Journalistic Storytelling for Social Justice: A CDA of Global News Coverage of the Otodo Gbame Forced Evictions in Nigeria

ABSTRACT

Despite the growing discourse on forced evictions around the world, very limited scholarship has explored the constitution, replication and/or transformation of a discourse of urban development and forced evictions in journalistic work. This study investigates the global news coverage of state-sanctioned forced evictions of Otodo Gbame community in Lagos, Nigeria—with specific attention to journalistic discursive construction of urban development and the reproduction of hierarchies of worth in journalistic work. Critical discourse analysis of 17 journalistic texts published online by national and foreign news media organisations during the Otodo Gbame forced evictions (November 2016–April 2017) revealed journalists positioned Otodo Gbame residents at the bottom of a hierarchical social order and as victims of an unfortunate circumstance without transforming that discourse into possibilities for social and environmental justice. Journalists prioritised institutional voices, used passive construction and detached expressive mode to downplay the social implications of state-sanctioned forced evictions, and reproduced hierarchies of worth in journalism and broader society. Considering journalism plays a crucial role in the social construction of reality, this study offers insights and directions for journalistic role expansion and the transformation of conceived journalistic roles into meaningful practice.

KEYWORDS:

• social justice
• discourse
• Otodo Gbame forced evictions
• urban development
• journalistic role
• Nigeria

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank two anonymous reviewers, Professor David Dowling, Professor Carolyn Colvin, and the rest of the 2023 CDA summer workshop group at the University of Iowa (Javie Ssozi, Dr Lindsay Jarratt, Dr Lindsay Woodbridge, Petra Lange and Colleen Kollasch) for their invaluable feedback on early drafts of this work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).