ABSTRACT

The conflict between farmers and herdsmen in Nigeria has been going on for many years, resulting in huge loss of lives and resources, and the media have expectedly been covering the conflict. This study investigated how Nigerian newspapers covered the conflict with a view to finding out if there is ethnic othering in the reportage. A total of three Nigerian newspapers (The Punch, The Sun and Leadership) were purposively selected and studied for a period of seven months (1 January 2018–31 July 2018). About 598 online copies of newspaper articles were content-analysed, with the code sheet as the instrument for data collection. The result was analysed quantitatively, using tables and percentages and supplemented with qualitative analysis using verbal quotes. Findings showed that the newspapers gave adequate coverage of the issue with the straight news format as the most used, while the dominant voices heard in the news reports were those of the Government and victims/residents. The results also showed that there is ethnic othering in the newspapers as reports indicated that the terms “herdsmen” and “Fulani herdsmen” were used interchangeably, with labels like “Fulani terrorists”, ‘Rampaging/marauding Fulani herdsmen”, “killer Fulani herdsmen”, among others.

摘要

尼日利亚农牧民之间的冲突已经持续了许多年，造成了巨大的生命和资源损失，媒体预计将报道这一冲突。这项研究调查了尼日利亚报纸如何报道冲突，以期发现报告文学中是否存在种族歧视。总共三份尼日利亚报纸（The Punch，The Sun和Leadership）。）被有选择地选择并研究了七个月（2018年1月1日至2018年7月31日）。对内容进行了分析，共分析了598个在线报纸文章的在线副本，其中代码表是数据收集的工具。使用表格和百分比对结果进行定量分析，并辅以使用口头报价进行定性分析。调查结果显示，报纸以最直接的新闻形式充分报道了这一问题，而新闻报道中听到的主要声音是政府和受害者/居民的声音。结果还表明，报纸上还存在其他种族，因为有报道表明“牧民”和“富拉尼牧民”这两个术语可以互换使用，并带有“富拉尼恐怖分子”，“狂暴/掠夺富拉尼牧民”，“杀手富拉尼牧民”等标签。 ”，