Open Access
American Research Journal of English and Literature
ISSN (Online): 2378-9026
DOI: 10.46568/arjel
A Multimodal Discourse Analysis of Images of Banditry in Northern Nigeria
Abstract
Studies on security in Nigeria have focused on the prevalence, incidences and responses of the governments in Nigeria
to the insecurity situations and very few on the paralinguistics. The images have attracted our attention and that is why
this study seeks to examine the images of bandits on newspaper pages and other online platforms. The design of this
study is both the qualitative and the quantitative research design method in collecting, describing and analyzing the
data. The type of sampling technique adopted for this study is purposive sampling. Ten sampled images and comments
on social media and newspapers were analysed using the framework of visual discourse resources. The elements
in the framework include: ideational mode, interpersonal mode, textual mode, denotation mode, connotation, style,
illustrations amongst others. We find that the images of the bandits are therefore viewed as those of criminality,
facelessness, militancy, violence, killers, criminal gang, human right abusers, forest dwellers, teenage criminals and
murderers and not as the actual Nigerian Fulani people. This is not to exempt the different nomenclatures which the
media has given to the different terrorist groups in Nigeria. We conclude therefore that there appears to be a negative
image of the Fulani race amongst Nigerians which informs the character and image of banditry with which these
normads are being tagged.
