Reporting military casualties in Nigerian newspapers: An analysis of operations against Boko Haram insurgents

Abstract

The Boko Haram conflict has inflicted untold hardship to the peace and society of the Northeast region in Nigeria and surrounding countries. Within the Nigerian front, the military has been mandated to engage the insurgents and bring them to submission. Opinions on the position of the media in helping the government to bring the conflict to a conclusion were divided as reports emerged that newspaper articles have caused low morale within the military during combat. This study employed content analysis on four Nigerian newspapers, Daily Trust, Premium Times, The Nation and Vanguard to investigate how military casualties were reported from 2014-2016. The research was based on the Framing theory of the press. Findings showed that 185 reports mentioned 33 military casualties. There were no images of military casualties found in any of the reports, where mentions of military casualties were predominantly found in the body and concluding parts of articles. The study found no evidence to support the claim that media reports were to blame for soldiers not being able to confront the Boko Haram insurgents. This study recommends cooperations between the media and military to coordinate efforts to end the conflict.

Visual Images Associated With Reporting about Biodegradables in Nigerian Newspapers

“…They found the major shortcomings to include lack of trained personnel in the field of environmental due to poor allocation of the news media's resources, which tends to focus on more sensational areas like politics, sports and entertainment which they consider as headliners unlike environmental reporting unless they are disasters that involves significant damage and loss of lives. This has been validated in a number of studies (John and Jonjua;Ogadimma & Mohamad;Uzochukwu, Ekwugha & Emmanuel;2014;Okoro & Nnaji, 2012;Adelekan, 2009) Studies on how readers interpret visual images suggest that photo news is an essential part of news texts (Ndinojuo & Ihejirika, 2019;Omolabi & Durosimi, 2017;Barret & Barrington, 2005). Omolabi and Durosimi (2017) emphasize that through visual coding, journalists' control the way issues and individuals are perceived, received, liked, and the kind of people they appeal to.…”

“…Two of the pictures had source credits and six of them had captions. Ndinojuo and Ihejirika (2019) earlier hinted that most pictures used in Nigerian newspapers did not include source credit and caption which can affect the credibility of the photo and also deny the copyright holder from future earnings from their work. Thus, the photojournalists who took the pictures have been denied a source of additional income by not including their name on the image credit, not adding captions to pictures also leaves room for misinformation raised by Hameleers et al (2020), Thus images from a different area, country or continent can be superimposed into reporting about another area.…”

“…Refillable plastic water cans were used in figure 6 by Premium Times to talk about the challenges of disposing non-biodegradable plastic wastes. Citing from the literature (Ndinojuo & Ihejirika, 2019;Sjøvaag, 2011;Barret & Barrington, 2005), about the function of images in news, and how they can attract attention, and processed by the audience before reading the texts of the story, images have the ability to give the reader a preview of what to expect, and for figure 6, it depicts either two things, the first is showing refillable plastic water containers, and the second, the challenges with using plastic products that are non-biodegradable. From the article, however, which was on the proposal by environmentalists for tighter restrictions on plastics wastes at the Conference of the Parties to the Basel Convention (COP14) in Geneva, Switzerland proposed by Norway.…”

“…Studies from a variety of disciplines have uncovered strong evidence that visual images influence people's attitudes and ability to learn about individuals, events, and issues (Ndinojuo & Ihejirika, 2019;Omolabi & Durosimi, 2017;Barret & Barrington, 2005;Gilliam and Iyengar 2000;Graber 1987). Barret and Barrington (2005) affirm that visual messages can be more influential on assessment of individuals or events than verbal ones.…”

“…Images are trickier than words because their contents are in a large measure expressive and instinctive by succinctly capturing so many layers of meaning in a restricted space and to a large extent devoid of illusion in its true form. Ndinojuo and Ihejirika (2019) found out that most pictures used in Nigerian newspapers did not include source credit and caption which can affect the credibility of the photo and also deny the copyright holder from future earnings from their work. Journalists are able to influence perception of the news by astutely expressing their personal or institutional biases and judgments on news readers through visual representations.…”