News Media Representations of Women in Conflicts: The Boko Haram Conflict in Borno State, North East Nigeria (2012-2015) - A Study of Guardian, Daily Trust, Daily Sun, Leadership, Nation, and Thisday Newspapers Item Type Thesis or dissertation Authors Mbaya, Nancy, B. Citation Mbaya, N, B. (2019). News Media Representations of Women in Conflicts: The Boko Haram Conflict in Borno State, North East Nigeria (2012-2015) - A Study of Guardian, Daily Trust, Daily Sun, Leadership, Nation, and Thisday Newspapers (Doctoral dissertation). University of Chester, UK. Publisher University of Chester Rights Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Download date 27/09/2021 02:05:15 Item License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10034/623071 NEWS MEDIA REPRESENTATIONS OF WOMEN IN CONFLICTS: THE BOKO HARAM CONFLICT IN BORNO STATE, NORTH EAST NIGERIA (2012-2015)-A STUDY OF GUARDIAN, DAILY TRUST, DAILY SUN, LEADERSHIP, NATION, AND THISDAY NEWSPAPERS BY NANCY BRIAN MBAYA THESIS SUBMITTED IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHESTER FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DATE OF SUBMISSION: 23/10/2019 1 DECLARATION “The material being presented for examination is my own work and has not been submitted for an award of this or another HEI except in minor particulars which are explicitly noted in the body of the thesis. Where research pertaining to the thesis was undertaken collaboratively, the nature and extent of my individual contribution has been made explicit.” NANCY BRIAN MBAYA SIGNED: --------- --- DATE: ----------- SUPERVISORY TEAM: PRINCIPAL SUPERVISOR-DR VERA SLAVTCHEVA-PETKOVA SUPERVISOR- DR SIMON GWYN ROBERTS 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION 10 ABSTRACT 11 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 13 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION/BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY 15 PART I CHAPTER BREAKDOWN 27 CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK/LITERATURE REVIEW 30 CONFLICTS 30 INSURGENCY 30 BOKO HARAM CONFLICT 31 CONFLICTS IN NIGERIA 32 THEORIES 50 POSTCOLONIAL THEORIES 50 EDWARD SAID’S ORIENTALISM 52 GAYATRI SPIVAK AND SUBALTERNITY 56 THEORIES OF FEMINISM 58 INTERSECTIONALITY 62 NIGERIAN FEMINISM 63 ISLAMIC FEMINISM 71 3 PATRIARCHY 76 MEDIA THEORIES AND MEDIA SYSTEMS 82 MEDIA THEORIES 82 MEDIA SYSTEMS IN AFRICA/NIGERIA 89 REGIONAL PARALLELISM 92 MEDIA ETHICS 95 AGENDA SETTING THEORY 102 FRAMING THEORY 109 MEDIA REPRESENTATIONS 112 LABELLING 120 SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY MODEL OF THE PRESS 121 DEVELOPMENT JOURNALISM 124 OWNERSHIP AND CONTROL 130 CHAPTER 3: THE ORIGIN AND RISE OF BOKO HARAM SECT 140 ORIGIN 140 NAME 145 IDEOLOGY 147 SOCIO-ECONOMIC FACTORS 148 OPERATIONS AND MEMBERSHIP 151 PROPAGANDA 154 4 INTERNATIONAL AFFILIATIONS 156 CASUALTIES 157 PART II CHAPTER 4: METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH 164 CONTENT ANALYSIS 165 QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS 168 STUDY DESIGN 172 FRAME ANALYSIS 172 CODING CATEGORIES 179 SAMPLE 179 STUDY POPULATION AND SAMPLE SIZE 185 INTERCODER RELIABILITY 192 DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS 192 LIMITATIONS 193 ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS 194 PART III: RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS CHAPTER 5: PATRIARCHY AND GENDER STEREOTYPES 196 RESULTS 196 THREATS AND FIRST MAJOR ATTACK ON WOMEN 201 ABDUCTION OF FEMALE STUDENTS 205 5 FEMALE SUICIDE BOMBINGS 208 RESCUE OF WOMEN HOSTAGES 212 DISCUSSIONS 219 ABSENCE OF FEMALE JOURNALISTS 219 SOCIAL, POLITICAL, RELIGIOUS IMPLICATIONS 222 CONCLUSION 229 CHAPTER 6: INTERMEDIA AGENDA SETTING/NEOCOLONIALISM 231 RESULTS 232 FEAR OF ATTACKS 238 LACK OF FUNDS, EQUIPMENTS AND INSURANCE COVER 242 LACK OF PROFESSIONALISM 245 NEOCOLONIALISM 247 DISCUSSIONS 248 CONCLUSION 249 CHAPTER 7: DEVELOPMENT JOURNALISM/SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY IN CONFLICT REPORTING 252 RESULTS 254 SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY 264 OWNERSHIP AND CONTROL 268 SECURITY AGENCIES AND THE BOKO HARAM SECT 271 6 DISCUSSIONS 273 GOVERNMENT POLICIES AND PUBLIC OPINION 273 SOCIAL, POLITICAL, RELIGIOUS IMPLICATIONS 276 SKILLS 280 DEVELOPMENT JOURNALISM AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY 281 PART IV CHAPTER 8: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 284 PATRIARCHY AND GENDER STEREOTYPES 285 INTERMEDIA AGENDA SETTING AND NEOCOLONIALISM 287 DEVELOPMENT JOURNALISM AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY 289 REGIONAL PARALLELISM 290 MAIN C0NTRIBUTIONS OF THE STUDY 293 RECOMMENDATIONS 295 STRATEGIES FOR COUNTERING EXTREMITIES 296 REFERENCES 304 APPENDIX APPENDIX 1: LISTS OF FIGURES AND TABLES 404 IN MAIN TEXT TABLES 5:1 MAIN FRAMES IDENTIFIED IN THE TABLE 197 5:2 USE OF THE GENDERED FRAME 175 197 7 5:3 USE OF THE PATRAIRCHY FRAME 198 5:4 USE OF THE POWERLESS/HELPLESS FRAME 199 5:5 USE OF THE LABEL FRAME 199 6:1 PRIMARY STORY SOURCE BY NEWSPAPER 232 7:1 DISTRIBUTION OF