Assessment of Social Media as a Tool for Conflict Escalation and Peace Building (A Study of Online Discourse of Benue Killings)

Social media has transformed the information landscape surrounding violent conflicts, functioning simultaneously as a platform for peacebuilding advocacy and a vector for inflammatory narratives. This study assessed the dual role of social media as a tool for conflict escalation and peace building, using online discourse around the Benue killings as a case study. The study was anchored on the Framing Theory of Robert Entman, which explains how the selective presentation of information constructs meaning and shapes audience responses to conflict situations. A content analysis design was adopted, focusing on posts, comments, and threads from Facebook and Twitter related to the Benue killings over a six-month period. A sample of 200 social media posts was purposively selected, and a structured coding sheet was used as the instrument of analysis. Findings revealed that a significant proportion of online discourse around the Benue killings was ethnically charged, emotionally provocative, and conducive to conflict escalation, with hate speech and misinformation widely circulated. Peacebuilding messages were present but lacked visibility and amplification relative to divisive content. The study concluded that social media plays a more pronounced role in escalating the Benue conflict narrative than in promoting reconciliation and peace. It was recommended that government, civil society, and platform administrators collaborate to develop counter-narrative strategies and enforce community standards to limit hate speech and conflict-fuelling misinformation online.

Keywords: Social media, conflict escalation, peace building, Benue killings, online discourse