This study considers the representation of western nations in Nigerian newspapers. It is conceived as a response to western media portrayal of African nations, which has received extensive research attention. The outcome of this substantial body of research points to a negative representation of developing nations, which are characterized by poverty, violence and instability. However, little or nothing exists on the counter-representation of western nations in the African media, and this is the focus of our research. To this end, we employ quantitative content analysis to identify the tone and theme of the representation of western nations in two newspapers based in Lagos, Nigeria. Our findings show that, although the tone of western representation in the Nigerian media is complex, it is largely negative, and the theme focuses on the political and global power of western nations. We contend that this pattern of representation reflects the existence of structural imperialism, particularly in the news reports of Nigerian newspapers, almost all of which were dubbed from international news agencies. This leads us to argue that the representation of western nations in Nigerian newspapers indicates the existence of borrowed lenses, with implications for the construction of knowledge on regional and global affairs.
{"title":"Borrowing lenses from the West: Analysis of an African media representation of western nations","authors":"V. Obia, Ismail A. Ibraheem, Charles C. Onwunali","doi":"10.1386/jams_00084_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/jams_00084_1","url":null,"abstract":"This study considers the representation of western nations in Nigerian newspapers. It is conceived as a response to western media portrayal of African nations, which has received extensive research attention. The outcome of this substantial body of research points to a negative representation of developing nations, which are characterized by poverty, violence and instability. However, little or nothing exists on the counter-representation of western nations in the African media, and this is the focus of our research. To this end, we employ quantitative content analysis to identify the tone and theme of the representation of western nations in two newspapers based in Lagos, Nigeria. Our findings show that, although the tone of western representation in the Nigerian media is complex, it is largely negative, and the theme focuses on the political and global power of western nations. We contend that this pattern of representation reflects the existence of structural imperialism, particularly in the news reports of Nigerian newspapers, almost all of which were dubbed from international news agencies. This leads us to argue that the representation of western nations in Nigerian newspapers indicates the existence of borrowed lenses, with implications for the construction of knowledge on regional and global affairs.","PeriodicalId":43702,"journal":{"name":"Journal of African Media Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79262431","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article provides insight into the media as ‘reproducers’ of racist ideologies in an African postcolonial context. In South Africa, a ‘racist’ Clicks TRESemmé advert, released in September 2020, triggered public outcry and protests and exposed pertinent issues to consider about a lack of diversity and transformation as well as colonial tropes of Blackness still circulating in the post-apartheid media. This article locates the ‘racist’ Clicks advert historically within apartheid-era constructions of Blackness, as well as globally and locally within a wider pattern of Blackness representation. I problematize the advert as a manifestation of systemic weaknesses in the media transformation agenda in terms of race, specifically (1) racial substitution, (2) racial hierarchy and (3) beyond policies of non-racialism. I argue for a need to adopt decolonial visibility (Maldonado-Torres 2007) of Blackness to strengthen the media’s transformation efforts and dismantle the embedded racial hierarchy that emanated from capitalist modernity (Grosfoguel 2007).
{"title":"Racism and the post-apartheid media: Problematizing the racist Clicks advert as a manifestation of token transformation","authors":"Prinola Govenden","doi":"10.1386/jams_00082_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/jams_00082_1","url":null,"abstract":"This article provides insight into the media as ‘reproducers’ of racist ideologies in an African postcolonial context. In South Africa, a ‘racist’ Clicks TRESemmé advert, released in September 2020, triggered public outcry and protests and exposed pertinent issues to consider about a lack of diversity and transformation as well as colonial tropes of Blackness still circulating in the post-apartheid media. This article locates the ‘racist’ Clicks advert historically within apartheid-era constructions of Blackness, as well as globally and locally within a wider pattern of Blackness representation. I problematize the advert as a manifestation of systemic weaknesses in the media transformation agenda in terms of race, specifically (1) racial substitution, (2) racial hierarchy and (3) beyond policies of non-racialism. I argue for a need to adopt decolonial visibility (Maldonado-Torres 2007) of Blackness to strengthen the media’s transformation efforts and dismantle the embedded racial hierarchy that emanated from capitalist modernity (Grosfoguel 2007).","PeriodicalId":43702,"journal":{"name":"Journal of African Media Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80525318","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic has unravelled the significance of having robust communication structures about health and disease to dynamic societies. The need to construct a mutual understanding of health issues has become imperative, and achieving a universal understanding of the disease burden requires robust information-sharing processes which can easily surmount the barriers to communication. What is challenging, however, is to communicate in a way and in a language that the majority of the population understands. In Malawi, where the majority of the population (84 per cent) live in rural areas, and without access to information technologies, it becomes more challenging when devising messages that should reach such hard-to-reach populations. This therefore begs the question: how effective is the COVID-19 communication to the Malawi public domain? This article attempts to answer this question by discussing the language choice vis-à-vis the lingua-cultural needs of the masses in COVID-19 awareness, and the strategies and modes of communication in COVID-19 communication. In view of this, the article argues that the government communication strategies concerning COVID-19 were not entirely effective. The article notes that the use of English in most of the COVID-19 messages has excluded the majority and has perpetuated the attitude of perceiving COVID-19 as a disease for the rich people. The modes being used in communicating COVID-19 do not effectively reach the masses since the media penetration is minimal resulting in most Malawians getting second-hand information and developing myths and conspiracy theories. The article concludes that it is imperative for Malawi to devise a contextually appropriate framework for communicating complex health messages.
