Ndonga, Sarah Wambui(Daystar University, School of Communication. Nairobi, October , 2021)
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Abstract:
In 2017, Kenya conducted its second General Election under the Constitution of Kenya (2010). This General Election was covered by various media including the regional copies of the Standard and Daily Nation newspapers. At the time, President Uhuru Kenyatta and former Prime Minister Raila Odinga separately contested for the presidency. They received considerable media attention and were framed differently by the regional editions of the two newspapers. This study therefore sought to establish whether framing of President Kenyatta and the former Prime Minister by the regional editions of the Daily Nation and Standard newspapers influenced Kenyans’ voting patterns along tribal lines in 2017. It was anchored on the Media Framing Theory by Ervin Goffman (1974) and used mixed methodologies by administering 768 questionnaires to respondents in Kisumu and Nyeri counties in addition to interviewing four experts. The study found that at least 48.8% of the respondents believed that the newspapers’ coverage of President Uhuru Kenyatta and former Prime Minister Raila Odinga by the regional editions of the Standard and Daily Nation newspapers had encouraged them to vote along tribal lines. Similarly, more than half of the respondents (56.8%) said that they voted for the candidate who was projected to be winning by the regional editions of the two newspapers under study, implying that newspapers indeed influenced voting patterns to a significant extent. The study further found that commercial interests of a newspaper determined the media frames that were used in the regional editions of the Standard and Daily Nation newspapers. Additionally, the study established that regional copies of the Standard and Daily Nation newspapers influenced respondents to vote along tribal lines during the 2017 General Election by appealing to the emotional needs of the respondents. The study therefore recommends that media practitioners be guided by editorial policies that advance the principles of objectivity and fairness in order to uphold their role as society’s watchdog