priming of the pre and pose acquittal coverage of the icc cases in kenya’s print media: a comparative study of sunday nation and the standard

Abstract

Mass media play an influential role in pivoting public opinion around crucial issues of national importance. Such an issue was the Kenya ICC cases which elicited public interest not just because six Kenyans had been indicted by the court, but because two of them had successfully contested for and won the presidency in Kenya. Consequently, news regarding these two and their co-accused elicited passionate attention from readership of print media and viewership of electronic media. Due to this heightened curiosity to follow the goings-on at the ICC, Kenyans depended hugely on reportage, especially as was presented in the leading Kenyan newspapers. This study‘s main objective was to a comparatively analyze how two leading newspapers in Kenya prime ICC Kenya cases news before and after the acquittals. The specific questions that this study sought to answer were: to establish the key ICC case themes and how they are disseminated to the public through print media; who the key voices and agenda-setters are and how were they primed over time; and the geographic diffusion pattern of the media coverage of the ICC Kenya case news. The study reviewed the Priming Theory and the Agenda setting theory. The research design involved content analysis of the literature with a bias towards the following themes: number of articles; size in cm2, type of the story, placement, prominence and the main subject that stories are published mostly. Data collection involved collection of news items and articles related to the ICC in the period before Kenyatta’s and Ruto’s acquittal from the ICC court. The study used the Sunday Nation and the Sunday Standard as its principle data source. These were chosen for their comprehensive review of matters that captured headlines during the week. A total of 128 items were captured to constitute the corpus for this study. Using content analysis, the items were ordered through a coding criterion that identified the thematic content. One major limitation is the fact that the research was based on information provided to a certain portion of the overall Kenyan demographic, and thus the recommendations could be most valid and useful for a similar portion of the Kenyan demographic. Notably, the study evidence suggests the media were more amicable to the vested interests of the political class as they dealt with the ICC issues. The study found that the Standard newspaper published more articles regarding the cases than did the Daily Nation. However, with regard to articles, there was little difference in priming of the issues in both newspapers. In a nutshell, the print media is a powerful tool that has been and can continue to be used to effect sociopolitical change. The ICC cases news was an important and salient issue of the present time. The study recommended that there was need to enhance the levels of framing sensitive news in ways that the media already finds to be compelling; Media houses can increase the number of articles written and published on such issues in the media.