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Analysis of Kenya's newspaper headlines:
Article
The handshake and shifting political alliances
Mugambi C. Ngumo1, Lillian K. Omoke2
Abstract
It has been argued that mainstream media serves the interests of the powerful, the ruling class, and the elite. However, how this is specifically done in Kenya's media landscape may not be clear unless a critical analysis is undertaken. This article seeks to fill this gap by examining the ideologies engendered by shifting political alliances in Kenya. By borrowing from van Dijk, the article embarks on a macro- and microstructure analysis of two of Kenya's leading newspapers' headlines. Guided by CDA, the article examines forty headlines during the pre- and post-handshake periods. At the macrostructure level, the article argues that conflict is the key thematic concern of the headlines. Majorly, only three politicians consistently feature in the headlines. Thus, through exclusion, other politicians and ordinary Kenyans have no role in the nation's political discourse. Patriarchal dominance in political discourse is also exhibited as women are similarly excluded from the main headlines. A critical examination of lexical choices, and how social actors are represented, also reveals that while there is a radical shift in alliances, ideologies remain fairly stable.
Received:
5 February 2021 Reviewed: 13 March 2021 Accepted: 1 June 2021 Published: 28 June 2021
Keywords
handshake; headlines; political actors; ideology; political alliances; Critical Discourse Analysis
UDC: 8142
1 Department of Humanities, University of Embu, P.O Box 6-60100, Embu, Kenya,
mugambi.cyrus@embuni.acke
2 Department of Humanities, University of Embu, P.O Box 6-60100, Embu, Kenya
Corresponding author:
Lillian K. Omoke (Ms.), omoke.lillan@embuni.acke
For citation:
Ngumo, Mugambi C., and Lillian K. Omoke. 2021. "Analysis of Kenya's newspaper headlines: The handshake and shifting political alliances." Language. Text. Society 8 (1). https://ltsj.online/2021-08-1-ngumo-omoke.
Language. Text. Society
Vol. 8 No. 1, 2021
ISSN 2687-0487
Introduction
Many media analysts have noted that journalists select items to suit the agenda of the media by considering various news values. Selection is conditioned by economic, political, cultural and social structures made evident through institutional practices so highly routinized that the result appears normal and inevitable (Wodak and Krzyzanowski 2008). These items are then given prominence through headlines. Headlines serve various functions as captured by media scholars. For example, van Dijk (2016) observes that headlines serve to summarize the most important information of the report. He further suggests that headlines set the cognitive tone and in effect, they tell the reader how to think about the subject of the article. This is also captured in agenda setting function of the media as exemplified by McCombs (2014). This shows that headlines serve many functions. Another important role is that they often have ideological implications (van Dijk 2016). Since they express the most important information about a news event, they may bias the understanding process: they summarize what, according to the journalist or media organization, is the most important aspect, and such a summary necessarily implies an opinion or a specific perspective on the events. He further states that media indirectly controls people's minds as any discourse that is repeatedly produced tends to have a stronger impact on people's minds.
The Kenyan newspaper headlines have manifested this power by repeatedly featuring specific personalities whenever they report about politics in Kenya. The fact that the salience of news is determined by the journalist confirms that there is no neutrality in newspaper presentation and that language used (including the choice of words, syntax, and punctuation) does not only reflect reality but also creates it as Fowler (1991) observes. They also indicate that institutions of news reporting are socially, economically and politically situated and that all news is reported from a particular angle. It is therefore important to study headlines with a view to discovering how they are used by media institutions to influence the readers' thought process. In this article, we look at headlines surrounding the 2018 political handshake between Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga, Uhuru's fiercest nemesis.
Sociopolitical background of shifting alliances in Kenya
Kenya's August 2017 presidential election results were greeted with hostility and resistance by the opposition's National Super Alliance (NASA), who took their grievances to the Supreme Court. The court did the unprecedented by upholding the petition, and nullifying the election of the Jubilee Candidate, the sitting president, Uhuru Kenyatta. The dispute deepened when the opposition vowed to boycott the repeat polls slated for November, unless their demands for comprehensive reforms were addressed. They made good on their threat, but the election still went on and Uhuru Kenyatta easily won. This time, the Supreme Court upheld Uhuru's victory paving way for his swearing in as president for a second term. The standoff and acrimony continued with Raila dismissing the elections as a sham and Uhuru's presidency a miscarriage of justice. He further called for peaceful resistance and economic boycott of services offered by government and the Jubilee Party. There were even calls for secession by regions aligned to the opposition. Matters took a turn for the worse, when Raila swore himself in as the people's president on 30th January 2018 in a ceremony attended by thousands of supporters at Uhuru Park. Then, as every Kenyan feared for the worst, the two Protagonists—Uhuru and Raila—suddenly emerged from Harambee House (the office of the president) shaking hands, orchestrating what is now popularly known as the handshake. While many ordinary Kenyans welcomed this ceasefire, the symbolic and political significance of this handshake was not lost on allies of both men. The most immediate consequence was the falling out of the president and his Deputy, William Ruto, who saw the handshake as a threat to his presidential ambitions. With each passing day, Uhuru and Raila have
become closer, with many feeling that the latter is no longer in the opposition but in government. As we write this paper, there are already reports in the mainstream media that the two are forming a coalition, and their parties will field a single presidential candidate in 2022. Opposition to this burgeoning alliance has been vociferous from Ruto and his supporters, and they too, have been courting new allies.