STRATEGIC/HUMAN INTEREST FRAME 254 7:2 STORY PROMINENCE AND FREQUENCY DISRIBUTION 255 IN APPENDICES FIGURE 2:4 INTERSECTIONALITY OF GENDER 404 TABLES 3:1 NIGERIA'S HUMAN DEVELOPMENT STATISTICS BY ZONES 2008-2009 404 4:1 NEWSPAPERS, EDITORIAL POLICIES, CIRCULATION 405 4:2 NEWSPAPER’ OWNERSHIP 406 4:3 ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF NEWSPAPERS 408 4:4 KEY INCIDENTS (2012-2015) 409 APENDIX 2 DEFINITIONS OF VARIABLES/FRAMES 410 APPENDIX 3 CONSENT SHEET 414 APPENDIX 4 QUESTIONAIRE FOR NEWS REPORTERS 416 8 QUESTIONAIRE FOR NEWS EDITORS 419 QUESTIONAIRE FOR MEDIA ANALYSTS 421 9 DEDICATION I dedicate this work to Almighty God without whose grace, guidance, provision, protection, and mercies I would not have survived the very tough and stressful periods of loss, bereavement, lack, and ill-health. To Him, I return all the glory, honour and worship. I also dedicate this thesis to my beloved late parents- Chief Inspector Mwajim Shaffa Mshelia and Mrs Clara Mwajim Mshelia (my beautiful Eminado). I am deeply indebted to you for believing in me and sacrificing so much to make me what I am today; as well as inculcating in me the values of honesty, hard work, perseverance and doggedness. Your memories will always remain indelible on my mind. 10 ABSTRACT This is a study of news media representations of women in the Boko Haram conflict in Borno state, North East Nigeria (2012-2015) with a focus on six Nigerian national newspapers - Guardian, Daily Trust, Daily Sun, Leadership, Nation, and Thisday. It draws on post-colonial theories like Orientalism and the Subaltern; feminism; and the news media to examine how the news media have represented women in this conflict. The study adopted a mixed method approach combining quantitative content analysis and qualitative thematic analysis. The quantitative analysis examined the manifest contents of the newspaper articles in the sample to find out the pattern of frames used by Nigerian journalists to represent women in the Boko Haram conflict while the qualitative analysis examined information generated from semi- structured interviews; documentary data; and the translation of YouTube videos released by the Boko Haram sect. A total of 404 newspaper articles were selected, categorized, and examined using SPSS software. Findings suggest that patriarchal phrases and gender stereotypes permeate news media narratives about women affected by the conflict. This thesis therefore provides a better understanding of how Nigerian news media represent women affected by conflicts and factors that inform these representations. This work also provides a better insight into how the intersectionality of gender with other social structures like class, age, ethnicity, religion, patriarchal discrimination and other forms of oppression have permeated media representations of women in the conflict. Results similarly suggest that the Nigerian media over rely on foreign news media organizations as their major story sources about the conflict. Because of this overreliance, this thesis argues that foreign news media set the agenda for Nigerian news media in their representations of women. This study has contributed to a better understanding of how elite news media in the more developed global North set the news agenda for developing nations of the global South like Nigeria through inter-media agenda setting. 11 Findings also suggest that the Nigerian news media system reflects the social, political, religious, ethnic, and regional factors of the area within which it operates in line with the framework of regional parallelism. This study has contributed to a better understanding of how Nigeria’s North/South dichotomies based on these factors have affected the news media. This thesis concludes that as a product of regional parallelism, the Nigerian news media reflect the intersectionality of gender, social structures such as race, ethnic, religious, sexual orientation and patriarchal discrimination with other forms of oppression to disadvantage women in the Boko Haram conflict. KEY WORDS: Nigeria, Women, Boko Haram conflict, News Media Representations, Gender Stereotypes, Patriarchy, Inter-media Agenda Setting, Development Journalism, Regional Parallelism, Intersectionality. 12 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am deeply grateful to my Supervisors Dr Vera Slatcheva-Petkova and Dr Simon Gwyn Roberts for their unrelenting support, advice, encouragement and patience throughout the duration of my program. Dr Vera Slatcheva-Petkova, my Principal Supervisor has raised the bar for me and was a constant reminder of what hard work and perseverance can achieve. The advice she gave during my study on the various support programmes, the available bursaries and the academic openings will forever be appreciated. I also thank her most sincerely for her very severe but constructive criticisms which have made this work possible. I wish to similarly thank Dr Simon Gwyn Roberts for the many hours of suggestions and knowledge into conflict journalism and