Nigerian newspaper negotiation of victimhood in banditry reportage

This study examined how media encode and decode victimhood in reporting the activities of bandits. The lack of studies from the discourse-analytical viewpoint to reveal victimhood in the discourse has prevented an understanding of the role of context in enacting meaning in banditry reports. To this end, this study discusses different discursive strategies used by newspapers to negotiate victimhood in BD and interrogate how newspapers construct Nigeria and Nigerians as victims in the discourse. This study adopts content-based and qualitative methods of analysis considering their emphasis on the interaction between text and context to enact meaning. Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is adopted as the anchor for the study because of its relevance in describing text within context. Data are sourced from two Nigerian national newspapers, the Premium Times, Guardians, Sahara reporters, and the Punch. The newspapers are selected not only because of their wider coverage but also because they gave enough space for the coverage of news about banditry and are resourceful in the use of different discursive strategies to negotiate victimhood in the discourse. Six (6) discursive strategies are identified, namely; predication, evidentiality, referential, penchant for figures, and implicature. From the van Leeuwen’s (2008) categorization of social actors, the study revealed that reporters use functionalization, generacisation, role allocation, exclusion, aggregation, nomination, and collectivization. These are used to construct bandits as killers, kidnappers, destroyers, and attackers. The study recommends a further study of BD from sociolinguistic and sociological perspective to reveal how reporters use language to influence society.