Terrorism newsworthiness in West Africa: A data set on international, regional and local media coverage

by Abigail Slenski, Claude Biao, and Joseline Barbara Cudjoe

ABSTRACT

Media coverage on terrorism and counterterrorism in Africa has been the focus of scholarly debate over the past decade. Critical scholars contend that a common journalistic angle reporting on terrorism-related violence on the continent tends to amplify negative narratives of the "weak state" (Mickler, Suleiman, and Maiangwa 2019; Adekunle 2025). This dataset contributes to that debate by questioning how international, regional and national media report on terrorism-related developments in West Africa, primarily from the Al-Qaeda affiliate Jama'at Nusra wa al-Muslimin (JNIM). 4 It comprises 485 news reports from international, regional and local media outlets, categorised by country, type of publication and nature of the coverage topic. The dataset is grounded in the newsworthiness theory, which suggests that the media is systematically biased towards sensational or negative headlines, deemed as "newsworthy" (Galtung and Ruge 1965; Harrington 1989). This dataset may underpin future work on how the newsworthiness theory operationalises in terrorism-related media coverage in West Africa. This dataset also focuses on a particular time period of a post-USAID funding environment, providing space for tracking developments following massive international development funding cuts.

KEYWORDS: newsworthiness theory, media, terrorism, West Africa, JNIM, asymmetric conflict, mis/disinformation