Evaluation of the Punch and the Nigerian Tribune Reportage of Police Brutality between January 2016 and September 2020
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Date
2022-12
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Lead City University
Abstract
Police brutality has occurred all across the world and is still a major concern amongst society and police organizations. This brutality ranges from assaults, death as a result of use of force, harassment. In Nigeria, cases of brutality have been part of country history as it was happening during the colonial era because of protests, and at the present moment it is worse as people have rights and most people have access to camcorders to record such incidents which at the later stage attract media attention. The study assessed the Punch and Nigerian Tribune reportage of police brutality between January 1st, 2016 and September 30th, 2020. The study adopted Agenda-Setting and Social Responsibility theory as theoretical framework. Content analysis research design was adopted to examine contents of the selected newspapers in addressing the research objectives. Findings show that a total of 1446 items were reported by the selected newspapers within the study period. Individually, The Punch reported 551 items while Nigerian Tribune reported 895 items on Police brutality. The study revealed that 106(53.3%) of The Punch publications and 421(85.6) of the Nigerian Tribune publications performed the correlation functions while 93(46.7%) of Punch publications and 71(14.4%) of the Nigerian Tribune’s publications performed surveillance functions of the media. 426 publications on Police brutality involved eyewitness accounts, 265 publications included Police reports, 259 publications comprised relatives of the victims on the incidents, and 224 of the publications had sources for their reports. The study recommended newspapers should constantly cover and report cases of Police brutality as to inform and educate the society on the dangers caused as a result of Police brutality.
Keywords: Human rights, Mass media, Newspapers, Police brutality, Violence
Word Count: 271
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Kate Turabian