Partially implemented IDE Features

38 However, it is important to note that the identity building role of the media is mediated by a number of factors including importantly the role of opinion elite or opinion leaders (Bachofer, 2014). Hence, in the context of Nigeria, the ethnic identity construction role of the media cannot be viewed in isolation of the opinion of members of the elite including leaders of ethnic interest groups.

39 On the other hand, while the media reflect the ethnic discourse in society, society itself is also a reflection of the media. Therefore, the manner in which the media represent ethnicity will very likely shape ethnic discourse in society. Hence, when the media become ethnically biased, the potential implication is deepening of ethnic suspicion among the populace. Chávez and Guido-DiBrito (1999) agree with this when they assert that ethnic consciousness is built not only through “deep conscious immersion” by individuals “into cultural traditions and values” via religious, family and communal affinity but also through reactions to “negative treatment and media messages received from others” on account of their ethnicity (p.39). Stated differently, when gatekeepers engage in negative representation of a particular ethnicity, they automatically construct an irreconcilable binary of “us” versus “them” which naturally translates to social conflicts. Ngwu, Ekwe and Chukwuma (2013) thus observe that when the media serve sectional (ethnic) interest, society suffers as an atmosphere of insecurity is created and which could culminate in crisis or worsen an existing one. Such ethnocentric attitude to reporting (which could come as a result of ownership influence) has the likelihood to enthrone distrust and friction between ethnic or political groups. The authors contend that the media had played a role in the crisis that ultimately led to the January 15, 1966 coup being that they allowed themselves to be used by politicians to disseminate sectional and unethical messages that overheated the polity.

This power of the media to incite sectional conflict has been a recurring theme in scholarship (Arcan, 2013; Pegu, 2014). The events in Rwanda and Yugoslavia provide a classical example of how hate speeches projected through the media could bring about conflicts of cataclysmic dimension (Arcan, 2013). Libre des Mille Collines, a private broadcaster and Radio Rwanda, a national station, were active in promoting ethnic rancour among the citizenry leading to killing of at least half a million of the Tutsi population by the Hutu people in what has become popularly known as the Rwandan genocide of 1994. The role of the media in instigating this

40 phenomenal ethnic crisis has been so obvious that even the UN tribunals that tried cases related to the genocide have asserted this (Arcan, 2013).

Similarly, in Yugoslavia, Milosevic was able to skilfully employ the media to inspire fear and animosity in the Serb population against the Bosnia Muslims and Catholic Croats. He succeeded in integrating Radio Television Belgrade, Radio Television Novi Sad and Radio Television Pristina to form Radio Television of Serbia; a centralized arrangement that allowed him much control of the information space which he exploited to sow and reinforce ethnic hatreds. Such was the damage that at the end, in the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the genocide committed by the Serbs against the Muslims saw the systematic murder of 200,000 Muslim civilians, more than 20,000 were missing and feared dead, while 2,000,000 had become refugees (Arcan, 2013).

In the notoriously acrimonious 2007 Kenya election, the media – this time the new media – have been widely accused as a culprit in the ethnic tension and violence that preceded, accompanied and followed the polls. This verdict is found in the numerous reports by both international and local bodies which held that the new media contributed in fanning the embers of ethnic animosity. Many of the reports concluded that there was likelihood that some of the instances of ethnically motivated violence were inspired by hate speeches transmitted via new media platforms (Njoroge, Kimani & Kikech, 2011).

Back home in Nigeria, the media have not escaped the accusation of complicity in whipping up ethnic sentiment (Taiwo, 2007; Daramola, 2013). The media’s report of the political sphere in particular has been noted to have been much visibly coloured by ethnic bias (Taiwo, 2007;

Daramola, 2013; Nwafor, 2015; Sule, 2015). Recent instances include the 2015 general elections wherein sections of the media were found to have unmistakably displayed ethnic prejudice in their reportage (Alawode & Adesanya, 2016; Ibraheem, Ogwezzy-Ndisika & Tejumaiye, 2015).

41 Perhaps, more importantly, results of successive empirical investigations (such as Ekeanyanwu, 2007; Salawu, 2013; Sule, 2015; Doki, n.d.) have indicted the media as being partly responsible for many instances of ethnic and religious clashes in the country.

The foregoing, admittedly, are testimony to the earlier noted power of the media to influence the extent and manner of manifestation – positive and negative – of ethnicity in any clime. There is an emerging belief that just as the media have proven to be a powerful inspirer of conflicts, they are as well the most potent instrument for resolving conflicts and preventing development of new conflicts (Arcan, 2013; Pegu, 2014). In other words, the relationship between the media and ethnicity is implicated in a dialectic of two opposing possibilities i.e. the extent the media can advance ethnic harmony, it can as well wrought division and harm (Mastro, 2016).

