Framing and blaming: discourse analysis of the Boko Haram uprising, July 2009

Competing discourses are involved in a meta-conflict over the meaning of the Boko Haram uprising in northern Nigeria in July 2009. These discourses are characterised by different conceptions of the state. This study analyses the struggle over the meaning of the uprising, using the theoretical framework of ‘meta-conflict’ set out by Horowitz and Brass, and a discourse analysis methodology based on the work of Foucault, and Lakoff and Johnson. An analysis of media reports in the five weeks following the uprising reveals that embedded within reports on Boko Haram there are four competing conceptions of the state. The Socio-Economic discourse argues for the state as the provider of development, whereas the Political Agency discourse posits the state as the provider of order. The Religious Structural discourse emphasises the state’s secular role in containing expansionist Islam, and the Religious Agency discourse calls on the state to help mainstream Islam maintain control over deviant sects.