Political Rivalry Signification in Newspaper Reportage: An Xray of the 2015 Presidential Election in Nigeria

Keyword : Political rivalry .Newspaper reportage .2015 election.

Author(s) : Muyiwa Popoola & Rukayat Ololade Adegoke

Abstract :

Scholarly submissions are rife in political communication literature that conflict escalation in a political system is a reflection of the manner in which the media handle issues of conflict; and that a full blown conflict can have its antecedent in political rivalry. There have been scholarly works on the gate keeping and agenda setting roles of the media in political conflicts, but the actual role the Nigerian media play in political rivalry is inadequate in available empirical works. Thus, this study was carried out to determine how newspapers deployed meanings and gave significance to political rivalry in the reportage of the 2015 presidential election. The
study period was November 2014 to December 2015 when the rivalry heightened between the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). Three Nigerian national newspapers were selected for the study, namely: The Punch, The Nation and Daily Trust. Purposive sampling was used to select 273 editorial items in 90 editions of the selected newspapers. The study used two research approaches: quantitative content analysis and dialectical hermeneutics in data gathering and analysis. This was done to determine the extent to which selected newspapers reported stories on political rivalry in respect of the 2015 presidential election and also to investigate what the selected newspapers signified in their reportage of the political rivalry that marked the 2015 presidential election. It was discovered that the vast reportage of the rivalry was largely negative as the selected
newspapers overwhelmingly published stories that promoted rivalry between the presidential candidates of the two political parties. The reportage was largely unhelpful as it tended to promote calumny, hate speeches and vituperations between the parties. Thus, the reportage was at variance with the tenets of a conflict sensitive press.

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