Alaroye: political contestation, genres, innovations and audience in a Yoruba-language newspaper

Abstract

AbstractNigerian newspapers, like newspapers elsewhere, are often established as part of the apparatus for the extension of personal or group interests, to mobilize and contest meaning in the overall project of constructing hegemony in an ethnically fractious polity. In this article, I trace the emergence ofAlaroye, the best-known Yoruba-language newspaper today, by identifying its survival strategies and stabilization against the changing circumstances of a hostile environment. The article aims to demonstrate that, in challenging the oppressive activities of a military dictatorship led by the Hausa-Fulani and a media market dominated by English-language newspapers,Alaroyehas been able to negotiate its existence within the contested space that is Yorubaland in particular and Nigeria at large. In this state of contestation and fierce competition, tabloidization has been central toAlaroye’s success, making it a leader whose example is being closely emulated by other Yoruba-language newspapers. Following from this, the article discusses the genres ofAlaroyeand the newspaper's genre-blurring innovations, including its oral written style, all of which point to its transformation into a tabloid, against the background of its initial failure at the newsstand and the factors responsible for its revitalization and stabilization after three failed attempts.