Hinged on the framing theory, the research method was content analysis. Inter-coder reliability was tested using the coefficient of reliability suggested by Chadwick et al. (1984). Findings showed that the Injured/Arrest/Capture/Death of Boko Haram members frame was predominant across three newspapers (Daily Trust, Premium Times, The Nation) which made up 22% of the frames while Vanguard emphasized Cooperation frame with 11% of the total frames. Results also indicated that there was a 24% prevalence of the 17 frame categories used in the study. This shows that Nigerian newspapers reported the military favorably with 80% of the frames. Overall, findings do not support the statement that the media are to be blamed for the shortcomings of the military in the fight against the insurgents. Other factors like corruption, non-motivation of personnel amongst a host of others should be investigated.

Media Frames of the Operation of JTF and the Implications for Civilian Involvement in the Fight Against Terrorism in North-East, Nigeria

“…Okoro and Odoemelam (2013) agreed that the type of frames examined in a media content analysis is determined by the nature of the subject being investigated. Ndinojuo, Ihejirika and Okon (2019) also confirmed that there is no unitary classification of frames; however, what determines framing patterns for each study depends on research objectives. Therefore, the essential consideration in frame selection is the purpose of the research endeavour.…”

“…In a study, "Television webcast framing of the Nigerian government's response to Boko Haram insurgency in North-East Nigeria," Chioma and Ojomo (2015) used conflict frame, human interest frame, economic consequence frame, critical and distance frames. In another study, Ndinojuo et al (2019) 2013) adopted the following frames: response frame, political frame, economic frame, religious frame, and ethnic frames. Similarly, Semetko and Valkenburg (2000), Iyengar (1994) and De Vreese (2005) developed the following frames: powerlessness frame attribution of responsibility frame, labeling frame, human interest frame and conspiracy frame.…”

Media conflictology as a field of research: working out theoretical approaches

“…Thus, the media can be seen as agents acting in the interests of certain beneficiaries, and various biases or distortions observed in the content do not stem from the commitment of journalists to different political ideologies, but result from the fact that media could be used to control the political narrative. Under certain circumstances, using a specific set of rhetorical and expressive means, the media turn into initiators of conflict, intentionally portraying some events as conflicts, using the so-called frame of the conflict (Ndinojuo et al, 2020).…”