Submitted in fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy: Management Sciences, Durban University of Technology, Durban, South Africa, 2015. / Nigeria’s vociferous media has the potential to be divided along ethnic and religious lines. Given that most Nigerians view political aspirants in terms of their ethnic and religious lineage rather than political ideology, and since most Nigerians rely on the media for information, there is the tendency to fall prey to biased and insensitive reportage, capable of inciting violence which is elicited by prejudiced information often presented as news, features, commentaries, documentaries, etc. This problem is the major motivation behind this research, which aims to build through training, the capacity of the media to report elections in a conflict-sensitive manner. This thesis develops, through the use of a participatory action research design, an alternative method of news reportage using the peace-journalism model. The model, developed by Jake Lynch and Annabel McGoldrick (2005), encourages journalists to report social issues in ways that create opportunities for a society to consider and value nonviolent responses toward conflict by using the insights from conflict analysis and transformation to update concepts of balance, fairness and accuracy in reporting. It also provides a new route map, which traces the connections between journalists, their sources, the stories they cover and the consequences of their reportage. In addition, it builds awareness of nonviolence and brings creativity into the practical job of everyday editing and reporting. This research holds theoretical significance in that it explicitly identifies conditions that encourage journalists to apply conflict-sensitivity to their reportage, thereby promoting societal peace, particularly during elections. The research findings herein offer a unifying multi-dimensional, conceptual framework which can be used to analyse and discuss the role journalists play in ensuring peaceful elections and demonstrates that they have a constructive part to play when covering sensitive social issues. A training manual has been developed from the findings of the study; it is intended to serve as a template and guide for journalists reporting on elections across the African continent.

This thesis explores the manner in which the conflict in the oil-rich Niger Delta in Nigeria is represented in western Anglophone media. Large oil reserves in the Niger Delta have contributed millions of dollars towards the growth of Nigeria's export economy. Despite this, the Niger Delta is the least developed region in the country and is characterised by high rates of inequality. Residents of the Niger Delta have been outraged by the lack of action on the part of the Nigerian government and multinational oil corporations. Their discontent over the inequalities in the region has resulted in the proliferation of armed groups and militants who often use violent and criminal tactics to communicate their disgruntlement. This thesis closely examines the representations of the violent insurgency in the Niger Delta by conducting a Critical Discourse Analysis of 145 news texts selected from four western Anglophone newspapers from 2007 to 2011. The depiction of the conflict as it appears in the four newspapers is discussed in relation to an overview of scholarly literature which explores the portrayal of Africa not only in western media, but also in other forms of western scholarship and writing. The research undertaken in this study reveals that to a significant extent representations of the Niger Delta conflict echo and reflect some of the stereotypical and age-old negative imagery that informs meanings constructed about the African continent. However, the analysis of the news texts also shows that there are certainly efforts amongst some newspapers to move beyond simplistic representations of the conflict. The disadvantage however, is that these notable attempts tend to be marred by the use of pejorative language which typically invokes negative images associated with Africa. This study argues that the implications of these representations are highly significant as these representations not only affect the way in which the conflict is understood, but also the manner in which the international community responds to it.