Citizen journalism and social media framing of political discourse in Nigeria

Abstract The growth in the practice of citizen journalism, propelled by increased Internet penetration and digital media adoption, has expanded the public sphere. Citizens leverage on social networks for their involvements in public discourse, especially politics. Political communication is one area that attracts massive citizens’ participation through the reportage and analysis of, and commentary on political issues and events. In today’s digital world, members of the public utilise citizen journalism as a veritable tool to promote their preferred candidates through content sharing. In their citizen journalism practices, they selectively use verbal and non-verbal narrative frameworks – called frames - to construct and share news about political candidates, parties and programmes in ways that lead to meaning-making consequences among the audience – a process termed framing. The theoretical and empirical manifestations of framing in political communication have extended beyond the mainstream to digital media, with attendant pervasive effects of the latter. This paper theoretically discussed the roles of citizen journalism in expanding the public sphere, examined the social media perspective to political news framing, analysed frame building and its consequences and provided empirical evidences of framing consequences in politics. It concluded that, like in previous elections, cases of subjective framing were on the rise among political actors and supporters during the campaigns for Nigeria’s 2023 Presidential election. The paper recommended media literacy, facts checking, responsible usage of social media and ethical re-orientation as antidotes to negative framing consequences, which have implications on the success of democratic governance. Key Words: Citizen journalism, Framing, Social media usage, 2023 Presidential election About the Author * Mufutau Oluwakemi Oriola, Ph.D., is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Creative Arts, Tai Solarin University of Education, Ijagun, Ogun State, Nigeria. His areas of specialisation and research interests are journalism and publishing, political communication and media content studies. JCMR Journal of Communication and Media Research, Vol. 15, No. 1, Special Issue 3, July 2023, pp. 93-101 © Association of Media and Communication Researchers of Nigeria (AMCRON). Article Citation Oriola, M. O. (2023). Citizen journalism and social media framing of political discourse in Nigeria. Journal of Communication and Media Research, 15 (1, SP.3): 93-101. Full Article Words: 5,900 Pages: 9 To access full article, click on download.