Media Representation of Cultural Responses to Herdsmen-Farmers Conflicts in South West Nigeria

This study analyses the discursive strategies used by the media to portray cultural responses to herdsmen-farmers conflicts (HFC) as legitimate security actions, and discusses the implications for escalation. Using van Dijk’s critical discourse analysis (CDA), the study adopts qualitative, content-based methods. Data were drawn from three major Nigerian newspapers, namely, Punch, TheCable, and Vanguard. Fifteen articles were sampled, yielding 14 relevant excerpts for analysis. The analysis identifies five discursive strategies: abuse of law and arbitrariness; securing Yoruba territory and heritage; response to government failure; war against criminality; and war against the Fulani. It also highlights linguistic features such as implicature, presupposition, pronouns, mutual contextual beliefs, shared knowledge, persuasive expression, assertion, evidentiality, labelling, denial, qualifiers, and protest. The study contributes to scholarship on herdsmen discourse, media representation, and conflict resolution by showing how linguistic elements shape media portrayals and influence public perception of HFC.