Gender and the national crisis of contested nationhood: news visibility of women in Nigeria’s unity debate

Abstract

Women representation in the media has attracted a lot of attention from scholars in different countries. Existing literature overwhelmingly focuses on media representation of women in the political sphere, with greater consideration for women who contested for or held political offices. At a time when the crisis of self-determination raging through many countries coincides with increasing women visibility in politics, this study examines the visibility of women in newspaper discourse of contested nationhood using the case of Nigeria. The current focus is important as women bear a great part of the brunt of crisis of contested nationhood. In content and critical discourse analyses of two-year straight news reportage of the debate over the negotiability of Nigeria’s unity in four newspapers, it was found that social actors from the establishment are more than twice as visible in the discourse as those from the civil society, with women from both sides excluded. It was concluded that the increased visibility, though marginal, that women are achieving in Nigerian politics does not result in them becoming visible in the country’s newspaper discourse of contested nationhood.