Office of the citizen: a qualitative analysis of Twitter activity during the Lekki shooting in Nigeria’s #EndSARS protests

ABSTRACT

In recent times, SNSs have been influential in re-shaping social movements. Not only do they allow access to cheaper and quicker mobilization resources for demonstrators, they also allow them to circumvent conventional communication networks to create their own narratives and thus gain communicative power. Therefore, the study explores the Twitter activities of the #EndSARS protesters in Nigeria on the night of the Lekki shooting with the specific objective of evaluating the role of influencers within the movement as well as establishing the various manifestations and expressions of anger or hope as tweeted by participants in the protests. The study discovered that users relied more on foreign media than local media for coverage while Nigerians in diaspora fueled information spreading about the protests on the night of the shooting.

KEYWORDS:

• SNSs
• social movements
• #EndSARS
• Lekki shooting
• communicative power

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 The only users identified in this study are elected officials.

2 A vertices count refers to the number of users captured in the data obtained.

3 Unique edge refers to the number of times where multiple connections between a user and another user are counted only once.

4 Multiple connections between users.

5 Reciprocal relationship between users.

6 Number of separate sets of connected vertices.

7 Number of vertices with zero connections.

8 A geodesic is a chain or path composed of edges that link two vertices.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tamar Haruna Dambo

Tamar Haruna Dambo is a PhD candidate at Eastern Mediterranean University. Her research interests are new media, corporate citizenship, youth studies, political communication and social movements with particular focus on Nigeria and West Africa.

Metin Ersoy

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Metin Ersoy is an Associate Professor of Journalism at Faculty of Communication and Media Studies, in Eastern Mediterranean University. He also serves as the secretary of European Peace Research Association (EuPRA).

Ahmad Muhammad Auwal

Ahmad Muhammad Auwal is a PhD candidate in Communication and Media Studies at Eastern Mediterranean University. He is a Faculty member at Nassarawa State University where he earned his Bsc in Mass Communication. He earned his MA in Eastern Mediterranean University. His research interests cut across New Media and Journalism, Peace Journalism and Intercultural Communication.

Victor Oluwafemi Olorunsola

Victor Oluwafemi Olorunsola is a PhD candidate in Faculty of Tourism at the Eastern Mediterranean University. His research interests include service quality, eco–tourism, and climate change.

Mehmet Bahri Saydam

Mehmet Bahri Saydam is a PhD candidate, research and teaching assistant in the Faculty of Tourism at the Eastern Mediterranean University. His research interest includes consumer behaviour, semantic analysis, service quality, human resource management, organization management, organizational behaviour and leadership.