Reportorial Activism and Nigerian Journalism after the Enactment of Freedom of Information Act

Investigated is how the enactment in May 2011 of Nigeria’s Freedom of Information Act has, since then, impacted Nigerian journalism. Typical documentary and spoken data were tapped, analysed and discussed. Analysis and discussion found Nigeria’s FOIA to be as properly crafted as meets international standards. Analysis and discussion also demonstrate that Nigerian journalists’ inability so far to take advantage of the FOIA to sharpen their journalistic activism results from the intimidation which job insecurity poses. In that light, conclusion hypothesizes that FOIA might not sharpen journalistic activism in countries/economies where journalists’ awareness of their shaky economic status is acute. Keywords: Reportorial Activism, Nigerian Journalism, Freedom of Information Act

RIGIDITYOF NEWS ROUTINES AND SOCIAL MEANINGCONSTRUCTION IN NIGERIA: A REIMAGINATION

The search for the best model for journalism practice has inspired debates right from the ancient European era through to the era of the Penny Press in the formative years of the United States to the present. This paper is designed to explore what journalists understand by news routine as well as to explore the link between such understanding and journalists’ identification, description, expansion and dissemination of social meaning in Nigeria. In conformity with the notion that the representativeness of a sample to the general population is of no significance in qualitative research, a theoretical sample of three Nigerian newspaper texts were interpreted in accordance with analytic procedures prescribed in Semiotics and Critical Discourse Analysis. When Focus Group data were triangulated with the representation made with the newspaper texts, the finding was that Nigerian journalists legitimize the arbitrary by embracing rigid ideologically-tainted news routines. Conclusion is that such legitimization constitutes impediment to Nigeria’s development by undermining journalists’ capacity forcapacious construction and dissemination of social meaning

Jos Crisis and the Challenge of Managing Cultural Differences

This paper is an analysis of how the Nigerian government manages cultural differences, especially the type that is causing the crisis in Jos, Nigeria. I sampled textual exemplars from Nigerian newspapers. The newspaper texts served as part of the data used for the analysis. The sampled texts are displayed on a titled text box and interpreted. Comments given by two interviewees representing opposing sides in the Jos crisis are also displayed. Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis are used to interpret and discuss the newspaper texts and the comments given by the interviewees. The discussion reveals that flaws in the implementation of multicultural policy are the cause of the recurrent crisis in Jos. Discussion on multiculturalism found flaws in how Canada and other Western countries handle liberal multiculturalism. Discussion also reveals that even when a new policy is devised to solve the Jos crisis, the Nigerian government would be reluctant to accept the policy if the acceptance gets suspected of having a potential to undermine its Federal Character policy. The paper also found that government’s reluctance has not deterred other Nigerians from pushing for possible innovative ways of managing the ever-increasing cultural problems besetting Nigeria. Keywords: Jos crisis, cultural differences, settlers, indigenes, non-indigenes, multiculturalis

AN IMPROBABLE APHRODISIACINTHE CRISIS OF SEXUALITY:WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS?

Given the rising wave of violentacts across the world, this paper is designed to investigate the improbable but emerging trend which seems to suggest that violent behavior now appears to be an incentive when dating and even marriage decisions are made. The investigation is carried out with a pool of data made up of multiple variants. After displaying the data in a textbox, subjective valuing was usedto attribute certain phenomena to segments of the data. After affirming that females consider violent traits in males as incentives in their male-partner preferences, data representation failed to establish a decisive link between fierce delinquent acts and sexual frustration

AN IMPROBABLE APHRODISIACINTHE CRISIS OF SEXUALITY:WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS?

