Representation of Boko Haram discourses in the British broadsheets

Abstract

The Boko Haram uprising in which certain Muslim groups ‘opposed’ to western education in northern Nigeria clashed with security forces contributes to the discourses about Islam and Muslims in Nigeria. Such discourses were carried by the foreign media, and their coverage of the incident has contributed to the perception of Islam in Nigeria among other countries. This article is a study of the coverage of the crisis as reported by two leading broadsheet newspapers in Britain, The Guardian and The Telegraph. These two newspapers represent two ideological divides in British society, The Guardian representing the centre-left and The Telegraph representing the centre-right. Using critical discourse analysis, I examine how these two newspapers construct the discourses of the Boko Haram incident, and find out whether the ideological divide influenced the way Islam and Muslims in Nigeria are represented in these newspapers, which have large readership in Britain. The result shows that there is no difference in the way the two newspapers represent the discourses of Boko Haram. I conclude that the way western media represents Islam and Muslims, anti-Islam has substituted anti-communism as the fifth filter in the propaganda model suggested by Herman and Chomsky.