This article focuses on the framing of Boko Haram, a transnational terrorist group, in legacy and social media platforms. The discussion is predicated on the understanding that in spite of its popularity as a research tool, the concept of framing is still problematic. One area of contention has been the reliability and validity of framing analysis. Drawing on Robert Entman’s seminal definition, this study investigates the viability of two innovative framing approaches and explores the intersection of the framing of Boko Haram in four Nigerian newspapers and Twitter. The authors argue that, while newspapers continue to dominate the media space, it is important to acknowledge the growing relevance of social media in shaping and influencing the opinion of their users. The study’s findings support the viability of these approaches and come to the conclusion that exploring the differences between the platforms can unearth different versions of reality.

Labels shape and define public discourse. As condensational symbols, they can serve as political tools and instruments of policy due to the media's tendency to use labels to create meaning and knowledge about political and social reality. This study examines the politics of labelling through a case study of the representation of Boko Haram in a selection of Nigerian national newspapers. Boko Haram, a transnational terrorist organisation responsible for the death of over 20,000 Nigerians and the displacement of more than two million people, has been a major threat to the Nigerian state for almost a decade. Although it was originally perceived to be a domestic problem, its reach across national boundaries has extended its impact beyond Nigeria and it has now been recognised as an international threat. This paper explores how labels used to frame this group in the Nigerian press echo geoethno polarities embedded in Nigerian politics. The study investigates the representations of Boko Haram to evaluate how the narrative about the sect has been constructed. It reveals that the dominant voices prefer labels such as terrorists and insurgents, which reflect popular understanding of the sect. Through a content analysis of a selection of national news stories, the study argues that the nature of Nigerian politics and media ecology plays a critical role in the media framing of Boko Haram.

No abstract

This study explores how Nigerians used social media platforms to mourn and memorialize protesters who were killed during the 2020 EndSARS protests in Nigeria. Data for this study are from tweets (N = 67,678) that were scraped from the hashtags, “#EndSARSMemorial2” and “LekkiMassacre” and online semi-structured interviews (N = 30) with digital activists in Nigeria. Results show that the most frequently tweeted words were “rest in peace,” “heroes,” “who gave the order,” and “#EndSARSMemorial2.” Five themes emerged from the interview data, and they include anger and sympathy, mourning and remembering, connecting in the shared humanity of the deceased, and pledges to be better humans and citizens. The paper shows that high centrality, high density of reciprocity, and low modularity illustrate online mourners’ ability to stimulate commonality through decentralized and loose networks that allow for solidarity building during mourning and the personalization of mourning. Evoking some aspects of crisis network effects theory, this study concludes that when collective mourning occurs, individuals have more reciprocal relationships on a dyadic level and that the network has low modularity as such a network effect occurs when there is a shock that creates uncertainty in the system.

No abstract