ABSTRACT
This study examines the media’s presentation of the prevalent herders and farmers’ conflicts in Nigeria. These conflicts became prevalent and prominent in the Year 2016 and ever since, it has gained the curious attention of the media. Thus, the media outputs relating to these conflicts are believed to be ideologically vested. This study, therefore, examines and evaluates the discursive strategies employed by the media in presenting and challenging the ideologically controlled social relations of dominance and resistance by the involved social actors, and the influence of these portrayals on the consumers’ knowledge and belief systems.
The study adopts the theories of Critical Discourse Analysis, and Stance, to examine how language is used by the media in presenting the varied ideologies of the involved social actors. 75 entextualised news outputs were selected for the study. Also, a corpus of 120 lexical items was generated for the study. These lexical items were subjected to the 2018 Windows Concordance Program, Ant.Con. 3.5.7. The quantitative results for the study are presented in tables and graphs.
The results of the study show that the news outputs relating to these conflicts present the cause of this power struggle as ethnic domination and resistance against asymmetrical power relations. They also show that these news outputs are combinations of ideologies used by the involved social actors to achieve the social functions of revolt, advocacy, proffering corrective measure, and manipulating the consumers’ construction of ideologies in relation to these conflicts. In conclusion, these news outputs are used by the media to condemn and satirize the conflicts.
