Sociocultural Relations: Perspectives from Covid-19 Newspaper Headlines

Abstract

Since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus pandemic in the world as a terminal disease, different lexical items have been adopted by Nigerian News Editors in rendering news reports on the pandemic. Certainly, power and significance are embedded in these news reports and these headlines help to reveal hidden sociocultural ideologies. Thus, the present study investigates selected Covid-19 newspaper headlines in order to ascertain how newspaper headlines have been used to illuminate hidden sociocultural ideologies. The study adopts Fairclough's (1995) theory of Critical Discourse Analysis as a sociocultural practice where emphasis is made on the three dimensions (3Ds) of discourse analysis namely description, interpretation and explanation.Covid-19 newspaper headlines selected from five Nigerian Newspapers namely the Guardian, Daily Trust, Nation, Tribune and Punch newspapers are analysed thematically in a bid to ascertain how the choice of words by the editors have been used to reveal hidden ideologies. A critical analysis of the headlines reveals a covert underlying social and cultural motivation for the readers’ consumption. The study further shows that covid-19 newspaper headlines perform myriads of functions from the perspective of the readers as they have implications on the social, political, economic and religious life of the readers. It can be concluded that these headlines reshape the readers’ mind-set.