Global Journal of Human-Social Science, A: Arts and Humanities, Volume 22 Issue 4

and that the prevention of child trafficking comprises changing the citizenry orientation, attitude, belief and circumstances both at the individual and community levels as this is aimed to discourage human trafficking to occur. Several studies that analyzed newspaper articles on human trafficking found straight news stories as the most used genre in reporting human trafficking issues (Nkememena, 2009; Gulati, 2011; Stanford et. al., 2016; Reichert, Houston-Kolnik, Vasquez, & Peterson, 2018). Stanford et. al. (2016) study showed that most of the 464 articles referencing human trafficking in the their study appeared as news stories (63%), followed by editorials and commentary (18%), mentions of trafficking in a list or transcript (9%), news summaries (6%), and letters to the editor (5%). These results are similar to those found by Gulati (2011) that news stories and editorials/commentary remained the two largest categories. Also, Nkememena (2009) and Reichert et. al. (2018) found out that most of the stories were straight news. Information on issue focus of an article refers to the form/type of human trafficking referenced and/or the context in which trafficking was discussed. Stanford et. al. (2016) study found that the greatest percentage of articles referred to sex trafficking (64%), followed by articles discussing both sex and labour (13%), and labour only (11%). The remaining articles discussed trafficking in the context of immigration/human smuggling, illegal adoptions, and historical slavery (9%), or did not reference a specific trafficking issue (3%). The prominence of sex trafficking in this article is consistent with other studies, such as those by (Marchionni; 2012; Gulati, 2011; Johnston et al., 2014; Muraszkiewicz, Georgious & Constantinou, 2014; Borer, 2015; Smith, 2019). These researchers interpreted these findings as confirmation that media coverage helped legitimize the dominant view of trafficking, which at that point was characterized mostly as sex trafficking and prostitution by both the U.S. government and the UN. Muraszkiewicz, Georgious and Constantinou (2014) conducted a study to appraise the way the issue of human trafficking is framed within the media in the United Kingdom, Cyprus and Poland. In their study, they discovered that the central discourse surrounding trafficking in human beings in the press was sex exploitation, predominantly prostitution. While Borer (2015) research established that sex trafficking stood out as the most predominant form of trafficking covered by the media. The issue that sex trafficking continues to dominate in media coverage is particularly interesting given that the ILO estimates that there are nine times as many victims of labour trafficking than sex trafficking, and that current statistics from the UN show that more than 50% of trafficking victims in North America are exploited in forced labor (ILO, 2012b; United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime [UNODC], 2014). While this review of the current literature suggests that much scholarly work has already been conducted regarding media coverage of human trafficking, there is clearly room for additional research. The review however reveals a paucity of studies that analyzed how the media covered human trafficking issues within the Nigerian context. Additionally, by focusing on a research question that is almost entirely unaddressed which has to do with the dominant forms of human trafficking in Nigeria using quantitative analysis and given the depth of such analyses, this study contributes new insight to the growing field of research. III. T heoretical U nderpinning The study is premised on the agenda setting theory and social responsibility theory of mass communication. a) Agenda-setting Theory The agenda-setting theory which was first developed by Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw in their Chapel Hill study states that the mass media set the agenda for public opinion by highlighting certain issues. The agenda setting theory describes the ability of the news media to influence the salience of topics on the public agenda (Okoro, Ukonu, Odoemelam and Eze, 2015). Wimmer and Dominick (2005) argues that agenda setting examines the relationship between media priorities and audience priorities in the relative importance of news topic. This implies that what news is given priorities to with large prominence and frequency becomes the most important news topic on the public agenda. Folarin (1998) states that agenda setting implies that the mass media pre-determine what issues are regarded as important at a given time in a given society. The element involved in agenda setting according to him includes; i. The quality of frequency of reporting ii. Prominence given to the reports iii. The degree of conflict generated in the report iv. Cumulated media – specific effects over time (p.78). This study is anchored on this theory because it helps in explaining how the media raised issues on what to think about. The issue of human trafficking needed to be emphasized seriously with much time and space given to the report that will help form public agenda based on the fact that human trafficking has been universally condemn as a crime against humanity and it’s what the society frown at. Okoro et al (2015) affirms the relevance of the theory by stating that it quite appropriate to help us understand the pervasive role of media. © 2022 Global Journals Volume XXII Issue IV Version I 21 ( ) Global Journal of Human Social Science - Year 2022 A 5 A Content Analysis of Newspapers’ Coverage of Human Trafficking in Nigeria