Analysis of Newspaper Framing of Boko Haram Insurgency in North East Nigeria

This study analyses how selected Nigerian newspapers frame the Boko Haram insurgency and its humanitarian consequences in North East Nigeria, examining the ideological and narrative patterns embedded in print media coverage. Media framing significantly shapes public understanding of conflicts and influences policy responses, humanitarian attention, and community recovery efforts in conflict-affected zones. This study applies quantitative and qualitative content analysis to front-page and editorial stories in three national newspapers (The Punch, Daily Trust, and Leadership) related to the Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa States conflict from January 2021 to December 2023. The coding scheme identifies frames including security, humanitarian crisis, political failure, community resilience, and religious interpretation. Source diversity, geographic specificity, and victim representation are also assessed. Findings reveal that security and military frames dominate, accounting for 58 percent of coded stories, while humanitarian dimensions representing displacement, food insecurity, and child welfare account for only 21 percent. Daily Trust, published from Abuja with a northern focus, provides significantly more local source diversity than Lagos-based nationals. Women and children as primary victims of the crisis are underrepresented as story sources relative to their proportion of affected populations. The study concludes that Nigerian newspaper coverage perpetuates a security-centric frame that inadequately captures the humanitarian and social dimensions of the conflict. It recommends training programmes for conflict-sensitive journalism in Northeast-focused reporting.

Keywords: newspaper framing, Boko Haram, North East Nigeria, conflict journalism, content analysis.