Media Framing of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Reportage in Nigeria (a Content Analysis of the Punch and the Guardian Newspapers January - June 2024)

This study took a critical examination of the media framing of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Nigerian newspapers, with a specific focus on The Punch and The Guardian. Employing a content analysis research design, this investigation sought to elucidate the ways in which these prominent Nigerian newspapers construct and represent the conflict's complexities. The analysis centers on five key themes: conflict type, external influences, tone, conflict representation, and perspectives. A total edition of 360 formed the study population were content analysed.
The findings of this study reveal significant patterns in the media framing of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Notably, both newspapers tend to frame the conflict primarily as a territorial issue, downplaying its religious and ethnic dimensions. The tone of reporting is predominantly negative, conveying the gravity and severity of the conflict. Additionally, humanitarian crisis framing emerges as a dominant narrative, emphasizing human suffering and the need for aid the study also reveals differences in the representation of perspectives, with the Israeli and Palestinian viewpoints relatively underrepresented in both newspapers. However,both the Punch and The Guardian newspapers demonstrated a stronger emphasis on territorial framing and international perspectives, potentially indicating a more nuanced understanding of the conflict's complexities.
This research concluded that media outlets specifically The Punch and The Guardian newspapers, gave low coverage to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict due to its foreign nature and minimal impact on the daily lives of their readers, the study's conclusions stress the importance of nuanced media representation and balanced reporting in conflict coverage, thereby recommending the inclusion of diverse newspapers for comprehensive insight, incorporate online sources for a broader perspective, examine public interpretation and response, promote accurate representation and informed discourse and futher explore media framing's impact on public perception and conflict resolution.