Keeping Up with Power/Corruption in a Pandemic: A Study of an Investigative Journalist’s Twitter Handle
Investigative journalists have the special role of conducting investigations and reporting on them. InNigeria, studies have confirmed that a lot of investigative reports are found in the traditional media,both broadcast and print, and most of these reports, which are about financial scandals, origin...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Marmara University
2021-12-01
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| Series: | Türkiye İletişim Araştırmaları Dergisi |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/1750206 |
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| Summary: | Investigative journalists have the special role of conducting investigations and reporting on them. InNigeria, studies have confirmed that a lot of investigative reports are found in the traditional media,both broadcast and print, and most of these reports, which are about financial scandals, originate fromgovernment agencies saddled with the responsibility of battling corruption. This paper applies the socialresponsibility theory of the press to investigate the transformation and change in investigative reportingin Nigeria as occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic and disseminated on the social media. The studyfocuses on the COVID-19 tweets of Fisayo Soyombo, an acclaimed Nigerian investigative journalist whohas over 101,000 followers on Twitter. Soyombo’s tweets from 1 April 2020 to 30 June 2020 harvested fromhis eponymous Twitter handle formed the study sample. By identifying narratives of corruption, scandalstories and follow-up stories in the tweets, the paper finds out that unlike what obtains in the traditionalmedia, Soyombo initiates investigation into the non-financial activities of people in positions of authorityand seizes the opportunity of asynchronous communication on Twitter to report his findings regularly.However, the same asynchronicity as well as the unfolding events of the pandemic also cause him to end upwith many questions and not enough answers. Nonetheless, the paper concludes that such questions canform the basis of further investigations beyond the pandemic. |
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| ISSN: | 2630-6220 |