Peace journalism practice in Nigeria: war language and blasphemy conflicts

Violent conflicts precipitated by allegations of blasphemy have resulted in loss of many lives and property in Nigeria. Worse still is the effects on peaceful coexistence among the different ethno-religious groups in the country. In all this, the media is a stakeholder, whether as a promoter of peace or exacerbater of tension and division. 306 editions of Daily Trust and The Punch newspapers were explored to ascertain how these national dailies are responding to the tenets of peace journalism enunciated by Johan Galtung, especially in their choice of words, to what extent do they specifically avoid war language in the coverage of sensitive incidents as blasphemy. Using quantitative content-analysis and framing as methodological and theoretical frameworks respectively, this study found that 71 of such (war) lexical indicators were used in covering the incidents of blasphemy investigated, with The Punch having the highest frequency (63). Out of the three war language categories coded (demonizing, victimizing, and emotive), first one is the most prevalent (90%) with individual words like ‘barbaric’ (25.3%), ‘fanatic’ (23.9%) and ‘extremist’ (18.3%) preponderating. All these are arguably a corollary of political, professional and economic factors. The research finally recommends that for blasphemy conflict with its attendant violence to be pre-empted, Nigerian journalists covering ethno-religious crises need to be conscientized on the tenets of peace journalism, whilst national cohesion and peaceful coexistence need to be prioritized by media industry over and above profiteering.