Abstract
AbstractRecent studies on conflict and terrorism news coverage have documented an ingroup bias as well as an increasingly negative discourse about Muslims in the wake of Islamist terrorist attacks. Yet, as most of these studies have focused on Western media and settings, the determinants of news media’s religious biases and out-group categorizations remain insufficiently understood. In this article, we draw on interviews with Nigerian media practitioners and a comparison of Boko Haram news coverage in two Nigerian newspapers—one Southern-based/Christian-affiliated and one Northern-based/Muslim-affiliated—to argue that it is crucial to consider a country’s political-religious demography in order to understand the way in which religious-based violence is covered in the news. In this respect, we identify micro-, meso- and macro-level theoretical mechanisms through which a country’s demography can promote domestic news outlets—regardless of their background and readership—to cover conflict in a more balanced, nuanced, and objective way.
Highlights
News media play a crucial role in keeping the public informed
It is important to note that there are some significant differences between the newspapers concerning the coverage allocated to the Boko Haram uprising as such
With regard to the semantics, we find that Muslim authorities are more likely to refer to the religious nature of Boko Haram, but this can be explained by the fact that they mostly counter the view that Islam is associated with the group’s violence
Summary
News media play a crucial role in keeping the public informed. Yet news outlets do not merely convey information, they participate in the construction, maintenance, and transmission of particular narratives and discourses (TenenboimWeinblatt, Hanitzsch, & Nagar, 2016, p. 152). A large and growing number of studies has demonstrated that war-journalism frames dominate media depictions of political conflict Rather than depicting extremists (i.e. the few people who commit or support religiousbased violence and acts of terrorism) as the outgroup, Western media have increasingly identified the Muslim community as a whole as “the other.”. Such media narratives have contributed to a stronger in-group identification, and increased out-group derogation and, thereby, strengthened “us versus them”-polarization Since the early 2000s, media outlets have increasingly reported in negative terms on Muslims following the spread of radical Islamist terrorism in Western societies (Ahmed & Matthes, 2017). Rather than depicting extremists (i.e. the few people who commit or support religiousbased violence and acts of terrorism) as the outgroup, Western media have increasingly identified the Muslim community as a whole as “the other.” Such media narratives have contributed to a stronger in-group identification, and increased out-group derogation and, thereby, strengthened “us versus them”-polarization (e.g. Choma, Charlesford, Dalling, & Smith, 2015; Dawson, 2011; Kteily, Bruneau, Waytz, & Cotterill, 2015; Lopes & Jaspal, 2015)
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