'Who Owns the Land?' Settlers and Indigenes: Nigeria Media Coverage of the 2008 Jos Violence in Central Nigeria

Abstract

This paper provides a basis for looking at how the print media had covered a long running, perennial crisis in Jos, central Nigeria with particular focus on the framing of the Jos 2008 violence by Daily Trust and The Guardian newspapers. It is a content analysis of the economic, ethnic, historical, political and religion frames used in reporting the crisis. The study also looks at whether the two papers identified the same parties as victims/perpetrators. Findings from a content analysis of 196 issues of the two newspapers show that the political frame was mostly used by the two newspapers to report the crisis and that both parties to the crisis were mostly identified by the two papers as victims/perpetrators. It is recommended that media coverage of other episodic flares of violence from the 2001 Jos riots to the recent December 2023 violence leading to the death of scores in local government areas surrounding Jos be similarly researched so as to throw light on the role of the media in conflicts such as this.

Keywords: Jos 2008 Violence; framing; print media; Daily Trust; Guardian