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 communication in media that presumes media producers encode meaning into texts, but audiences decode or interpret them according to their own social, cultural, and political realities. Hall determines there can be three possible readings of a media text: dominant (hegemonic), negotiated, and oppositional. With this framework used on the CNN video, we can better understand why one investigation had created so polarized an interpretation. 

    CNN's investigation was carefully encoded with a strong, unsubtle storyline. The report constructed a story of unarmed protesters, nothing but flags and banners, being attacked by state forces. Footage from the night part streamed live by protesters like DJ Switch was geolocated and timestamped to correspond with accounts of military deployments and shootings. CNN also highlighted inconsistencies in the Nigerian military and government's statements, illustrating how official claims shifted from complete denial to tentative acknowledgement. The technical analysis of ammunition shells on the scene showed live rounds typically used by Nigerian troops. These approaches overall were intended to make the report objective, credible, and morally authoritative. The coded message of the report was therefore clear: a massacre occurred in Lekki Toll Gate, the Nigerian state attempted to conceal it, and accountability was long overdue. The use of emotional accounts, photos of blood-stained flags, sounds of gunfire, and photos of people singing the national anthem were not only descriptive dramatic methods meant to invoke moral outrage. CNN positioned itself as an impartial seeker of truth uncovering a severe injustice, heralding its audience to respond in sympathy toward the protesters and condemnation of the authorities. 

    But how this message was interpreted differed with the audience. There were those that deciphered it completely in line with the intended meaning of CNN a hegemonic or dominant reading. Consider, for example, the large number of young Nigerians who belonged to the #EndSARS protest movement. To them, the report was vindication. They had long maintained that peaceful protesters were being assaulted, and the government had refuted such claims. The CNN expose, which combined technical evidence and lived realities, gave their cause international legitimacy. For them, the video justified their lived realities and was interpreted as an act of truth-telling and as an appeal for justice. Along with it, international human rights organizations and global activists interpreted the report largely. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch had issued earlier statements suggesting that there was a massacre. CNN's visual and forensic approach reinforced them and contributed to piling pressure on Nigerian officials. For this audience, the report was staged as a professional, fact-based expose of government repression entirely in line with the global campaign to eradicate police brutality and government impunity. 

    Other publics, however, settled on a negotiated reading of the report. These audiences understood that something serious indeed occurred at Lekki but disagreed with CNN's tone, coverage, or presentation. Moderates or apolitical citizens in Nigeria were also in doubt. They might agree with the violence unleashed but believe that the protesters somehow caused the tensions to occur. Others would concur if there were troops present but would not attribute the shooting to being intentional or engineered by clandestine third parties such as "hoodlums" or malcontents who had infiltrated into the demonstrations. This negotiated version makes concessions on some of CNN's claims but holds out against concessions to the presupposition of a staged massacre or the full responsibility of the government. There also were international viewers who were in a negotiated position. While they gave CNN's credibility as an international news brand and suspected that human rights abuses could have occurred, they distrusted the sensationalized and emotional media coverage. These viewers are also wary of previous biases in the network or general distrust of mainstream Western media. They might have agreed that the issue needed to be investigated but did not wish to jump to conclusions, especially since the report was based on user-created content and part video. 

    On the other end was oppositional reading, which was generally adopted by the government of Nigeria, its agents, and pro-government apologists. The Nigerian authorities dismissed CNN's charges right from the beginning. Lai Mohammed, Information Minister, blamed CNN for "irresponsible journalism" and "fake news." The government claimed that the military discharged blank rounds only and no lives were lost. This article peremptorily rejects CNN's version, accusing the network of inventing or fabricating evidence to mar Nigeria's global image. In this opinion, the investigation was not a search for truth but an attempt at foreign intervention and neocolonial moralizing. Some citizens, especially those who were loyal to the government party or those with such nationalist views, also subscribed to this oppositional explanation. Their perception was that CNN's intervention was part of a grand Western penchant for sermonizing African nations, selectively emphasizing African grievances, and destabilizing sovereign governments. The pictures and stories were not perceived as fact but as manipulative emotion. At this point, CNN was not a journalist but an agitator, stoking anarchy and spreading falsehoods with the aim of destabilizing Nigeria. 

    Lastly, CNN's reporting of the shooting of civilians at Lekki Toll Gate is a great instance of how media texts are decoded in widely divergent ways. Using Stuart Hall's encoding/decoding model here, we see that despite having a message carefully crafted through using evidence and emotion, what it signifies is only determined by the audience. The Lekki case isn't a story of violence or protest, it's a case study on how power, ideology, and identity inform our construction of truth. Media can beam in, but it's the audience who gets to say what it means.