Framing the Bring Back Our Girls Campaign by Online Newspapers in Nigeria

Abstract

In this study, attempt was made to determine the framing of Bring Back Our Girls (BBOG) campaign by Nigerian online newspapers. Seventy-one editions of Daily Trust, the Punch, Sahara Reporters and Vanguard newspapers from April 2014-October 2014 were content analysed. The study examined how much coverage BBOG campaigns received in the sampled online newspapers, the nature of reporting BBOG campaigns and the dominant sources of stories and themes in the framing of stories on the campaign in the newspapers studied. The study employed qualitative and quantitative content analysis and found that the newspapers provided mostly favourable coverage of the campaign with a total of 59 (83.1%) out of 71 total stories. The study also found that the campaigners and their sympathisers were the dominant sources of stories during the study period. The study concluded that the newspapers made concerted efforts to cover the campaign positively, unlike what usually obtains in Western media framing of social movements where status quo biases are often maintained. The study also found that the newspapers focused more on straight news than other story types in reporting the campaigns.

Keywords: Bring Back Our Girls, Social movement, Online newspaper, Framing