Changemaker Catalyst Award recipient, Olamide Enioila, conducted pre-dissertation fieldwork in Nigeria on his PhD research, “Boko Haram: Linguistic Bias and Audience Reception of Terrorism News”. Olamide is a doctoral student in the School of Liberal Arts – class of 2025.
Since mid-2009, the Nigerian news media landscape has not been the same in its reportage of violence. That was not its first time reporting large-scale violence, however, to its previous coverage of ethnicity-violence ties in the oil rich Niger-Delta and Yoruba-speaking southwestern Nigeria was added the factor of religion. Owing to the government’s wrong handling of dissident youth in Borno State, a group marked for ethnicity, religion, and terrorism was born. Unfortunately, this terror group went on to break national and regional boundaries in its perpetration of violence. The group would bomb churches and mosques, murder defenseless civilians and farmers, attack national security formations, kidnap schoolgirls and boys, break-in into prisons to free their arrested members among other vices. With the advent of Boko Haram’s cycle of terror, mere anarchy was not only let loose on Nigeria and the entire Lake Chad region of Africa, but the Nigerian news media has also got a lot to report.
It was the fear of the Nigerian news media having too much information to handle in its reports about terrorists that started this research. Can news media report too much information about terrorists? Or can it report too little? Is there moderate news coverage of sensitive issues such as security? At what point exactly will the media coverage of a terror event/group be deemed enough? Given the claims of extant literature on the symbiotic relationship between the news media and terrorists, I was curious to empirically inquire from Nigerian journalists and news audience if the media can report too much information on terrorist groups. As a result, I set out during Summer 2022 to study the news archives, and to interview journalists and news audience on their perception of the Nigerian news media coverage of terrorism news.
An incident at one of the newspapers’ vendors’ stands where I normally visited was revealing of the news media’s tendency to both escalate and minimize violence in news. “Bọ̀ọ̀dá, ẹ wo kiní yìí (Brother, look at this thing),” one of the men at the newspapers’ vendor’s stand handed over a Yorùbá-medium newspaper to me, pointing at one of the headlines on its front page. “Lati Eko ni Hamza ti n gbe ori eeyan lọ si Ilorin tọwọ fi tẹ ẹ (Hamza caught while conveying human head from Lagos to Ilorin),” the headline reads. Of course, the casting of the headline poses no trouble for the readers, but the accompanying images leave readers with questions. If Hamza was arrested with a human head, are the head pictures accompanying this headline human heads? “Ṣé orí èèyàn rèé? (Are these human heads?)” the man asked me while pointing to the animals’ – chimps’ and cow’s – heads placed as exhibits against the ritualist in the headline. What could Alaroye be doing with this headline of unaligned text and image? The headline obviously conveys the idea that Hamza was caught with one human head, but three animal heads are placed as exhibits on the front page. Does the newspaper seem to suggest the quantitative value of a human head relative to those of the animals displayed? Moreover, can the substitution of a human head with those of three animals be an attempt to minimize the magnitude of the violence being reported? As I left the vendor’s stand that morning just before sunrise, I was puzzled with more questions about how the news media re/constructs and re/presents reality in news.
Despite the research design to examine multiple sources for data, I have been able to examine one – the news archives – as of the time of writing this blogpost. Because the study seeks to examine terrorism and interrogate human subjects on security and safety matters in Nigeria, the Tulane Institutional Review Board (IRB) subjected the study proposal to rigorous reviews. For instance, Tulane IRB wanted an organization resident in Nigeria to commit to my safety. For me, this is a huge demand which no organization, not even the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ), will readily commit itself to. These reviews, though sometimes constructive yet unreflective of Nigerian realities, necessitated major revisions in how I am required to interact with study participants.
I was interrogated too. During the reviews and zoom interrogations, I found myself making a case for why the study must be conducted the way I had conceived it and not the way Tulane IRB wanted it done.
“Please be sincere with me. Do you think Tulane IRB will approve this study?” I once asked my Case Manager.
“At IRB, we do not disapprove of studies. We just work with the Principal Investigator (PI) to ensure the study is in good shape. We must ensure your safety and that of your participants,” the manager replied.
It was, and still is, a tussle. I almost thought that conducting the study would be impossible. As I reflect on those highly interactive sessions with IRB, why the study has not yet been approved, the request for assurances of my safety, and why I was questioned, the reason I can adduce goes beyond the mere claim that the study examines terrorism, terrorists’ discourse, and national security. Reading between the lines of those conversations, I can see the effects which the excessive media coverage of violence can have upon a space of human existence; and I consider myself and my research as victims of this coverage. Beyond reporting Boko Haram attacks, the media has represented the entire Nigerian landscape as terror-stricken and unsafe for any human endeavors, academic research inclusive, thus creating what I have come to refer to as victimhood of research/er.
Barring the IRB glitches described above, I feel accomplished to have started learning about research, security, and news media. My IRB case manager has demonstrated an exceptional understanding of my research and has been able to guide me on appropriate research methodology. I have had to sit more to think about the research. Through some of the reviews I got, I have discovered how to deepen my interactions with news media and news audience communities in Nigeria. I am excited to have this foreknowledge of fieldwork before the commencement of my dissertation fieldwork in about a year’s time. Beyond these, I am excited that my chapter contribution proposal – drawn from my pre-dissertation fieldwork – to an edited volume has been accepted. This acceptance also came with a writing grant. This is a huge boost to my community-engaged scholarship!
As a Changemaker Catalyst Award recipient, embarking on a pre-dissertation fieldwork in Nigeria has been insightful for research. Right now, I understand what works and what does not work for a study of this nature. I have learnt to accept criticisms and make necessary adjustments. My experience at the newspaper’s vendor’s stand has shown me that the Nigerian news audience read news texts and images critically and I look forward to listening to those audience generated interpretations as the fieldwork progresses. I equally look forward to insights journalists will contribute to the study. Finally, I have learnt that changemakers need to ask questions even when there are no answers yet. Such inquiry may create the conversations leading to the change.