A Critical Discourse Analysis of Newspaper Editorials on Insecurities in Nigeria

Abstract

The insecurity challenges in Nigeria seem to intensify by the day, probably due to the political situation in the country or the economic hardship that engulfs the country. The media, being the watchdog of society, scrutinizes and determines what and when to report the incident. The media can manipulate people's perceptions, escalate a crisis, or bring the crisis under control. The linguist and discourse analyst interpret the language of the media based on the situation. This study, however, critically investigates the editorial discussions on the issues of insecurity in Nigeria. The newspapers under study include The Guardian, Vanguard and Punch Nigerian newspapers, from April 2021 to December 2022. The study adopted Halliday's systemic functional linguistic and Tuen van Dijk's Media Critical discourse for the theoretical framework.   Qualitative and descriptive methods were adopted for the data analysis. The study finds the use of different linguistic devices in the form of evaluative adjectives and adverbs, generic phrases, rhetorics, and idioms for the expressions of different opinions and attitudes towards the state of insecurity in the country. The study recommends more studies on media discourses on insecurity, studies on editorials and other social media platforms to see how to solve the problems of insecurity with the use of language.