Encoded Truth, Contested Meanings: Applying Stuart Hall’s Theory to CNN’s Lekki Toll Gate Report
On 20th October 2020, during the peak of Nigeria's #EndSARS protests, there were thousands of peaceful protesters who had gathered at the Lekki Toll Gate in Lagos to demand an end to police brutality at the hands of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS). Towards evening, rumors began circulating that Nigerian army officers had used gunfire to disperse these unarmed protesters. Whereas the Nigerian government had at first pooh-poohed wrongdoing, a CNN investigation of November 17, 2020, tried to uncover what really occurred. Based on digital forensics, eye-witness testimony, satellite imagery, and ballistic evidence, CNN alleged that the Nigerian military fired live bullets against protesters and tried to cover it up. Reaction to the CNN investigation varied wildly from one strata of society to the next, both within Nigeria and internationally. Such differential responses are best understood by Stuart Hall's Encoding/Decoding Model, a theory of commu...