{"title":"Linguistic and communication exclusion in COVID-19 awareness campaigns in Malawi","authors":"Peter Mayeso Jiyajiya, Atikonda Mtenje-Mkochi","doi":"10.1386/jams_00088_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/jams_00088_1","url":null,"abstract":"The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic has unravelled the significance of having robust communication structures about health and disease to dynamic societies. The need to construct a mutual understanding of health issues has become imperative, and achieving a universal understanding of the disease burden requires robust information-sharing processes which can easily surmount the barriers to communication. What is challenging, however, is to communicate in a way and in a language that the majority of the population understands. In Malawi, where the majority of the population (84 per cent) live in rural areas, and without access to information technologies, it becomes more challenging when devising messages that should reach such hard-to-reach populations. This therefore begs the question: how effective is the COVID-19 communication to the Malawi public domain? This article attempts to answer this question by discussing the language choice vis-à-vis the lingua-cultural needs of the masses in COVID-19 awareness, and the strategies and modes of communication in COVID-19 communication. In view of this, the article argues that the government communication strategies concerning COVID-19 were not entirely effective. The article notes that the use of English in most of the COVID-19 messages has excluded the majority and has perpetuated the attitude of perceiving COVID-19 as a disease for the rich people. The modes being used in communicating COVID-19 do not effectively reach the masses since the media penetration is minimal resulting in most Malawians getting second-hand information and developing myths and conspiracy theories. The article concludes that it is imperative for Malawi to devise a contextually appropriate framework for communicating complex health messages.","PeriodicalId":43702,"journal":{"name":"Journal of African Media Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77816430","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Technology, language and media sociality in Africa","authors":"L. L. Mukhongo","doi":"10.1386/jams_00081_2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/jams_00081_2","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43702,"journal":{"name":"Journal of African Media Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83861516","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article examines the coronavirus pandemic against a burgeoning culture of post-truth in social media. The theoretical narrative reviews the social media cum post-truth epoch and identifies network fluidity of the medium, absence of gatekeepers, tempering of human thinking with machine thinking, and supremacy of alternative facts over truth as basic ingredients that oil-free reign of manipulative and propulsive forces of coronavirus’ conspiracy theories, forged news, tricky data, and disinformation. The article asserts that as the bubbles of post-truth swear up in the online media, conned objectivity and rationality are conjured to stimulate strong sentiments capable of making individuals uphold wrong beliefs about coronavirus. The study suggests the use of human actions in managing coronavirus information rather than surrendering it to machine-based computational procedures. It recommends the teaching of media literacy in African schools to moderate the consumption of information in a world suffused with infodemics.
