IDEOLOGY AND DISCOURSE STRATEGIES IN SELECTED RADIO NEWS OF OSUN STATE BROADCASTING CORPORATION, NIGERIA BY AJEWOLE-ORIMOGUNJE, CHRISTIANA OLUREMI B.ED, M.A., M.PHIL, ENGLISH LANGUAGE (IBADAN) A THESIS IN THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF ARTS IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE AWARD OF THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN. JUNE 2012 1 CERTIFICATION I certify that this study was carried out by Ajewole-Orimogunje, Christiana Oluremi in the Department of English, University of Ibadan, Nigeria. SUPERVISOR Dr. M. A. Alo Department of English University of Ibadan Ibadan, Nigeria. Date JUNE 2012 2 DEDICATION To the glory of Almighty God who has made all things possible for me, I dedicate this work to Dr. Kola Ajewole-Orimogunje; my darling husband, whose love, understanding, moral, financial and spiritual support have helped in no small measure to the success of this work. He was there for me when it seemed I had got to a dead end. His words of encouragement kept me on when the challenge was too much for me to cope with. The work is also dedicated to my wonderful children – Akinwumi Samuel Babatunde, Olumide Emmanuel Kayode, and my „baby‟, Ademola Johnson Omololu for their support and interest in this work. It is to this amiable man and my adorable children whose encouragement, sacrifice and dedication cannot be measured, that this work is dedicated. 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS “This is the Lord‟s doing; it is marvellous in our eyes” (Psalm 118, verse 23). It would have been practically impossible for me to come this far - but for the power, awesomeness and greatness of God Almighty and my Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ who has made things possible for me. To Him be the honour and glory for evermore. My profound gratitude goes to my supervisor, Dr Moses Alo, whose brilliant insights and suggestions contributed greatly to the success of this work. I am greatly indebted to him for his efforts, unquantifiable support, constructive criticisms, invaluable discussions and suggestions throughout the duration of this programme. In this academic endeavour, many people have contributed in diverse ways for me to achieve this feat. I need to appreciate these people who have shared in my burden, stress, fear, humiliation, disappointments, weariness, heaviness, sickness, survival, and finally, my success. These people have made significant impact to facilitate the completion of this work. I sincerely appreciate the efforts of Prof. Lekan Oyeleye who came to my rescue when all roads seemed blocked. His timely intervention saved the programme from premature death. May the Lord continue to bless him. I am grateful to Prof. Raji-Oyelade, Drs Akin Odebunmi, Remmy Oriaku, Obododimma Oha, Tayo Lamidi, Ayo Kehinde, Emmanuel Omobowale and Adesina Sunday; all in the department of English, University of Ibadan for their assistance in diverse ways. I also thank Messrs Gbenga, Bassey and Mrs Sodeinde. Mrs Raji and Mrs Yemisi Ajibade also deserve my appreciation. I owe a debt of gratitude to Dr Ayoola Kehinde of the Department of English, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife for helping me with valuable materials. I am grateful to Mrs Eunice Siyanbola (my former HOD) for her assistance. Worthy of special thanks are Dr Mrs H.A.L. Babalola, Mrs C.O. Adewusi, Mrs C.O. Oyelekan, Pastor Mrs Michael, Mrs A.O. Oyediran, Messrs Akin Oladipupo, Kazeem Adebiyi, Taiwo Osanyemi, Tunde Adedeji, and my other colleagues in the Department of General Studies, The Federal Polytechnic, Ede for their inspiration and encouragement. To my friends in Ibadan – Mr and Mrs Adun Fagbola, Elder and Deaconess Olambo and Mrs Odega, I say thank you very much. The Love of God Church World Outreach family has been wonderful. For their spiritual support, I would like to express my gratitude to my General Overseer, Bishop David Bisi Adedini and his family, my zonal pastors John Olugbenro, Dare Gambo and Tony Alabi. To the other men of God in the Ministry – Pastors Olatunji Egbayelo, Isaac Oluwafemi, 4 Mogbafoluwa, Ayomide Toluwalade, Tope Folasele, Idowu Abiodun, Shadrack Ovwuwonye, Oke Omogbesinu and Marcus Odelola, I am indeed very grateful. I also appreciate Deaconess Kehinde Kolade and all members of the Prayer Band. Worthy of mention are Pastor Mrs Iyabo Ayofe, Deaconess Ayo Olugbenro, Deaconess Regina Gambo, Deaconess Titi Igbaroola, Evang. Nike Oyebamiji and all members of the choir of God‟s Love Ministry. I am also grateful to Pastors Akin Idowu, A. Adeleye, Adeoye, Toyin Olatunji, Sunday, and Pastor Mrs M.B. Babalola for their support and spiritual assistance. Messrs I.O. Folorunso, Ibrahim Motajo and Taiwo Adebayo also deserve my appreciation for their interest in this work. Prof. Kunle and Mrs „Lake Awosan of the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, USA were very helpful to me. Their words of encouragement, support and prayer kept me on. I pray you will reap the fruits of your labour. My special thanks go to my brother, Sunday Igbaroola and his wife Jolaade Igbaroola