A critical discourse analysis of selected news reports of South Africa xenophobic attacks of Nigerians

Abstract

The incessant xenophobic attacks of Nigerians and other foreign nationals in South Africa have generated a unique discourse in the Nigerian media and in fact, other mainstream media on the African continent and international scene. These attacks are viewed by the international community as incompatible with 21st century civility. This paper therefore, engages the reports of selected news media in Nigeria, South African and other media houses with a view to explicating the ideologies that underpin each report seeing through the insight of Van Dijk, Norman Fairclough and Ruth Wodak’s models of Critical Discourse Analysis. A total of 10 report on the 2015-2019 xenophobia were purposively selected from the online outlets of these media houses. The study therefore found that the use of language by the Nigerian media shows that the polarisation tilted towards emphasising the positive ‘in-group’ description of the heinous acts visited on innocent Nigerians in South Africa whereas the South African and other news media brought to perspective the negative ‘out-group’ description of “some” Nigerians who are engaged in illegal businesses in their South Africa. The lexical choices contribute in significant ways to show the ideologies each reporters represent. The study submits that, these attacks by South Africans on fellow African Nationals are nefarious, iniquitous, atrocious and roguish perhaps because of their colonial experience.