Abstract:
The media plays an important role in giving the masses information about terrorism.
Many developing countries have not in the past had many acts of terrorism that
originated directly from those countries and for a long time have had the media in
those countries reporting news on terrorist acts in other countries. However in the
recent past there has been an increase of terrorist activities in some countries in the
developing world. Some of these countries are Nigeria and Kenya. In Kenya the war
with Somalia’s militia group Al Shabaab has increased the frequency of terrorist
activities. The media in Kenya therefore has been on the spotlight recently
concerning its role in providing news related to these incidents. This paper looks at
the manner in which TaifaLeo a Kiswahili language daily newspaper presents news
on terrorism from both inside and outside Kenya. The main objective was to seek the
opinion of readers about the news on terrorism in the daily and find out how the
presentation of those news items affected the readers. The study was carried out in
four towns in Kenya where circulation of the paper is highest- Nairobi, Mombasa,
Nakuru and Mumias. The study revealed that the news had mostly social and
psychological effects on the readers that led to readers developing attitudes mostly
negative towards their neighbours.
Keywords: Terrorism news, Readers, Effect, Newspapers
