In recent years, Nigeria’s image has always been negatively depicted in the global media, as the country’s name is associated with some of the world’s most sophisticated cybercriminals. The situation with the country’s perceived dented reputation, most especially in the Southeast Asia, Western Europe and the United States of America, is ripe for the anti-cybercrime discourse to take root, and subsequently, become a fertile ground for various parties to contribute to the grand discourse from different perspectives. This article highlights the way Nigerian government, through its revenues generating agency, the Federal Inland Revenue Services (FIRS), utilizes a print media warning advertisement (WA) to discursively construct and showcase its efforts in combating cybercrimes. The study utilizes Fairclough’s three-layered model for approaching discourse to analyse the FIRS-sponsored WA, which was published in The Guardian newspaper on 2 May 2013. The study incorporates analytical tools from the visual grammar (VG) and the multimodal discourse analysis (MDA) to examine the visual dimensions constituting the frame of the WA. The study revealed how the Nigerian government, through the FIRS sponsored WA, has attempted to discursively draw the attention of the general public to the potential dangers associated with the cybercriminals and their activities as well as suggesting the best ways to escape falling into their traps. The study recommends that governments and other civil societies should explore other means of creating more awareness to the general public, given the speed at which cyber-related crimes upsurge globally at the present time.

The realisation of genuine national unity within its ethnically diverse society has always been the primary challenge facing Nigeria since its Independence in 1960. This study investigated the discursive recontextualisation of national unity through newspaper congratulatory announcements (NCAs) within Nigeria’s ethnically diverse society, focusing on the pseudopatriotic undertones of the privately sponsored NCAs. Critical discourse analysis (CDA) and the agenda-setting theory informed the theoretical underpinning of the study. The data is drawn from four major dailies, covering the period between 2011 and 2016. Multimodal critical discourse analysis (MCDA) and the visual grammar (VG) are used as analytical methods to examine 97 privately sponsored NCAs. Dominant themes in the NCAs are highlighted along with the type of national unity projected in the NCAs. The analysis revealed that, in the name of promoting unity, private individuals and global conglomerates utilize pseudo acts to boost profits, enhance customer index, and construct their corporate image in the eyes of the ruling regimes and the general public in their host communities. It was also found that the envisioned future of the country as a united reality appears to contradict the common perception and lived experiences of the people. This study is meant to highlight the way certain ideologies are promoted and further interests are realised through the print media in the name of pseudo-patriotism. Further research may investigate comparable representations likely found in other newspaper genres as well as additional semiotic resources such as Nigeria’s Civil War artefacts and monuments, statues, and other national symbols. Keywords Pseudo-patriotism; newspaper congratulatory announcements; unity; multimodal critical discourse analysis; Nigeria

In light of revisiting the notion of advertising from the perspectives of the print media, this review article found that advertisements are transgeneric and multidimensional media artefacts capable of operating at several platforms such as the cultural, economic, sociopolitical, religious and ideological spheres. It has also revealed that advertisements constitute an independent social discourse, which is culturally oriented, with remarkable influence on politics, social values, economics, lifestyles and the way people see the world around them. This review has also found that the multimodal nature of the present-day advertisements has accorded the genre some tremendous unseen power, capable of influencing people’s choices, when it comes to accepting ideas or goods and services. The review has also discussed how influential a mundane genre, such as newspaper advertisements, could be as it is used as the vehicle for constructing social and political agendas as well as promoting other topical issues in the society.

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