Discourse of ‘Self’ and ‘Other’ in Newspaper Editorials on Insecurity in Nigeria
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Authors
The spate of security threats in Nigeria has recently become quite alarming, dominating newspaper headlines and editorials. This article examines the discourse strategies deployed in the representation of ‘self’ and ‘other’ by editorials in two Nigerian newspapers on the security challenges in Nigeria. Drawing insights from Van Dijk’s socio-cognitive model of critical discourse analysis, the sampled editorials on insecurity in Nigeria from two e-versions of newspapers from the northern (Leadership Nigeria) and southern (Punch) parts of Nigeria, published from 2017 to 2020 are subjected to discourse analysis. The paper identified the deployment of eight discourse strategies, motivated by nationalist and humanist ideologies. The newspapers polarise between self and other through positive in-group and negative out-group ideologies on the security challenges bedevilling Nigeria with attendant implications for Africa and the world at large.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Journal | Journal of Asian and African Studies |
| Volume | 60 |
| Issue number | 6 |
| Pages (from-to) | 4001-4021 |
| Number of pages | 21 |
| ISSN | 0021-9096 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 09.2025 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2024. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
- discourse strategies, human security threat, ideology, Insecurity in Nigeria, Nigerian newspaper editorials
- Literature studies
Research areas
- Development
- Geography, Planning and Development