AN ANALYSIS OF THE COVERAGE OF BLASPHEMOUS INCIDENTS IN DAILY TRUST AND THE PUNCH NEWSPAPERS

AN ANALYSIS OF THE COVERAGE OF BLASPHEMOUS INCIDENTS IN DAILY TRUST AND THE PUNCH NEWSPAPERS

Abstract:

Conflicts precipitated by religious discords or under such pretext, have resulted in the deaths of thousands of people and destruction of property worth billions of dollar in Nigeria, brewing mutual suspicion among its heterogeneous citizens, shipwrecking, ultimately, their cordial coexistence and progress in most facets of life. In all this, the media is a stakeholder whether as a promoter of peace or exacerbater of tension and division. This research therefore explored 306 editions of Daily Trust and The Punch newspapers to ascertain how these national dailies are responding to peace journalism and its antithesis in their approaches, diction and overall coverage of blasphemy controversies in the country. Using quantitative content analysis, census, framing and agenda-setting as methodological and theoretical frameworks, the study found that, generally, these newspapers framed their stories more in line with peace journalism enunciated by Galtung and other scholars emphasizing on condemnation and solutions (66.0%); de-emphasizing ethnic, religious and elite-oriented frames (33.9%)which are war journalism indicators potential of exacerbating violent conflict. In this bid also, certain genres (pictures of victims and cartoons) were completely muted for their sensitivity and combustibility respectively. The absence of invisible effects and people-oriented frames in both papers, on the other hand, coupled with the preponderance of war lexical indicators especially in The Punch, triggers the need for conscious training on conflict-sensitive journalism in Nigerian Press. Specifically, Daily Trust distinguished itself with more peace-oriented frames (57.1%), less war frames (22.2%) and war language indicators (11.2%) compared to The Punch which has higher war frames (77.8%), war language (88.7%) and lesser peace-oriented frames (42.9 %). This is arguably associated to professional, geographic and political-economic factors. The research finally recommended that for blasphemy conflict with its attendant violence to be pre-empted, Nigerian journalists covering ethno-religious crises need to be conscientized on the tenets of peace journalism, and massive campaign via particularly radio, pulpits, movies and maulid avenues needed to be conducted to sensitize the northern populace about the divergent Islamic views on the ruling of blasphemy and how to react appropriately in the face of it, inter alia.

AN ANALYSIS OF THE COVERAGE OF BLASPHEMOUS INCIDENTS IN DAILY TRUST AND THE PUNCH NEWSPAPERS