Foreign Media Representations of Ipob Agitations: A Study of Four Media Outlets Within 2015 – 2017

Today, news of things happening in Nigeria are no longer local as the foreign media maintain
constant surveillance of events and report the same to the rest of the world. What these media
choose to report and how they decide to present it is believed to have far-reaching implications on
how such events or issues are perceived. Therefore, this research was aimed at investigating how
the emergence of IPOB and its agitation was represented in the foreign media. Through content
analysis, the study evaluated the coverage of IPOB in four foreign media outfits between the period
of 2015 to 2017.The study found that IPOB had significant level of coverage in the foreign media
especially in BBC and the dominant frame within which the foreign media represented IPOB was
that of a secessionist or separatist group. The study therefore recommends that political groups and
movements should endeavour to watch the way they engage the media, especially foreign media in
order to ensure that the image such media are presenting of them is typical of the image they want
to project to a global audience.