An Assessment of the Effectiveness of Newspaper Coverage of Kidnapping in Nigeria; Comparative Study of the Punch and Daily Vanguard
Chapter One
Objectives of the Study
The objective of this study is therefore stated as follows:
- To investigate the causes of kidnapping in Nigeria
- To determine the frequency with which kidnapping is covered in the selected Nigerian newspapers.
- To determine the prominence given to the reporting of kidnapping in the selected Nigerian Newspapers.
- To determine the depth of coverage given to kidnapping in the selected Nigerian Newspapers.
- To determine the direction of reportage of kidnapping stories in Nigerian Newspapers, the Punch and the Vanguard.
Chapter Two
Literature Review
Conceptual Framework
Terrorism and the Mass Media
In a study by Ndolo, Anorue and Onyebuchi (2011)“titled Media Terrorism in a Multicultural Environment: A Discursive Analysis”, they emphasized terrorism and mass media as pointed out in a study conducted by J. Brian Houston in 2010 titled “Viewing Media Coverage of Terrorism Related to Posttraumatic Stress Reactions; Youth Particularly Susceptible” evidence were found that exposure to media coverage of terrorism is related to posttraumatic stress reactions. These findings were arrived at through a meta-analysis of 23 existing terrorism studies. The meta-analysis also found that the relationship between exposure to media coverage of terrorism and posttraumatic stress was greater for studies involving youth and for studies including people who were farther away from the terrorist event. “Parents, teachers, counselors, and anyone else who works or lives with children should be aware of these effects,” Said Dr. J. Brian Houston, an Assistant Professor of Research in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center who authored this study.
“The mental health needs of youth not directly affected by terrorism may not be obvious in the aftermath of a terrorist attack, but by analyzing the results of several terrorism studies together we can see that this group experiences the greatest amount of posttraumatic stress reactions related to exposure to media coverage of terrorism.” Dr. Houston says that future work should focus on developing public health interventions for youth that are aimed at ameliorating these potentially negative effects of media use. Posttraumatic stress reactions may include: feeling hopeless, detached from others, and numb; having trouble concentrating; being started easily; feeling always on guard; experiencing nightmares and trouble sleeping; and having problems at work or school, while meta-analysis is the process of combining numerous existing research studies to answer research questions or hypotheses. Meta-analysis provides a more powerful estimate of how variables are related than is possible from a single research study (Brian, 2010).
Similarly, Susan Moeller in his work titled “Media Studies: Packaging Terrorism: Coopting the News for Politics and Profit” written in 2009, established three major premises which argued that “terrorism has been the main event of the twenty-first century” (38), that such attacks are “likely to be framed so that [the news outlet’s] audience feels vulnerable” (39)—-both terrorists and the “war on Terror” exploit a politics of fear—that “news organizations chauvinistic [ally] focus on the news that is geographically and psychologically closest to their audience” (40), and that both terrorists and the Western media “want to keep their own message in the public view” (45).
The book’s longest section—- ‘How is Terrorism Covered?’ – focuses principally on the language used in the media coverage of the US “War on Terror”, especially its engagement in Iraq. Its central arguments are that the Bush Administration’s framing of this “war” as a fight for global “democracy” neutralized US media dissent—-who, after all, will say they oppose democracy?—and that media coverage concentrated on the significance of this “war” for politicians and policy agendas rather than on death and destruction. Moeller supports these arguments with arguments that the dominant media voices were those of government and military, and that the media substantially confirmed the government agenda (Moeller, 2009).
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research Design
This study is a content analysis of two Nigerian newspapers. To achieve the objective of comparing this two distinct papers and presenting a detailed outline of what they covered during the period under study, content analysis was utilized as a research methodology. Content analysis is considered the most appropriate method of study since it involves the analysis of the manifest content of the four selected newspapers under study.
