FACULTY OF ARTS
Permanent URI for this communityhttps://repository.ui.edu.ng/handle/123456789/259
Browse
5 results
Search Results
Item Discourse of ‘self’ and ‘other’ in newspaper editorials on insecurity in Nigeria(Sage Publications, 2024) Osisanwo, A.The spate of security threats in Nigeria has recently become quite alarming, dominating newspaper headlines and editorials. This article examines the discourse strategies deployed in the representation of ‘self’ and ‘other’ by editorials in two Nigerian newspapers on the security challenges in Nigeria. Drawing insights from Van Dijk’s socio-cognitive model of critical discourse analysis, the sampled editorials on insecurity in Nigeria from two e-versions of newspapers from the northern (Leadership Nigeria) and southern (Punch) parts of Nigeria, published from 2017 to 2020 are subjected to discourse analysis. The paper identified the deployment of eight discourse strategies, motivated by nationalist and humanist ideologies. The newspapers polarise between self and other through positive in-group and negative out-group ideologies on the security challenges bedevilling Nigeria with attendant implications for Africa and the world at large.Item Tracking ideology in Nigerian newspaper representation of the 2015 and 2016 pro-Biafra protests(English Scholars’Association of Nigeria (ESAN), 2021) Osisanwo, A.; Iyoha, O.This study examines the ideological inclinations of the discourse surrounding the 2015 and 2016 Biaffa protests as represented in selected Nigerian newspapers. Data for the study were news reports purposively selected from four widely circulated Nigerian national dailies: The Punch, The Nation, The Sun and Vanguard newspapers, which reported the protests. The period covered was between 2015 and 2016, a period when the protests were prominently reported in the country. Ruth Wodak's Discourse Historical approach to Critical Discourse Analysis and M.A.K Halliday's Transitivity model of Systemic Functional Linguistics served as the theoretical framework of the study. The data were subjected to critical discourse analysis. Findings reveal six underlying ideologies in the representation of the protests; namely separatist, pacifist, liberatiomst, dissentist, schist and repressionist.Item ‘We are not terrorist, we are freedom fighters’: Discourse representation of the pro-Biafra protest in selected Nigerian newspapers(Sage Publications, 2020) Osisanwo, A.; Iyoha, O.The recent pro-Biafra protest across Nigeria has become an important topic in the news media where it has been constructed in different ways. Existing studies on media construction of protest have examined framing, speech acts and rhetorical strategies. However, adequate attention has not been given to the discursive representation of the 2015 and 2016 pro-Biafra protest. This study therefore examined the discourse strategies and the ideological inclinations of news reports on the 2015 and 2016 Biafra protest. Van Leeuwen’s representation of social actors and Halliday’s systemic functional linguistics (SFL) serve as the theoretical underpinning of the study. Data were purposively drawn from four widely read and circulated Nigerian newspapers, The Punch, The Sun, The Vanguard and The Nation which allocate sufficient space to the coverage of the protests. The period covered was between 2015 and 2016, a period where the protest was most intense in the country. Three representational strategies which include ‘protesters as freedom fighters’, ‘protesters as economic saboteurs’ and ‘protesters as lawabiding citizens’ were discovered in the study. Ten strategies in van Leeuwen’s representation of social actors – passivisation, nomination, association, disassociation, exclusion, aggregation, functionalisation, differentiation, indetermination, collectivisation – were indexed in the representational strategies. These representations were also explicated by four processes which include material, verbal, relational and behavioural. The pro-Biafra protesters were equally represented as violent and unruly whereas the protesters construe themselves as lawabiding citizens and freedom fighters as against being treated as terrorists.Item Lexicalisation in Media Representation of the 2003 and 2007 General Elections in Nigeria(Sciedu Press, 2013) Oyeleye, L.; Osisanwo, A.Some of the previous studies on media representation of elections in Nigeria only provided impressive theoretical and critical analyses of ideology. Not much has been done to show how such ideology(ies) could be lexically accounted for. Given the fact that ideologies are very crucial in elections, this study investigates the ways the cover stories in two Nigerian news magazines, Tell and The News, lexically, express the ideological pursuits of social actors in the 2003 and 2007 general elections in Nigeria. This paper adopts Fairclough theoretical model on ‘wording’ which is equivalent to Halliday’s theoretical model on ‘lexicalisation’. In the analysis, we observe that both magazines used linguistic tools to represent their ideological affiliations, that is, election in Nigeria is a dirty game and politicians are insincere. Lexicalisation and intertextuality intermingled to depict contextual lexical choices.Item Expression of ideologies in media accounts of the 2003 and 2007 general elections in Nigeria(Sage Publications, 2013) Oyeleye, L.; Osisanwo, A.Existing studies on media representation of elections in Nigeria do not pay adequate attention to a critical linguistic perspective on language used in reporting electoral matters. Given the fact that ideologies are crucial in elections, this study investigates the ways that cover stories in two Nigerian news magazines, TELL and The News, express the ideological pursuits of social actors in the 2003 and 2007 general elections in Nigeria. The discourse patterns that expressed ideological pursuits in the reports were generally non-neutral. The discourse of the stories indicated an attempt to shape the perspective of readers in elections; the magazines held the view that they are responsible for the social orientation of the electorates. Ideologies are expressed, acquired, confirmed, changed and perpetuated through discourse. They are generally reproduced in the social practices of their members. Both TELL and The News magazines put to use the ideological polarization between the ideological structures of ingroups and outgroups, such that ingroups typically emphasize their own good deeds while they de-emphasise their bad deeds; on the other hand, outgroups de-emphasise or even totally deny their own bad deeds while they emphasise their good ones.