eprintid: 29727
rev_number: 12
eprint_status: archive
userid: 3730
dir: disk0/00/02/97/27
datestamp: 2021-04-20 15:13:46
lastmod: 2021-04-21 06:30:31
status_changed: 2021-04-20 15:13:46
type: article
metadata_visibility: show
creators_name: Demarest, Leila
creators_name: Langer, Arnim
title: Peace journalism on a shoestring? Conflict reporting in Nigeria’s national news media
subjects: ddc-320
divisions: i-180500
keywords: content analysis, ethnic and religious conflict, media framing, mixed methods, Nigeria, peace journalism
note: Dieser Beitrag ist aufgrund einer (DFG-geförderten) Allianz bzw. Nationallizenz frei zugänglich. *** This publication is freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively.
abstract: Conflicts that occur across ethnic and/or religious identity lines generally have underlying root causes such as economic marginalization and political competition. Yet when these causes are ignored by politicians and the media, and conversely differences in ethnicity and religion are simply propagated as the main conflict causes, this may have serious consequences for people’s perceptions concerning the possibility and feasibility of peaceful conflict resolution and coexistence. In this paper, we investigate to what extent Nigerian newspapers practice peace journalism by emphasizing underlying causes of conflict in their reporting rather than stressing ethnic and religious divisions. We make use of a sequential mixed methods approach, which combines a quantitative content analysis of news reports with semi-structured interviews with Nigerian newspaper editors and journalists. Our results indicate that Nigerian newspapers do not explicitly use divisive language when discussing conflicts, but they rarely stress underlying structural causes either. While there is a willingness among Nigerian journalists to avoid potentially escalatory language, a dearth of resources and capacities impedes independent and in-depth analysis concerning the underlying drivers of conflicts.
date: 2021
publisher: Sage
id_scheme: DOI
id_number: 10.11588/heidok.00029727
official_url: https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884918797611
ppn_swb: 175552420X
own_urn: urn:nbn:de:bsz:16-heidok-297277
language: eng
bibsort: DEMARESTLEPEACEJOURN2021
full_text_status: public
publication: Journalism
volume: 22
number: 3
place_of_pub: London
pagerange: 671-688
issn: 1464-8849 (Druck-Ausg.); 1741-3001 (Online-Ausg.)
edition: Zweitveröffentlichung
citation:   Demarest, Leila ; Langer, Arnim  (2021) Peace journalism on a shoestring? Conflict reporting in Nigeria’s national news media.  Journalism, 22 (3).  pp. 671-688.  ISSN 1464-8849 (Druck-Ausg.); 1741-3001 (Online-Ausg.)     
document_url: https://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/29727/1/1464884918797611.pdf