The politics of handshake in Kenya should be placed within the context of broader shifting alliances since the advent of multiparty politics in 1991. Political alliances have been in constant flux since the KANU dictatorship was replaced by a plethora of tribally-based political parties. Tsuda has examined the splits and mergers of political parties in Kenya, and concluded that these coalitions are nothing more than temporary avenues for capturing political power (Tsuda 2010).
These shifting political alliances have over the years been well captured by the mainstream Kenyan media. Yet, as in other modern societies, the Kenyan media is far from being objective, and they do more than just faithfully convey information. And as it has been observed, the media is very powerful in shaping people's perceptions and opinions (Lippman 1922 and Cohen 1963 cited in Perloff 2014). Additionally, media scholars have observed that the media serves the interests of elite and powerful groups in society (Fairclough 2015; Herman and Chomsky 2002; Richardson 2007). Indeed, veteran journalist Philip Ochieng observes that the Kenyan media is "under direct political interference, reprehensible meddling by owners and managers" (Ochieng 1992, 2). Ochieng should know for he was the Editor-in-Chief of the now defunct Kenya Times newspaper in the 1980's, considered, then, by many the mouthpiece of the ruling party's propaganda. Equally, state owned Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC) has over the years been accused of serving the interests of the party in power (see KHRC report 2008).
To be sure, Kenya does not have a government-owned newspaper at the moment, but privately owned newspapers have over the years been singled out for biased reporting. In fact, politicians and their allies have had major stakes in media ownership. The current president, Uhuru Kenyatta's family, for example, is a shareholder in Media Max, which owns several media outlets (Media Council 2013; Nyabuga and Booker 2013). Similarly, S. K. Macharia who owns Royal Media Group has been at the heart of Kenyan politics, constantly changing allegiances. In 2002, his media outlets openly supported NARC against the ruling party KANU. Then, in 2007, he threw his support behind the incumbent Mwai Kibaki's Party of National Unity (PNU) against Rail Odinga's ODM. He literally made a U-turn, in 2013, by supporting Raila's new formation, Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (CORD) against Uhuru's Jubilee Coalition. In light of this, one important site, therefore, for uncovering ideologies engendered by shifts in political alliances in Kenya is the media. In our study, we examine newspaper headlines and how they reflect these shifting alliances.
Theoretical framework (critical discourse analysis)
In this study, we adopt the view that Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is centrally concerned with analyzing "opaque as well as transparent structural relationships of dominance, discrimination, power and control as manifested in language" (Wodak 2001, 2). Wodak further observes that the aim of CDA is to critically examine how social inequality is discursively expressed and legitimized. To do this, the discourse analyst must examine critically the social and discursive practices which contribute to the production of a text (Fairclough 1995a, 2015; van Dijk 1988a; Wodak 2001). Inevitably, then, three dimensions must inform a CDA: the notion of power, history and ideology (Wodak 2001). In keeping with this observation, every text under analysis must be placed within its historical moment so that it is possible to examine how structures of dominance are legitimized by those in powerful positions. Such powerful groups include the media, which is the object of our study. In particular, van Dijk (1988b,
83) has observed that "ideologically news implicitly promotes the dominant beliefs and opinions of elite groups in society.
In his socio-cognitive model, van Dijk (1988a) asserts that the analysis of a text must take cognizance of the fact that language users also need a knowledge of the world, therefore, the cognitive and social dimension must be examined. Van Dijk's CDA framework is best suited for this study since we seek to examine the macro and micro structures of news headlines. Macrostructures and their cognitive operations are important to journalists in the production of news. Additionally, they aid media users in the comprehension, memorization and storage of information. To begin with, van Dijk argues that news headlines are an example of macrostructures since they encapsulate the themes or topics of the news items (van Dijk 1988b). In other words, they constitute the summary of the report. They are subjective and signal to us what the article is about. Van Dijk holds that headlines "define the situation and, thus, programme the reader with a preferred reading and interpretation plan" which makes them "semantically biased" (van Dijk 1988a, 226). The power of headlines, according to him, partly lies in the fact that it is this macrostructure or thematic structure that readers recall best. Inevitably, headlines are loaded with ideological implications. News items, he also argues, have like natural stories, a summary, dominating headline and lead. Thus, the headline and the lead summarize the news text, and must necessarily come before the news item. This is what van Dijk has called the schematic superstructure of news items.
We now briefly focus on the local or microstructure of news. Van Dijk contends that the abstract macrostructure of news should be realized at a concrete linguistic level where words, phrases, clauses and sentences must be examined. At this local level, in this study, we examine how lexical, clausal and sentential elements have been used to illustrate different political ideologies in headlines in Kenya. An analysis of these elements of language is crucial in revealing not only the perspective of the journalist but also the ideology of the newspaper (Fairclough 2015; Richardson 2007; van Dijk 1988a).
