Acta Universitatis Danubius. Communicatio, Vol 11, No 2 (2017)

Abstract

This study investigated how Nigerian newspapers reported the postponement of the 2015 presidential elections. The objectives of the study is to determine the kind of news frames used by Nigerian newspapers in their coverage of the  election, determine the prominence accorded to news stories that  dominated the coverage of the postponement as well as the direction or tone the newspapers adopted in reporting the postponement of the election. Four national dailies were chosen for the study namely- Daily Trust, The Nation, Guardian and Vanguard newspapers. The study employed content analysis and survey research design while framing theory serves as the theoretical framework in the research. The research reveals that the selected newspapers use different kinds of frames to report the postponement of the election. The news frames includes rescue frame, political frame, ethnic frame, economic frame among several others. However, this study show that rescue frame is the most predominantly frame adopted by the selected newspapers in their coverage of the postponement of the election. This study also discovers that in terms of story types, most of the stories were reported in straight news, feature articles, opinion articles and editorials. In the aspect of the direction or tone given to the postponement of the election, the newspapers differ in their tone of coverage of the election. Some tilted their coverage towards negative issues while some papers were positive on the election.  Based on these findings, the study concludes that Nigerian press is still projecting ethnic, political, and religious sentiment in the coverage of political parties’ activities. Hence, we recommend the press to ensure that they detach themselves from meddling into political issues in order to provide objective coverage of political activities.