FRAMING OF THE ASUU STRIKE OF 2022 BY ONLINE NIGERIAN NEWSPAPERS

In this paper, selected online Nigerian newspapers’ (Leadership, The Punch, and Vanguard) framing of ASUU strike of 2022 from February 14 – October 14, 2022 is examined. Results are that the framing of the ASUU strike was less frequent in the newspapers, but for Vanguard that had the most frequent of the reports with 51.9%. It was also found that insincerity in negotiation and implementation of MOA with 32(16.7%), protest 22(11.5%), and deligitimisation 13 (6.8%) were the most predominant themes found in the strike. Findings also revealed that ASUU strike has a dominant frames in the coverage of as definition/motivation with 43(22.5%) reports. It was further established on the direction framing of the strike that 132 (69.1%) news reports were positively framed. This research concluded that the newspapers did not accord much attention to the framing definition/motivation of the 2022 ASUU strike. Therefore, this study recommended, among other things that Nigerian newspapers, in their framing of collective action, place emphasis on the definition/motivation frame to justify the essence of such an action in public domain.