This seemingly paradoxical position of the media vis-a-vis ethnic and other forms of social conflict has thrown up the question as to what exactly should be the role of the media in the face of continuing threat of conflict in society. Specifically, should the media remain completely

“objective” and “neutral” or should they consciously and actively intervene to prevent conflict and promote peace in society? In the context of the subject of this study, the question could be framed thus: should the Nigerian media remain “detached” in their coverage of ethnicity or should their coverage be consciously and strategically tailored towards averting and resolving ethnic conflict? Two conflicting approaches have emerged in the quest to answer this question (Hieber, 1998; Weaver, 1997; Doki, n.d.).

One of the approaches views the media as having an interventionist role towards conflict situations. The media are expected to deliberately intervene in conflicts and play a constructive role of an arbiter, so to speak, between the conflicting interests. Hieber (1998), representing this view, opines that a journalist can be an effective peacemaker by consciously taking up a role of

42 an intermediary between opposing parties, actively assisting in instantly dispelling rumours or by producing reports that emphasise points of agreement as against of areas of disagreements.

This school of thought embodies the principles underpinning what is popularly referred to as

“peace journalism” which has been defined as a kind of journalism where “editors and reporters make choices – about what to report, and how to report it – that create opportunities for society at large to consider and to value non-violent responses to conflict” (Lynch & McGoldrick, 2005, p.5). Doki (n.d.), arguing in support of the media acting in direct advocacy for peace, reasons that the media, following the social responsibility paradigm, should not be an insensitive spreader of hate, prejudice and bitterness as experienced with the anti-Islamic Danish newspaper cartoons.

There are two approaches to the media’s role as an active intervener in conflicts. The first approach “seeks to report conflicts for a general audience in a manner aimed at promoting peace rather than inflaming existing tensions”. The second, on the other hand, is more pro-active; the media are expected to act ahead of time by identifying potential conflict situations and giving them coverage in a pre-determined constructive way aimed at preventing the conflict (Hieber, 1998, p.2).

However, the second school of thought disagrees with the above view that the media should actively intervene in conflict. This school is of the view that the media should simply play the role of an impartial observer who reports conflicts as they happen without giving room for any subjectivity. Representing this school of thought, Weaver (1997) contends that once a journalist consciously accepts the responsibility of actively working for peace, truth and objectivity becomes threatened as he/she may begin to compromise these ethical standards just in the

43 interest of peace. In this instance, it becomes possible that the journalist opts to tell a “good” lie rather than the truth if such lie will serve the interest of peace.

However, later tendencies in scholarship (following the criticism of the traditional model of media ethics) have treated with suspicion the traditional idea of media objectivity. Hence, that old image of a coldly detached, disinterested and neutral media institution is fast giving way to a more practical view that refuses to tear the media out of their political, economic, cultural and ideological determinations (Bagdikian, 1983; Adonor, 1999; Gilens & Hertzman, 2000; Petley, 2004). Proponents of peace journalism have embraced this argument which suits their idea of what journalism should be in the face of conflict. For instance, McGoldrick and Lynch (2000) argue that journalism is inevitably an intervention and so cannot validly lay any claim to complete detachment. “The choice is about the ethics of that intervention. The questions are:

‘what effect is my intervention likely to have on the prospects for peace?’ ‘What am I going to do about it?’” (p.22). Regarding what happens to objectivity in the course of this intervention, McGoldrick and Lynch (2000) observe that if objectivity means “reporting as we see it” rather than intentionally distorting what we see owing to one interest or the other, then it is completely in agreement with peace journalism. On the contrary, if by objectivity we mean “just reporting the facts” and avoiding responsibility for the likely results of what we decide to report, then it can be highly destructive.

The authors argue that viewing objectivity in terms of total and uncompromising detachment is problematic in two ways. First is that it demands the impossible as journalists, as humans, cannot avoid being emotionally and ideologically involved in what they do, whether they admit this or not. Secondly, such approach to objectivity could mean that journalists, by trying to suppress their feelings and beliefs, may end up distorting information “without fully acknowledging it even to themselves”, hence their personal biases become “hidden behind time-honoured conventions of news language, which camouflage opinions as facts” meaning that the audience

44 may fail to “inspect or assess the bias; it seeps in to the way the conflict is constructed” (p.23).

McGoldrick and Lynch (2000) conclude that such simplistic application of objectivity can lead to news reports being mere superficial and surface narratives that do not offer any true understanding. Such reports allows us to see only how things actually are while obscuring how they have come to be that way and the fact that they could have come differently; a situation that potentially blurs our moral sense, hinders change and limits options for imaginative solutions.

Whatever are the strengths and weaknesses of the above opposing arguments regarding the role of the media in conflict, one thing deducible from them is that the media occupy a vital place in determining how differences impact on society; whether they overwhelm society or are effectively managed by society. In the context of this study, the media thus ought to be seen as possessing the potency to influence how ethnic differences impact on a multi-ethnic clime like Nigeria because the manner of media representation of ethnicity is an important determinant of how the various ethnic groups view and relate with each other – harmoniously or divisively (Ojo

& Adebayo, 2013).