Framing of gender-based violence against widows in selected Yoruba language Nollywood movies

Abstract

Issues of gender-based violence against women remain widespread in different societies with various labelling of the severity or otherwise. In the main, the representation of violence in the communication space continues to draw attention from various stakeholders in society. For instance, the Nigerian movie industry has become a global phenomenon that stakeholders pay attention to the content of its films. One violence that remains widespread in Nigeria across regional, religious or ethnic consideration is violence against widows. This paper focused on the framing of violence against widows in selected indigenous language Nollywood movies.Three movies were selected for thematic analysis and the study was anchored on the framing theory. How did the selected movies frame violence against women? Who were the perpetrators, effects, and consequences of violence against women? Findings show that the perpetrators of violence include in-laws, traditional institutions and some members of the society. Violence in the selected movies includes physical, emotional, psychological, physiological, financial and spiritual, while the effects include loss of property, mental and physical trauma. There is a need to further engage Nollywood to set agenda for curtailing gender-based violence and other social ills.

Keywords: violence, women, Nollywood, frames, framing