The Media, Rhetoric of Fury and Electioneering in Nigeria
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Abstract
Words that strike, confront, resent and generally discomfort others, especially by persons gifted or skilled in the art of communication are often considered hateful by some people. Electioneering in Nigeria is largely characterised by this kind of rhetoric which actually gets escalated by the involvement of the media. In this article, the author examined the arbitrary characterization of all such remarks as hate speech and asserts that it is safer to characterise confrontational remarks by persons skilled or gifted in the art of persuasion as rhetoric of fury by examining the theoretical definitions of hate speech as it relates to varying contexts. The second objective was to evaluate certain remarks within proper contexts to see if they are actually hateful. The Persuasion Theory and Social Judgment Theory by Sherif and Associates formed the theoretical framework for the study. Content analysis was the chosen methodology adopted for this study. Results from the study show that a significant number of comments made during electioneering merely express threats, bigotry, antagonism, resentment, frustration, and competitiveness, while only a few of such comments qualified as hate speech. In conclusion, the study recommended among others that the media should consciously give less vent to all such remarks that are likely to heat up the polity.
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