{"title":"Conspiracy theories, misinformation, disinformation and the coronavirus: A burgeoning of post-truth in the social media","authors":"Majority Oji","doi":"10.1386/jams_00087_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/jams_00087_1","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines the coronavirus pandemic against a burgeoning culture of post-truth in social media. The theoretical narrative reviews the social media cum post-truth epoch and identifies network fluidity of the medium, absence of gatekeepers, tempering of human thinking with machine thinking, and supremacy of alternative facts over truth as basic ingredients that oil-free reign of manipulative and propulsive forces of coronavirus’ conspiracy theories, forged news, tricky data, and disinformation. The article asserts that as the bubbles of post-truth swear up in the online media, conned objectivity and rationality are conjured to stimulate strong sentiments capable of making individuals uphold wrong beliefs about coronavirus. The study suggests the use of human actions in managing coronavirus information rather than surrendering it to machine-based computational procedures. It recommends the teaching of media literacy in African schools to moderate the consumption of information in a world suffused with infodemics.","PeriodicalId":43702,"journal":{"name":"Journal of African Media Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81999592","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Humour as a communicative activity is meant to evoke laughter in people, hence, the amusement of an utterance is typically judged by its response from the audience. This study examines amusing tweets on the COVID-19 pandemic and traces the intertextual origin of discourse in some of the tweets. It primarily explores the core role of humour as a cultural tool for satire. The incongruity theory of humour was employed as a theoretical framework for the study as it helps to better understand the reason Nigerians’ tweets are antithetical to prevailing circumstances in the country. This is a qualitative research design where a content analysis of 125 amusing tweets relating to the COVID-19 pandemic was sampled on Twitter. Search terms such as #May4, #3rdMainlandBridge, #KoroIsOurMan and #Obanikoro were employed to identify the pattern of humour in selected tweets as Nigerians’ tweets at the period revolved more around each of the hashtags. Open messages sent via Twitter were assessed adopting purposive sampling technique. Particular characteristics such as location of users, timeline of the lockdown and its relaxation (25 March‐30 June 2020) formed the parameters for the selection of the tweets. Though the coronavirus scourge has left thousands of people dead in its wake, Nigerians’ tweets and memes during the lockdown did not in any way reflect gloom or sombreness. This will pique an average readers’ interest as there is a violation of normative expectations. The results therefore reaffirm the age-long relevance of the incongruous in humour and the satirical role of intertextuality in discourse.
{"title":"Is Koro indeed our man? Exploring the intertextual role of humour in the Twitter age","authors":"Bukola Christiana Ajala","doi":"10.1386/jams_00075_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/jams_00075_1","url":null,"abstract":"Humour as a communicative activity is meant to evoke laughter in people, hence, the amusement of an utterance is typically judged by its response from the audience. This study examines amusing tweets on the COVID-19 pandemic and traces the intertextual origin of discourse in some of\u0000 the tweets. It primarily explores the core role of humour as a cultural tool for satire. The incongruity theory of humour was employed as a theoretical framework for the study as it helps to better understand the reason Nigerians’ tweets are antithetical to prevailing circumstances in\u0000 the country. This is a qualitative research design where a content analysis of 125 amusing tweets relating to the COVID-19 pandemic was sampled on Twitter. Search terms such as #May4, #3rdMainlandBridge, #KoroIsOurMan and #Obanikoro were employed to identify the pattern of humour in selected\u0000 tweets as Nigerians’ tweets at the period revolved more around each of the hashtags. Open messages sent via Twitter were assessed adopting purposive sampling technique. Particular characteristics such as location of users, timeline of the lockdown and its relaxation (25 March‐30\u0000 June 2020) formed the parameters for the selection of the tweets. Though the coronavirus scourge has left thousands of people dead in its wake, Nigerians’ tweets and memes during the lockdown did not in any way reflect gloom or sombreness. This will pique an average readers’ interest\u0000 as there is a violation of normative expectations. The results therefore reaffirm the age-long relevance of the incongruous in humour and the satirical role of intertextuality in discourse.","PeriodicalId":43702,"journal":{"name":"Journal of African Media Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84755753","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article inquires why humour flourishes in face of tragedy. Memes, as we argue, give people a sense of power as they offer commentary that critiques and mocks the government policies and ineptness, simultaneously offering a sense of hope and relief in face of the pandemic. With a focus on the COVID-19 pandemic, this study probed the nature, character and the why of humour in two southern African countries: South Africa and Zimbabwe. Findings show that memes were used to comment on lockdown regulations and speak against public authorities, to raise awareness of COVID-19 and expose poor health delivery systems. Our findings show that memes in South and Zimbabwe were used to bring dialogue about the COVID-19 pandemic and communicate health-related issues.
