EFFECTS OF TERRORISM NEWS ON READERS OF NEWSPAPERS: A CASE STUDY OF TAIFALEO NEWSPAPER OF KENYA

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.