According to Wimmer and Dominick (2011, p.157), “the goal of content analysis is an accurate representation of a body of messages”. Supporting this statement, Ohaja (2003, p. 14) writes that content analysis refers to the examination of the manifest content of communication to discover the pattern existing therein. The data generated from the two newspapers were subjected to qualitative and quantitative analysis. Qualitative analysis is a highly systematic activity which involves subjecting data to varying level of mathematical and statistical calculations so as to bring out the underlying features, characteristics, trends and relationships. On the other hand, qualitative analysis is concerned with data interpretations, and description of results and findings. Such manifest content could be advertisements, news stories, opinion articles, features, editorials, cartoons, letter-to-the-editor, photographs and other illustrations in a newspaper or magazine”. This informed the use of content analysis in determining the nature of newspaper coverage of the kidnapping of Chibok School girls using selected newspapers.
CHAPTER FOUR
DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS
Research question one
What are the causes of kidnapping in Nigeria?
Chapter Five
Summary, Conclusion and Recommendation
Summary
The research was an in-depth study of the assessment of the effectiveness of newspaper coverage of kidnapping in Nigeria comparative study of the punch and daily vanguard a case study Chibok school girl’s abduction between April 2014 to September 2014. A systematic random sampling of the Vanguard and punch newspapers was used to collect the sample. A sample size of 112 generated 194 items to enable to researcher to answer the research questions posed in the study. Each research question was answered in relation to the unit of analysis. The data generated from the two newspapers were able to proffer answers to the research questions. However, it was found that the Nigerian newspaper coverage of the abducted Chibok school girls, apart from being placed inside pages, suffered in-depth and interpretative analysis. findings showed that the Chibok school girls abduction did not receive prominence and fair coverage from the Nigerian press. This may be because stories on such violent crime were not development in nature.
It was discovered that almost all the news sources were local reporters of the newspapers from different parts of the country. The newspapers did not depend on news agencies a lot for their reports and that only a hand full of unidentified sources were recorded.
Conclusion
Based on the 112 editions of the two newspapers analyzed that yield 194 items, the following conclusions were arrived at. There is obvious disparity between quantitative and qualitative coverage. There was much of quantitative coverage of the incident than qualitative coverage. The number of straight news stories recorded without a commiserate number of interpretative news analysis like features, editorials, opinion articles, columns etc. explains this disparity. This concurs with the criticism against the media for failing to always conduct investigative reporting of incidents such as this to feed their audience with factual information and education. Thus, they did not give in-depth analysis and interpretative reporting on the Chibok school girl’s abduction.
The study also discovered that some newspapers barely covered the Chibok school girls kidnapping. A good example is The Vanguard newspapers with barely 32 published items on Chibok school girl’s abduction for six months. This shows the inconsistent nature of some newspapers who are only out to make profit through advertorials while their primary function of informing and educating the people on critical national issues as the Chibok school girls crisis continue to suffer. With all these knowledge, what could be done to alter the trend?
Recommendation
Based on the findings of this research, the researcher recommends as follows:
- The Nigerian press and journalist should engage in more affirmative reporting. They should give journalism a proper perspective, focusing on interpreting issues for effective information and co-relation function. They should be consistent with reports to avoid confusing the public.
- The press should give an interpretative reporting more often on any issue such as civil disorders and wars like terrorism and its associated crimes like the Chibok girls abduction. This should be done more than straight news for people to be better informed to make right decisions.
- The media should have a well planed style for reporting stories on terrorist acts like Chibok abduction in order not to glorify the situation. This well taught out plan would help the reporter fashion out better ways to tackle terrorism stories. This style might be an in-house style for the medium.
- It would be good for government to adopt a pre-emptive approach to the issue of terrorism. That is the major way government can be on top of the situation in the country. A situation where the government relies on responding quickly to terrorist attack is not enough. Government should strengthen its agencies and armed forces through further training and financial benefits, to keep them a step ahead of every terrorist attack in the country.
Let it be mentioned categorically that the scope of this research may not be able to offer answers to all the questions that such a work should answer. Therefore, this point provides a ready subject for further research.
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