NEWSPAPER FRAMING OF CHRISTIAN GENOCIDE IN NIGERIA AND AUDIENCE RESPONSES IN SELECTED NATIONAL DAILIES

This study examined the framing of news stories on Christian genocide in Nigeria by selected national dailies and respondents' reactions to the framing. Specifically, the study sought to determine the frequency of coverage, the direction of reports, the prominence given to the news stories, the dominant frames employed by the newspapers, and respondents' reactions to the framing of the reports. The study was anchored on framing theory and perception theory. A triangulation approach involving content analysis and focus group discussion (FGD) was adopted. The population of the study comprised 1,096 editions of the selected national dailies, namely Vanguard, TheGuardian, and Daily Sun newspapers, published between June, 2025 and May, 2026. Using the composite week sampling technique, a sample size of 252 newspaper editions was selected for content analysis, while purposive sampling was used in selecting 20 participants for the focus group discussion from the population of 375 400level (final year) students of Mass Communication Department, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University. The coding sheet, coding guide, and focus group discussion guide served as the instruments for data collection. The findings revealed that the selected national dailies gave a high level of coverage to the incidents of Christian genocide, recording 213 relevant news stories from the 252 sampled editions. The reports were predominantly neutral in direction, while most of the stories were published inside the pages of the newspapers. The most dominant frames identified were terrorism followed by banditry and kidnapping. Findings from the FGD revealed that respondents' reactions were largely dissatisfactory given the fact that most of the stories were framed from the perspective of terrorism and insecurity other than religious intolerance and Christianity attacks. The study recommends that newspapers should sustain balanced and objective reporting, but should provide more investigative coverage, and accord greater prominence to stories on the Christian genocide in order to enhance public understanding and promote informed public discourse on the issue.