{"title":"The why of humour during a crisis: An exploration of COVID-19 memes in South Africa and Zimbabwe","authors":"M. Msimanga, L. Tshuma, Trust Matsilele","doi":"10.1386/jams_00073_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/jams_00073_1","url":null,"abstract":"This article inquires why humour flourishes in face of tragedy. Memes, as we argue, give people a sense of power as they offer commentary that critiques and mocks the government policies and ineptness, simultaneously offering a sense of hope and relief in face of the pandemic. With\u0000 a focus on the COVID-19 pandemic, this study probed the nature, character and the why of humour in two southern African countries: South Africa and Zimbabwe. Findings show that memes were used to comment on lockdown regulations and speak against public authorities, to raise awareness of COVID-19\u0000 and expose poor health delivery systems. Our findings show that memes in South and Zimbabwe were used to bring dialogue about the COVID-19 pandemic and communicate health-related issues.","PeriodicalId":43702,"journal":{"name":"Journal of African Media Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90561628","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nigerians have intriguing penchant for humour even in moments of life tribulations, grief and uncertainties. They tend to defy being overwhelmed by sorrow, fear or even their helplessness in the face of adversity. Consequently, despite the global hysteria that has trailed the outbreak of the dreaded coronavirus, Nigerians stoically manage their grief through humour. The growing predilection for humour production and consumption in the country, which is partly occasioned by the advent of social media and an unprecedented growth of the Night of a Thousand Laughs (a stand-up comedy industry), deserves scholarly attention on account of its social and mental health impacts. This work blends Freudian psychoanalysis with Merton’s functional analysis to build a framework of analysis that captures the psychogenesis and consequences of Nigerians’ humorous response to the coronavirus pandemic. Semiotic method was used to analyse some selected humorous memes, cartoons, pictures and videos on or about COVID-19 obtained from WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube between March and August, 2020. In so doing, these humorous stuffs were subjected to both broad and context specific analyses. It was found that although the humours were expressed in different styles, they are mostly aggressive (intended to ridicule their leaders using satire, sarcasm), and self-enhancing (used as mechanisms to cope with boredom and anxiety occasioned by the pandemic) and, in a few cases, self-defeating (involved self-mockery: use of remarks that are self-demeaning or self-disparaging). The article concludes that the COVID-19-induced humours are a route to their peddlers’ unconscious realm and a defence mechanism to anxiety, stress and boredom. While the spread of these jokes has manifest function of self-enhancing, their latent consequence is that they trivialize the pandemic and, by extension, make people reluctant to take precautionary measures and comply with the established guidelines and protocols.
{"title":"Suffering and smiling: Nigerians’ humorous response to the coronavirus pandemic","authors":"Aminu Ali","doi":"10.1386/jams_00076_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/jams_00076_1","url":null,"abstract":"Nigerians have intriguing penchant for humour even in moments of life tribulations, grief and uncertainties. They tend to defy being overwhelmed by sorrow, fear or even their helplessness in the face of adversity. Consequently, despite the global hysteria that has trailed the outbreak\u0000 of the dreaded coronavirus, Nigerians stoically manage their grief through humour. The growing predilection for humour production and consumption in the country, which is partly occasioned by the advent of social media and an unprecedented growth of the Night of a Thousand Laughs (a stand-up\u0000 comedy industry), deserves scholarly attention on account of its social and mental health impacts. This work blends Freudian psychoanalysis with Merton’s functional analysis to build a framework of analysis that captures the psychogenesis and consequences of Nigerians’ humorous\u0000 response to the coronavirus pandemic. Semiotic method was used to analyse some selected humorous memes, cartoons, pictures and videos on or about COVID-19 obtained from WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube between March and August, 2020. In so doing, these humorous stuffs were subjected\u0000 to both broad and context specific analyses. It was found that although the humours were expressed in different styles, they are mostly aggressive (intended to ridicule their leaders using satire, sarcasm), and self-enhancing (used as mechanisms to cope with boredom and anxiety occasioned\u0000 by the pandemic) and, in a few cases, self-defeating (involved self-mockery: use of remarks that are self-demeaning or self-disparaging). The article concludes that the COVID-19-induced humours are a route to their peddlers’ unconscious realm and a defence mechanism to anxiety, stress\u0000 and boredom. While the spread of these jokes has manifest function of self-enhancing, their latent consequence is that they trivialize the pandemic and, by extension, make people reluctant to take precautionary measures and comply with the established guidelines and protocols.","PeriodicalId":43702,"journal":{"name":"Journal of African Media Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84923201","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
From the outbreak of coronavirus to the institution of lockdown, and other regulatory measures, digital media platforms have been agog with memes associated with COVID-19 and pandemic-induced policies. Hence, there is a need to understand how the digital community discusses the pandemic through internet memes. There is a dearth of scholarship focusing on the utilization of memes for public engagement during public health crises. This study adds to the understanding of the discursive functions of memes by exploring emergent themes in coronavirus-related memes and investigating the discursive strategies applied by Nigerians to portray the pandemic. A qualitative analysis of 170 purposively selected COVID-19-related memes revealed the prevalence of six overarching themes. It was observed that meme creators employed a combination of humour, non-humour and sarcasm in driving awareness about the pandemic and highlighting existing but less-discussed sociopolitical and socio-economic issues exacerbated by the recent health crisis. The findings identified the utilization of memes to create awareness, highlight the negative impact of COVID-19 regulations on the lives of the average Nigerians and critique government’s handling of the pandemic.
