Media Framing of Covid-19 Pandemic: A Study of Daily Trust and Vanguard Newspapers in Nigeria

*Aondover Eric Msughter, and eborah Phillips

Department of Mass Communication, Faculty of Communication, Bayero University, Kano, Kano State, Nigeria.

*Corresponding Author’s Contact Detail: E-mail Address ✉: aondover7@gmail.com

Accepted June 22, 2020

The wide-spread of coronavirus (Covid-19) in Nigeria in the last few months has attracted media attention and generated reports. The disease which causes respiratory illness like the flu with symptoms such as cough, fever and in more severe cases, difficulty in breathing has been ravaging the country. Since the Nigerian Government announced the first confirmed novel coronavirus pandemic in the country on February 27^th 2020, the media in Nigeria have been giving extensive coverage on the issue using different frames. This paper sought to determine the types of frames, the tones of the frames, the dominant frames, considering the selected newspapers are based in the two ends of the geographical cardinal points of the country (North and South). The paper is limited to only newspaper frames and not the audience perspective of the issues of framing. This paper examines the ways Daily Trust and Vanguard framed Covid-19 and the implication of the frames on government interest. The paper further looked at the possible implication of the frames on government interest in respect of the virus. Through content analysis, a census of dataset of articles, representing the coverage of Covid-19 is used for the study. The paper is anchored on the theoretical lens of Framing Theory which hinged on the premise of philosophical postulation that provides explanation on which news content is typically shaped and contextualized by media outlet. The findings of the study indicate that the media narratives within the study period tilted more on economic and political frames. The tones of the frames of both newspapers are more of negative frames than positive and neutral on the Covid-19 pandemic. This study concludes that Daily Trust and Vanguard newspaper framed the Covid-19 pandemic more of economic, political and downplaying important frames such as health and safety and quality of life frames.

Key words: Covid-19, Daily Trust, framing, media, Nigeria and Vanguard.

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