EFFECTIVENESS OF THE MEDIA ON COMMUNICATION FLOW DURING END SARS PROTEST

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
DEFINITIONS OF TERMS

CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW

THE GENERAL ROLE OF MEDIA IN ENDSARS CONFLICT
NATURE OF ENDSARS PROTEST
DESTRUCTIVE ROLE OF THE MEDIA IN ENDSARS CONFLICT

CHAPTER THREE/METHODOLOGY

RESEARCH DESIGN
THE STUDY AREA
POPULATION SIZE
SAMPLING SIZE/TECHNIQUE
METHOD OF DATA COLLECTION
METHOD OF DATA ANALYSIS
RELIABILITY AND VARIABILITY OF DATA

CHAPTER FOUR/DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS

INTRODUCTION
DATA PRESENTATION
DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS

CHAPTER FIVE/ SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION

SUMMARY
CONCLUSION
RECOMMENDATIONS
SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY
REFERENCES
APPENDIX

CHAPTER ONE/INTRODUCTION

Media plays has always act as a medium of enlightenment during Protest in Nigeria as witnessed in the recent surge of Endsars protest. The protest was an offshoot of Special Anti-Robbery Squad brutality against Nigerian citizens.

The Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) was created in Lagos State in 1992, a time when Notorious armed robbers such as Shina Rambo were in control of the state (Midenda, 2017).It was created as a faceless police unit that performs undercover operations against armed robbers. Within almost two decades of its creation, the unit spread across the various states of the country. The spread of the unit across Vanguardwithout a proper structure, accounts for some of its lawless charcteristics.

The Endsars campaign started with the publication of a petition by convener Segun Awosanya. It was signed by 10,195 Nigerians and submitted to the Nigerian National Assembly to scrap the police unit. The Twitter campaign started on the 2nd of December 2017, when a footage of police officers attached to the unit shot and killed a man surfaced online. The campaign became a trending topic on Twitter with over 400,000 Tweets within twelve hours. Chukwu (2020)

In October 2020, Nigerians turned the online campaign to a peaceful protest which later degenerated to a violence protest after Nigerian soldier was accused of shooting unarmed protesters in lekki tollgate in Lagos state . Before the campaign, there have been isolated cases of police brutality all over the country. However, it was during the campaign that the damage caused by such brutality was discovered.

The campaign also exposed the level of rot within the police unit according to the convener of the campaign. The campaign further revealed that the police has no recognizable structure with no organized system of operation, officers of the unit act based on self-will with little or no regards for fundamental human right for citizens especially vulnerable youth.

It can be said that media is both a protagonist and an antagonist to a peace process. Media can foster human security, and there is evidence that media can reinforce motives for fuelling wars. It can be an instrument for peace and conflict management, which promotes messages and strategies that can lead to peaceful agreements and tolerant behaviour in a given society. Media can also be a weapon of violence that propagates biased information and manipulates societies or groups in conflict with divisive ideologies and harmful actions. Thus, the media have become pervasive and extremely influential in attitudes towards conflict. The influence of the media over conflicts has never been under doubt, the question is do the media actually have an impact on how the conflict progresses? As Anup Shah puts it, ―Often, especially when covering conflicts, the media organizations are subject to various constraints by governments, military, corporate pressure, economic interests, etc. Sometimes, however, the media are more than willing to go along with what could be described as self-censorship Anup. (2005) The media use in fighting wars is legendary. During World War I, British newspapers published casualty figures that were acceptable to the government but less than accurate. ―British success in battles was emphasized as opposed to the minimal gains actually made. All countries were guilty of this, Parisians did not know about the danger Verdun was in during the initial stages of the German attack despite being just 150 miles from the city. The French authorities simply clamped down on the truth. Anybody caught spreading the truth regarding Verdun was liable for arrest (―Propaganda and World War one‖, 2010)

With the advent of convergence media, that is the satellite and the internet in collaboration with conventional media like the television, radio, newspapers, magazines the role of the media in conflicts is even more glaring. Amah (2018) Media owners also have certain interest to support one side of the conflict or the other for example in covering the various conflicts around the world, it can be observed that the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Cable News Network (CNN) FOX NEWS, American Broadcasting Company (ABC) National Broadcasting Company (NBC) British Broadcasting Company (BBC) Commonwealth Broadcasting Network (CBN) Middle East Television Network (ALJAZEERA) etc. have various interests and so are reporting from those angles, the way and manner these media report on conflicts like the Israel/Palestine, the Iraqi war, conflicts between India and Pakistan gives a clear indication of the bias of the media.

Specifically the Nigerian media has been blamed for its role in increasing of conflict in the country, due to weak observation and total disregard for the ethics of journalism. For instance during the Endsars peaceful protest which later degenerated into a conflict, the Nigeria Broadcasting Corporation sanctioned three media houses namely Arise News, African Independent Television (AIT) and Channels Television with a confinement of N3 million each for broadcasting unverified social media photos and videos of the protests which escalated the violence across Nigeria. It was observed that when the Endsars peaceful protest turned violence, wanton destruction, arson of government and private properties and looting, the eagerness to break news and be pace setters stations engaged most media houses in the very unprofessional attitude of speculative and unverifiable broadcast. NBC (2020)

The media must be seen to be very objective in the way they disseminate information because they have the power to create, recreate and maintain certain narratives, which could be either destructive or productive in the socio-political affairs of the country. Liman 2010. It is against this backdrop that the study seek to investigate Effectiveness of the Media on Communication flow during end Sars protest ( A study of Chennel Television).

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