Open AccessThe Media in Cameroon faced with the Boko Haram Conflict
Author(s) -
Gerald Tapuka
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
ijars international journal of humanities and social studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2455-1465
DOI - 10.20908/ijarsijhss.v2i6.6660
Subject(s) - boko haram , journalism , conflict resolution , government (linguistics) , population , sociology , political science , media studies , law , insurgency , politics , linguistics , philosophy , demography
For the first time in the history of Cameroon, it is facing a conflict that can be compared to no other one. The Boko Haram conflict has not just posed so much difficulty to the population and the government but especially media men and women who are always looking for information to feed the public. It is further complicated because journalists in Cameroon do not have a mastery of Peace Journalism, or conflict sensitive journalism or conflict management and resolution. In this light, they have all dived into the matter with much focus on recounting just the story on the ground, counting the victims and use the war to gain notoriety. They have neither work in favor of pacific resolution of the conflict nor promoting alternatives to the use of force but have been either been embedded in the military’s version of the story while depending so much on the official phase of it and on second hand information. This paper argues that in the communication of the Boko Haram conflict the Cameroonian media have proven to follow the official version in its practice of Straight Journalism, War Journalism and Embedded with very little effort in Peace Journalism.