Framing of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Nigerian Online News Portals

This study analyses how selected Nigerian online news portals framed the COVID-19 pandemic during its peak impact period, examining the dominant narratives, sources used, and their implications for public health communication. Health crises depend heavily on media framing for public understanding and behavioural compliance, making the quality of pandemic coverage a public health concern in its own right. This study applies quantitative content analysis to 600 news articles on COVID-19 published between January 2020 and December 2021 in three major Nigerian online portals: Vanguard Online, The Cable, and Premium Times. A coding instrument assesses dominant frames (medical, political, economic, social solidarity, fear, conspiracy), source diversity, geographic coverage, and protocol compliance messaging. Inter-coder reliability using Cohen's Kappa is established at 0.82. Findings reveal that medical and scientific frames dominate in 46 percent of stories, followed by political frames (27 percent), with conspiracy and fear frames accounting for 14 percent. Economic and social solidarity frames are significantly underrepresented relative to the pandemic's severe economic impact on Nigerian households. Source diversity is limited, with government officials and medical experts accounting for 74 percent of quoted sources, leaving ordinary Nigerians and informal sector workers largely voiceless. Rural and northern coverage is sparse relative to Lagos-centric reporting. The study concludes that online news coverage was broadly responsible but neglected socioeconomic dimensions and geographic diversity. It recommends diversity-conscious COVID-19 journalism standards for future public health emergencies.

Keywords: COVID-19, media framing, online news, public health communication, Nigeria.