AUDIENCE PERCEPTION OF MEDIA COVERAGE OF THE ANGLOPHONE CRISIS: EFFECTS ON ESCALATION AND DE-ESCALATION

Abstract

The four-year long Anglophone crisis is far from ending. Against a backdrop of unsuccessful military and attempted political solutions by the Cameroon government, assessing the role of the media in propagating, perpetuating or mitigating the crisis is of utmost importance at this point in time. Adopting Equinoxe TV and CRTV, purposively, owing to their extensive coverage and reach, this paper seeks to find out the extent to which media coverage has either accentuated or attenuated the Anglophone Crisis. Employing the agendasetting theory and a descriptive quantitative survey method, the questionnaire is used to elicit data from television viewers. Some of the major findings reveal a polarization of CRTV and Equinoxe on certain salient issues. For instance, the majority of respondents are of the opinion that the nature and orientation of CRTV’s reports have contributed to the escalation rather than de-escalation of the Anglophone Crisis. Also, CRTV to a large extent, blames   the separatists for the Anglophone crisis. These are in stark contrast with the opinion audience hold about Equinoxe. They see Equinoxe’s coverage as geared towards de-escalating the crisis of which it attributes the responsibility to the government. The respect for professional ethics is also an issue of great concern as it was revealed that though both TV channels demonstrate a certain degree of objectivity and balance in reporting the crisis, CRTV owing to their editorial policy does not report issues that seem to give the government a negative impact. Hence there are hiatuses in their reports as there are lesser updates and follow-up. The paper therefore advocates impartiality, balance, objectivity in crisis reporting but above all the social responsibility of the media in building peace and social cohesion in the light of peace journalism.