AN INVESTIGATE INTO THE ROLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS IN SHAPING AND AMPLIFYING KIDNAPPING NARRATIVES AND ONLINE ACTIVISM IN NIGERIA. (A CASE STUDY OF X AND FACEBOOK)

This study was carried out to investigate the role of social media platforms in shaping and amplifying kidnapping narratives and online activism in Nigeria. Content Analysis method was adopted to carefully collect data from the most used online platforms Twitter which is now known as X and Facebook with the intention of ascertaining the effectiveness of social media in reporting news on the Internet on kidnapping in Nigeria. The objectives of the study were to examine the frequency; prominence, format and genre of the stories on kidnapping in the select social media platform so as to measure the extent the social media report kidnapping cases in country by Nigerian users and activist. Findings revealed that the two social media (X and Facebook) under study were fair enough in their coverage of stories on kidnapping. Straight news format took a major lead of the coverage. Findings also revealed that enough prominence were not given to the issue and that the select social media platform dwelt so much on attacks of kidnapping, neglecting security measures and government responses; only few of them were reported in the newspapers. However, the researcher recommended that, Media organization especially social media activist should work closely with government in order to get detailed and credible information and that the social media activist should live up their role as the watchdog of the society by engaging in ethical reporting in terms of investigative and interpretative journalism