Media framing of President Donald Trump's Military Action Threat Against Nigeria

In early November 2025, President Donald Trump of the United States threatened possible military action against Nigeria over what he called “genocide” against Christians in Nigeria. The claim exploded across Western and African media, upping diplomatic tensions and sparking heated global debate. While some actors have adopted the genocide narrative, Nigerian authorities, the African Union, and conflict data experts have rejected it for being both exaggerated and politically loaded. In a media environment where framing can shape policy and public opinion, these contestations are critical. This paper identifies how the threat is framed by the international media using a conceptual and discourse-analytic model. Integrating framing theory, agenda-setting, securitization theory and media-policy feedback, it shows how religious persecution narratives are constructed, amplified or resisted. Using a theory-driven approach underpinned by recent reporting and conflict data from AP, Reuters, Politico, Al Jazeera, France 24, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, ACLED, and this study analyses frame construction mechanisms, such as amplification, selective sourcing, and counter-framing. From this analysis, five dominant frames emerge: emergency, moral rescue, sovereignty/anti-intervention, data-contestation and complexity frames. Together, they serve to illustrate how genocide claims can enable securitization and intervention logics, while counter-frames reinforce sovereignty, empirical caution and contextual nuance.