who paved the way for me to access the data for this work. I am indeed grateful to Mr Ajayi, the Librarian at the Osun State Broadcasting Corporation, Osogbo who facilitated the collection of the data. I sincerely appreciate his patience and assistance at the different times I had disturbed him during my visits to the corporation for data collection. I cannot but mention the efforts of my elder brother, Mr Michael Folorunso Igbaroola for making it possible for me to be educated. The effort of Mama Felicia Igbaroola is very much appreciated. I equally remember late Madam Sijuwola Fasuyi; she was caring and loving to me when she was alive. I also appreciate my late parents – Chief Joseph Ojo and Madam Dorcas Omohunni Igbaroola, for bringing me to life. I would like to express my gratitude to Mr and Mrs Bode –Thomas Orimogunje, Mr and Mrs Olawuyi Orimogunje, Mr and Mrs Oladiran Orimogunje and Mama Emily Adeleye Orimogunje for their support. I owe a debt of gratitude to Mr Sarafa Ariyibi, my chauffeur in my numerous journeys from Osogbo/Ede to Ibadan. He was untiring in his efforts to carry out the assignment in the day, night, when convenient and when not convenient. To him, I say a big thank you. For typing this work at different periods of time, I acknowledge the efforts of Favour Computers, Mrs Olaitan and Mr Olaogun (Fine boy). I also express my appreciation to the management of The Federal Polytechnic Ede for giving me the opportunity to pursue this programme. My sincere gratitude goes to my darling husband, Kola, for his understanding and full support. My children, Akinwumi, Olumide and Ademola have been so wonderful. I thank them for their support in all areas. “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4, verse 5 ABSTRACT Previous studies on news in electronic media in Nigeria have mostly concentrated on linguistic and stylistic features with little attention on discourse strategies and underlying ideological factors considered to be significant in the construction and full understanding of radio news. There is need for more attention to be paid to ideologies and discourse strategies in media discourse as they enhance the comprehension of radio news. This study, therefore, investigated the discourse strategies and political ideologies in selected radio news of Osun State Broadcasting Corporation, (OSBC), with a view to revealing the interaction between the strategies and ideologies. The OSBC was selected for its unique engagements with political ideologies. The study was carried out within the framework of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) which links the text with underlying power relations and ideologies, using Wodak‟s socio- historical and van Dijk‟s socio-cognitive models. These are complemented with Halliday‟s Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) for its emphasis on the form/function relationship in language use. A total of 1000 written news reports from the OSBC were collected between April 2007 and November 2010, out of which 250 (25%) were purposively sampled, based on their political contents. The period was selected because of the political tension that characterized the election situation in the State during the regime of Governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola. A content analysis of the news was carried out using the tools of SFG and CDA. Three major political ideologies namely, historicist, humanitarian, and welfarist, were observed to influence the deployment of specific discourse strategies in the construction of political news in the OSBC radio during the regime of Governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola. Government was projected as welfarist and humanitarian in its political agenda. Historicist ideology was characterised by the use of temporality and historical comparison of events. The linguistic tool of lexicalisation was used to foreground the humanitarian and welfarist ideologies of the government. The historicist ideology was characterised by the use of transitive clauses with a high degree of transitivity which comprised spatio-temporal adverbials and verbal choices for detailed material, mental and relational processes representing the actions and activities of prominent political actors in the news events. For humanitarian and welfarist ideologies, the strategies utilised were blame transfer, source avoidance, positive self-presentation and negative other-presentation, foregrounding of figures and statistics, manipulation, and authoritarianism. Blame transfer exonerated the political actors from the ills of the society and shifted the blame on the opponents. Events that 6 portrayed the ruling political party positively and the opposition negatively were emphasised and given prominence while those that portrayed the ruling party negatively and the opponents positively were defocussed. There is a close interaction between political ideology and the discourse strategies used to project it in OSBC radio news texts. This interaction throws useful insights into the ideational process that is crucial in the construction of radio news.