News Framing of Nigeria's Seventh National Assembly: Implication on Perception and Political Actions of Publics

Abstract

This study is undertaken to achieve two objectives: identify the dominant frames selected newspapers use to cover Nigeria’s seventh National Assembly, and to determine the extent to which framing influences public perception and their political actions. Population of the study is all Nigerian dailies and senior civil servants. The study purposively selects five dailies and 200 respondents from two capital cities namely Kaduna and Ikeja, Nigeria. Findings reveal among other things that based on newspaper reports, 55% respondents have negative perception on the National Assembly. In addition, 36% are discouraged to participate in elections and 28% hold the legislature to low esteem against 12%, who hold the National Assembly to high esteem. Consequently, the study recommends that the legislature should exhibit high sense of responsibility and newspapers should appropriately frame the legislature. It also recommends media literacy among readership to avoid being easy prey to how newspapers frame stories.