Given the rising wave of violentacts across the world, this paper is designed to investigate the improbable but emerging trend which seems to suggest that violent behavior now appears to be an incentive when dating and even marriage decisions are made. The investigation is carried out with a pool of data made up of multiple variants. After displaying the data in a textbox, subjective valuing was usedto attribute certain phenomena to segments of the data. After affirming that females consider violent traits in males as incentives in their male-partner preferences, data representation failed to establish a decisive link between fierce delinquent acts and sexual frustration

RIGIDITYOF NEWS ROUTINES AND SOCIAL MEANINGCONSTRUCTION IN NIGERIA: A REIMAGINATION

The search for the best model for journalism practice has inspired debates right from the ancient European era through to the era of the Penny Press in the formative years of the United States to the present. This paper is designed to explore what journalists understand by news routine as well as to explore the link between such understanding and journalists’ identification, description, expansion and dissemination of social meaning in Nigeria. In conformity with the notion that the representativeness of a sample to the general population is of no significance in qualitative research, a theoretical sample of three Nigerian newspaper texts were interpreted in accordance with analytic procedures prescribed in Semiotics and Critical Discourse Analysis. When Focus Group data were triangulated with the representation made with the newspaper texts, the finding was that Nigerian journalists legitimize the arbitrary by embracing rigid ideologically-tainted news routines. Conclusion is that such legitimization constitutes impediment to Nigeria’s development by undermining journalists’ capacity forcapacious construction and dissemination of social meaning

Online Activism and Connective Mourning:An Examination of the #EndSARSMemorial Protests in Nigeria

This study explores how Nigerians used social media platforms to mourn and memorialize protesters who were killed during the 2020 EndSARS protests in Nigeria. Data for this study are from tweets (N = 67,678) that were scraped from the hashtags, “#EndSARSMemorial2” and “LekkiMassacre” and online semi-structured interviews (N = 30) with digital activists in Nigeria. Results show that the most frequently tweeted words were “rest in peace,” “heroes,” “who gave the order,” and “#EndSARSMemorial2.” Five themes emerged from the interview data, and they include anger and sympathy, mourning and remembering, connecting in the shared humanity of the deceased, and pledges to be better humans and citizens. The paper shows that high centrality, high density of reciprocity, and low modularity illustrate online mourners’ ability to stimulate commonality through decentralized and loose networks that allow for solidarity building during mourning and the personalization of mourning. Evoking some aspects of crisis network effects theory, this study concludes that when collective mourning occurs, individuals have more reciprocal relationships on a dyadic level and that the network has low modularity as such a network effect occurs when there is a shock that creates uncertainty in the system.</p

Reportorial Activism and Nigerian Journalism after the Enactment of Freedom of Information Act

Investigated is how the enactment in May 2011 of Nigeria’s Freedom of Information Act has, since then, impacted Nigerian journalism. Typical documentary and spoken data were tapped, analysed and discussed. Analysis and discussion found Nigeria’s FOIA to be as properly crafted as meets international standards. Analysis and discussion also demonstrate that Nigerian journalists’ inability so far to take advantage of the FOIA to sharpen their journalistic activism results from the intimidation which job insecurity poses. In that light, conclusion hypothesizes that FOIA might not sharpen journalistic activism in countries/economies where journalists’ awareness of their shaky economic status is acute. Keywords: Reportorial Activism, Nigerian Journalism, Freedom of Information Act

A Critical Discourse Analysis of Newspaper Texts on the Science of Crude Oil Refining in Nigeria

As a country with a remarkable crude oil deposit, it is a dark irony that Nigeria depends on importation for its petroleum product needs. The devastating impact on Nigeria’s economy of this dependence continues to provoke polemics. Recently, the polemics dominated the text of Nigeria’s leading national newspapers. We see in the texts, manifest and latent ideological status quo thinking about the variant of science Nigerians believe might launch Nigeria into a sustainable competence in petroleum products affordability. Since latent ideological text meanings elude the competence of lay readers, we sampled as data, newspaper texts containing manifest and latent views expressed by Nigerians regarding the version of science of crude oil refining they believe Nigeria needs to enable it to exit its dependence on importation for its petroleum product needs. Leveraging our critical discourse analysis of these diversely sourced data, we raised and answered questions, such as whether the concern expressed by powerful Nigerians against indigenous crude oil refiners results from the patriotic disposition of the powerful or whether their concern is a pushback against anything with a potential to break the monopoly and the illicit gains that accrue from oil subsidy policy that enriches only those at the corridors of power. Our analysis also forayed into why Nigeria’s journalists and Nigeria’s political class see nightmare instead of dreams in the commitment of indigenous crude oil refiners to indigenize the production of petroleum products in Nigeria