CNN’s investigative piece on the Lekki Tollgate shooting is carefully organized to expose state violence and push back against official silence. The report doesn’t just tell a story, it actually shows it, using satellite images to trace military movements, timed footage to document the timeline, and emotional eyewitness accounts to ground it all in lived experience. These elements work together to deliver a powerful message, that peaceful #EndSARS protesters were fired upon by the military, and the Nigerian government tried to bury the truth. The visuals are intense and heartbreaking, close-up pictures and videos of blood-stained clothing, scattered ID cards, and distressed voices crying out in fear. The background music is subdued and tense, heightening the emotional gravity. It’s clear CNN wants the audience to feel the injustice, to side with the protesters, and to see the incident as a deliberate act of repression that those in power hoped would never come to light.
For those who were on the ground during the protests, CNN’s report was more than just a documentary, it was a moment of truth. Many local #EndSARS protesters viewed it through what Stuart Hall calls a dominant reading. Having experienced the chaos firsthand, they recognized the footage as a confirmation of their truth. The satellite images aligned with what they saw in real time, and the emotional interviews echoed their own stories and trauma. To them, the report wasn’t speculative, it was evidence. It showed the world what they had been screaming for months, that unarmed citizens were attacked by their own government. CNN’s investigation became a rallying point, a record of what happened, and a symbol of international support. For these viewers, the report hit exactly the way CNN intended, it was seen as honest, urgent, and long overdue.
However, not all Nigerians interpreted the report in exactly the same way. Many citizens, especially those who sympathize with the protests but weren’t directly involved, approached CNN’s investigation with a mix of agreement and skepticism. This is what Hall refers to as a negotiated reading. These viewers generally accepted that something terrible occurred at Lekki Tollgate and that the government’s response was far from transparent. But they also felt that CNN, as an international media outlet, might not have fully captured the real truth of Nigeria’s political issues. Some questioned whether the report leaned too much into intense and loud visuals or lacked the deeper social and economic context needed to understand the bigger picture. For this group, CNN’s message wasn’t completely rejected, but it was filtered through their own understanding of how foreign media sometimes oversimplifies Nigerian issues. They believed the truth of the violence, but they didn’t take the entire report at face value.
On the other end of the line, the Nigerian government’s response to CNN’s report fell squarely into what Hall describes as an oppositional reading. Government officials and military spokespeople dismissed the report as biased, accusatory, and inaccurate. From their perspective, CNN wasn’t uncovering truth, it was spreading misinformation and pushing a political agenda. The images of gunfire, chaos, and bloodshed were dismissed as either staged, manipulated, or taken out of context. Instead of seeing the soldiers as aggressors, the government painted them as protectors who were maintaining order. They also suggested that some protesters were armed or instigating violence. This decoding was rooted in the government’s need to preserve authority and national image. From their standpoint, the report wasn’t just wrong, it was dangerous, an attack on Nigeria’s sovereignty by foreign media.
For many international viewers, especially in Western countries, CNN’s report was received as a trustworthy and compelling account of human rights abuse. With CNN’s global reputation and excellent storytelling style, most viewers saw the video as a credible example of government brutality. They likely accepted the narrative that peaceful protesters were harmed by the state and felt sympathy and outrage. This is a dominant reading. However, some international viewers may have taken a more negotiated stance. While still believing in the seriousness of the Lekki incident, they might have wanted more context about Nigeria’s political history or heard more directly from local voices. These viewers leaned toward a negotiated reading, they believed the core message but remained cautious about oversimplification or Western bias. Their reaction was a blend of agreement and critical thinking, shaped by awareness of how global media operates.
Stuart Hall’s encoding/decoding theory reminds us that meaning doesn’t stop once a message is produced, it changes based on how different people interpret it. CNN created a report clearly meant to expose government violence, supported by visuals, data, and personal testimony that encouraged viewers to side with the protesters. But how that message landed depended entirely on the viewer’s context. Protesters received it as confirmation and support. Average Nigerians understood its importance but balanced it with their own knowledge of the country. The government rejected it outright to protect its leadership. And international viewers largely accepted it, though some called for more depth and context.
In the end, the Lekki Tollgate report became more than just a news piece, it became a battleground of different meanings. Yes CNN set out to inform and expose, but the message took on different shapes depending on who was watching. That’s the core of Hall’s argument, media is never neutral. It’s a site of power, where truth is negotiated, challenged, and sometimes resisted. The Lekki story wasn’t just about what happened that night, it’s about who gets to say what it meant. And as long as media exists, that struggle over meaning will continue because different audiences will always have different ideas.
No comments:
Post a Comment