{"title":"Nigerians and COVID-19 humour: Discursivity and public engagement through pandemic internet memes","authors":"Bimbo Lolade Fafowora, M. Salaudeen","doi":"10.1386/jams_00078_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/jams_00078_1","url":null,"abstract":"From the outbreak of coronavirus to the institution of lockdown, and other regulatory measures, digital media platforms have been agog with memes associated with COVID-19 and pandemic-induced policies. Hence, there is a need to understand how the digital community discusses the pandemic\u0000 through internet memes. There is a dearth of scholarship focusing on the utilization of memes for public engagement during public health crises. This study adds to the understanding of the discursive functions of memes by exploring emergent themes in coronavirus-related memes and investigating\u0000 the discursive strategies applied by Nigerians to portray the pandemic. A qualitative analysis of 170 purposively selected COVID-19-related memes revealed the prevalence of six overarching themes. It was observed that meme creators employed a combination of humour, non-humour and sarcasm in\u0000 driving awareness about the pandemic and highlighting existing but less-discussed sociopolitical and socio-economic issues exacerbated by the recent health crisis. The findings identified the utilization of memes to create awareness, highlight the negative impact of COVID-19 regulations on\u0000 the lives of the average Nigerians and critique government’s handling of the pandemic.","PeriodicalId":43702,"journal":{"name":"Journal of African Media Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72382850","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Coronavirus popularly known as COVID-19 is a pandemic that stormed the globe and rendered strong nations helpless and even the world powers, powerless. Initially, the Nigerian government was reluctant to put measures in place or lock its borders until a returnee was diagnosed after he had infected some people. This necessitated several measures including total lockdown, social distancing and improved personal hygiene to forestall its spread. Moreover, Nigerians believe that the state of the nation is even worse than this pandemic and, thus, have developed mastery, especially via satire in weathering any kind of storm. It is therefore, not surprising that the Facebook has become a veritable platform where Nigerians evoke humour while exposing human foibles in their linguistic disposition, with the intention to improve the society. This study, therefore, examined the satirical devices in the Facebook posts of Nigerians with the aim of teasing out the ideologies portrayed in relation to the existing social, economic and political attitude of the people towards the pandemic. Consequently, 22 Facebook posts were purposively selected for analysis, drawing input from Horatian’s approach to satire and Fairclough’s (1995) sociocultural approach to Critical Discourse Analysis. The analysis reveals various satirical elements deployed as a subtle and effective alternative to contest power abuse, social injustice and propagate change. The study also reveals the wittiness and absurdity of satire that makes it a ready tool to unbridle people’s feelings; laden with different ideologies with the aim of relaxing tension and catalysing transformation in the society. Moreover, the import of weathering the storm becomes bare as an essential make-up of Nigerians; the tinge of humour intended in the posts relieves perceived tension and reminds the readers to take life easy, thus, making the study quite engaging.
{"title":"Satirical realities in COVID-19 humour: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Nigerian Facebook posts","authors":"C. Onwubiko","doi":"10.1386/jams_00077_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/jams_00077_1","url":null,"abstract":"Coronavirus popularly known as COVID-19 is a pandemic that stormed the globe and rendered strong nations helpless and even the world powers, powerless. Initially, the Nigerian government was reluctant to put measures in place or lock its borders until a returnee was diagnosed after\u0000 he had infected some people. This necessitated several measures including total lockdown, social distancing and improved personal hygiene to forestall its spread. Moreover, Nigerians believe that the state of the nation is even worse than this pandemic and, thus, have developed mastery, especially\u0000 via satire in weathering any kind of storm. It is therefore, not surprising that the Facebook has become a veritable platform where Nigerians evoke humour while exposing human foibles in their linguistic disposition, with the intention to improve the society. This study, therefore, examined\u0000 the satirical devices in the Facebook posts of Nigerians with the aim of teasing out the ideologies portrayed in relation to the existing social, economic and political attitude of the people towards the pandemic. Consequently, 22 Facebook posts were purposively selected for analysis, drawing\u0000 input from Horatian’s approach to satire and Fairclough’s (1995) sociocultural approach to Critical Discourse Analysis. The analysis reveals various satirical elements deployed as a subtle and effective alternative to contest power abuse, social injustice and propagate change.\u0000 The study also reveals the wittiness and absurdity of satire that makes it a ready tool to unbridle people’s feelings; laden with different ideologies with the aim of relaxing tension and catalysing transformation in the society. Moreover, the import of weathering the storm becomes bare\u0000 as an essential make-up of Nigerians; the tinge of humour intended in the posts relieves perceived tension and reminds the readers to take life easy, thus, making the study quite engaging.","PeriodicalId":43702,"journal":{"name":"Journal of African Media Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84134642","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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