ASSESSMENT OF NEWSPAPER FRAMING OF THE APRIL 16, 2011 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS IN NIGERIA

This research evaluated the newspaper framing of the April 16, 2011 Presidential Elections in Nigeria, along the frames identified by Iyengar (1991: Horse-race Frame, Thematic Frame and Episodic Frame) cited in Porto (2001) who researched Brazilian journalists' framing of the Year 2000 United States Presidential Elections. Using Content Analysis, four newspapers were examined, namely Daily Trust, Leadership (both from Northern Nigeria) and Daily Sun and Thisday (from Southern Nigeria). These four were purposively selected out of a total of 267 registered newspapers published in the country. The study covered a period of three months: March 2011 (The month before the election), April 2011 (the month of the election) and May 2011 (The month after the election. Obviously, the selected period was the most fertile and ferocious for electoral reporting concerning the April 16, 2011 Presidential Elections in the country. Sixty five editions were selected from Thisday, 51 from Daily Sun, 65 from Daily Trust and 65 from Leadership. Thus, a total of 246 editions were content analyzed derived from a population of 368 editions. The findings from the study revealed that the dominant frame for the election was the Thematic Frame which hit the highest frequency of 500 articles as published by all the four newspapers. Findings also indicated that the four newspapers reported 1,486 stories on the elections, published in just about a quarter of a page (46%) buried in inside pages (second-grade publicity), while the front page (first grade publicity) was allotted only 24% the news stories. Findings from the qualitative analysis further showed that the two leading presidential candidates, Goodluck Jonathan of the People's Democratic Party (PDP) and Muhammadu Buhari of the Congress for Progress Change (CPC) were given all three positive-toned, negative-toned and neutral-toned headlines and stories. The study concluded that in the framing of the April 16, 2011 Presidential Elections, at different periods of the elections, focus was on the policies and programmes of candidates (Thematic Frame) and on who was in the lead in the campaigns and polls (Horse-race Frame) but more on general election issues including pre- and post-election matters. Therefore, the investigation recommended, among other things, that to sanitize the electoral process, Nigerian journalists should assume a higher professional commitment in covering elections, by being more investigative, critical, ethical and pungent in their stories, features and editorials