The Media and Counter-Insurgency: An Insight into the News Agenda-Setting

Abstract

There have been a groan concerns on how well to report the activities of the State (Government) and also play down the insurgent groups in the interest of public safety and peace. This is due to the fact that counter insurgency strategy is a competition of ideas, ideologies and socio-political movements. Consequently, the use of agenda setting becomes an imperative tool in disseminating and transmitting messages that enhance the shaping of public opinion and denouncing of rumour impressions in the public domain. It is on this piece that this paper is set to review the use of agenda setting by the media in countering - insurgency. This study therefore recommends that for sustainable peace to be achieved, all the stakeholders must be effectively harnessed into counter insurgency campaign. Moreover, counter insurgency strategies will be successful
when agenda setting of the news from the media makes the insurgents’ activities unpopular.