Discourse issues in Nigerian media reportage of Pro-Biafra protests in selected newspapers

Abstract

This study examines the discourse issues in the reportage of the 2015 and 2016 pro-Biafra protests in selected Nigerian newspapers. Previous studies on the reportage of protest have examined the representational and discursive strategies as well as the ideological inclinations in news reports, leaving the discourse issues in the protest understudied. The study therefore examines the discourse issues represented in the 2015 and 2016 pro-Biafra protest presented in selected Nigerian newspapers. Data for the study were news reports purposively drawn from four widely circulated Nigerian national dailies, The Punch, The Nation, The Sun and Vanguard newspapers which allocate sufficient space to the coverage of 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. The discourse issues identified include marginalisation of the Igbo, worsening economic situation, human rights abuse, injustice, corruption and unemployment