Origin of Frames on Conflicts

From earlier discussions on agenda setting theory, the dominant narrative is that the media set the agenda for the public. However, the discussion also noted that the policymakers in the society also set the agenda for the media. While these positions are true, the question is where do the frames about news conflict come from? The common assumption is that frames about conflict do emanate from the newsroom, as Danaan (2017) stated. For him, reporters, correspondents and editors try to achieve the agendas set by their ethnic and religious communities by projecting their interests and being silent about those of other ethnic or

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religious communities. However, Cohen’s (1963) famous quote that the press ‘may not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think about, according to Mitchell (2007) has punctured this claim. Mitchell pointed to a recent study by some researchers who questioned the idea that frames originate from newsrooms and editing sites, using the American-led coalition invasion of Iraq in 2003 under President George Walker Bush junior as an example. Information regarding the war was tightly controlled by the coalition’s media centre in Doha, Qatar. The information centre decided on the amount of information they would give to the journalists. However, the impression was that the journalists had unfettered access to the theatre of war. Information to journalists in general was limited. This was a deliberate effort by the coalition forces’ media centre to minimise criticisms by the Western public regarding the war (Mitchell, 2007; Richardson, 2007). Thus, correspondents and reporters of the various media outlets in Doha, Qatar, became known as ‘embedded journalists,’ meaning, they lived with the soldiers and therefore could not give a critical and balanced account of the war. The point here, as McCune (1996) has noted, is that framing is not an exclusive preserve of news media professionals, but as the reality of the media controlled apparatus of the coalition media centre in Doha, Qatar has shown, is opened to all those involved. The implication of this, as Tumber and Palmer (2004) have observed, is that the ‘embedded journalist’ can be led to believe the frames presented to him by the soldiers. The identification of the journalists who covered the war with the coalition soldiers was part of a deliberate strategy by the Pentagon to ensure that the journalists did not investigate the reason for the war or its rationale. Rather, it was meant to get the journalists to report the war from the perspectives of the American-led forces to keep public opinion on their side (Lewis, Threadgold, Roderick, & Mosdell, 2004).

In his discourse on the framing of violent news, Mitchell (2007) outlined four implications of this: (i) framing by journalists is always aimed at achieving an objective, hence they focus the attention of the audience on an aspect of their perceived reality, thus either limit or distort understanding of reality. This is even more so since ‘framing not only includes, but also excludes’ (p. 72); (ii) the angle or perspective from which one considers a frame can influence the audience’s perception of news stories. Due to the biases associated with framing, factors, such as geographical location, ethnicity, religion, social standing, among others, can play a key role on how the members of the public could create and recreate frames for themselves; (iii) from the experience of the Western media coverage of the war in Iraq, there is a plurality of the origin of frames as opposed to the dominant view that the media were the only sources. Some

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studies have dismissed this position and argued that the news media are not now, if they ever were the main effect on the way events are framed. This position, Mitchell considers debatable; (iv) there is no unanimity among scholars regarding the issue of reframing as some consider it to be controversial. The reason is that if it is applied strictly it suggests replacing the original with another.

This discussion of the news framing theory of the media, clearly shows that frames are not value free or neutral as it is sometimes imagined since they are consciously and deliberately selected to achieve ends set by the editor (Danaan, 2017; Lecheler & de Vreese, 2012; McCombs & Shaw, 1972; Melki, 2014). Due to the biases associated with the selection of news frames by editors and news media professionals, they often change their frames depending on their geographical location. Scholars (Galtung & Ruge, 1965; Wallensteen & Sollenberg, 1997) have observed that the Western media pattern of coverage of events in Developing Countries, especially in Africa and the Middle East, are usually characterised by the use of negative stereotypical frames. In Galtung and Ruge’s views, factors, such as cultural similarity, wealth and proximity to the scene of conflict are what determine the quality of their (Western media) coverage. The Western media would exclude some important contextual facts regarding events in some of those Developing Countries and would stress on the negative elements of the news, such as wars, conflicts, coups, famine, starvation, hunger, refugees, and disease to the exclusion of other wholesome values that exist on the continents (Beaudoin & Thorson, 2002).

The news framing theory of the media is quite appropriate for this study on the influence of ethnicity in newspaper journalists’ coverage of the Plateau State conflict. Given the strong capacity of frames to influence the behaviour, attitudes and beliefs of people, this research examines conflict reporters and editor’s choice of frames in their news production. This is because, as Katu (2016) has argued, understanding the way conflict journalists use their frames to construct news and how conflict audiences in turn interpret the news would offer some important insights into their behaviour, attitudes and beliefs. Thus, reporters and editors employ certain discursive strategies like news framing, absences, silences, and opaqueness, to significantly influence their readers negatively or positively (Carabine, 2001). Therefore, the use of the news framing theory in this thesis is inevitable because framing is not a matter of either or, as Carvalho (2008) argues, they are crucial to conflict reporting, as Danaan (2017) affirmed. The way conflict journalists construct news, for example, and the role each communication plays in the process are crucial to conflict reporting which describes journalistic role conception and performance. Thus, how reporters, editors and content producers put

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together and publish ‘facts’ about the conflict they present to their readers amounts to news framing. So, identifying and analysing the kind of frames journalists of The Nigeria Standard

and the Daily Trust used in their news reports would confirm or disproof the belief that the reports played critical roles in the intensification of the Plateau State conflict.