Ideologies
Ideology may be understood in at least two senses, one neutral and the other critical (Thompson 1987, 1990). In a neutral sense, an ideology is a set of ideas or experience that helps us make sense of the world. In other words, an ideology is the set of beliefs, values, and ways of thinking and feeling through which humans perceive, and by recourse to which they explain what they take to be reality (Abrams and Harpharm 2012). In its critical sense, ideology is associated with authoritativeness and manipulation, with the intentional attempt of one party to direct the mind and behaviour of another. Both of these views are very important in the current study. In the two senses of the word, language is crucial; every instance of language is an "ideologeme" and every language user is an "ideologue" (Wales 2001). Language is also seen as a reality capable of creating social practice. It is a primary means of not only expressing but also shaping and reshaping ideology.
Ideology and control are closely related: ideology is ideas, and control is the ability to get these ideas accepted by, or imposed on others mainly through persuasion and manipulation. This article asserts that media messages have a subtle and sure control over the minds of readers and hence population. Wodak and Krzyzanowski (2008) point to the power of the media, and they observe that print media, particularly, have a lot of impact as they shape widely shared constructions of reality. As Fairclough (1995b) and J0rgensen and Phillips (2002) explain, this media discourse is not only socially constructed but also constitutive. Van Dijk (1995) as cited in Mazid (2014) identifies characteristics of ideologies as cognitive, social, socio-cognitive and abstract. They also vary in complexity, their contextual manifestations and are neither true nor false. Generally, these characteristics indicate that ideologies are socially held by both dominant and non-dominant groups.
According to Thompson (1990), studying ideology involves looking at ways in which meaning serves to establish and sustain relations of domination. He calls these ways the modus operandi (modes of operation) of ideology. Five modes in which ideology operates can be identified: legitimation, i.e. representing something as "legitimate", "just", and "worthy of support"; dissimulation, i.e. concealing, denying, or obscuring relations of dominance in a given context; unification, i.e. establishing "a form of unity which embraces individuals in a collective identity" regardless of racial, religious, social, gender, or political barriers which may separate them; fragmentation, the opposite of unification, refers to the maintenance of dominancy by fragmenting the individuals and groups whose unity may challenge the dominant individuals and groups; reification, i.e. representing a transitory, historical state of affairs as if it were permanent, natural, outside of time. Our analysis seeks to determine which mode of operation is used by print media to communicate the political situation in Kenya.
The five ideological modes of operation are usually transmitted through linguistic and discursive strategies. Something may, for example, be represented as legitimate by being designated as rational, universal and traditional. Fragmentation may be realized through "expurgation of the other". On the other hand, reification is usually expressed through nominalization and passivation. Such strategies coincide with what van Leeuwen (1995) calls "the discursive transformations" that social actions may undergo.
Method
For qualitative projects, attempts at random sampling are generally not appropriate (Mautner 2008). This is because the size of the population is frequently not known and the variety of representation such as particular motifs of argumentative patterns should not be determined a priori as exemplified by Bauer and Aarts (2000). Instead of random sampling, Bauer and Aarts (2000) recommend a cyclical process where texts are selected for preliminary corpus which is analyzed until saturation levels.
Following this approach, 40 front headlines bearing information about political activity were sampled from the two major dailies: The Nation and The Standard newspapers. These papers have a nationwide circulation and have existed for a long time across the various regimes. News headlines were selected from the months of July, 2017 (a period leading to the General elections that were hotly contested); September, 2017 (a time when presidential results had been challenged in the Supreme court and Uhuru Kenyatta's win overturned leading to heightened political tension); November, 2017; February, 2018 (after the repeat presidential poll); November 2019 and January 2020 (after the March 2018 handshake between Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga).
Results and Discussion
The table below shows examples of headlines that were analyzed from macro and micro levels of analysis.
Table 1. Newspaper headlines_
PRE-HANDSHAKE HEADLINES
Date Newspaper Headline
5 July 2017 Standard Fear me not, Raila tells central.
28 July 2017 Nation Uhuru in whistle - stop trip as Raila courts Turkana
1 September 2017 Standard Judgement day
1 September 2017 Nation Date with destiny
2 November 2017 Nation Sons of their fathers
8 November 2017 Standard Double edged sword for Uhuru and Raila
POST-HANDSHAKE HEADLINES
Date Newspaper Headline
15 April 2018 Nation Why Ruto camp is furious with Raila.
22 April 2018 Standard Raila: why I met Moi, Kenyatta, Kibaki.
3 September 2018 Nation Has Ruto pulled a fast one on Uhuru?
1 October 2018 Standard Raila Plot to push me out and kill Jubilee
30 October 2018 Nation Dynasties vs Hustlers
23 October 2019 Nation Moment of truth for handshake
28 November 2019 Standard Raila locks Ruto out of bedroom
8 November 2019 Nation Raila's big victory as ODM retains Kibra
11 January 2020 Nation Show of might as Raila kicks off BBI rallies.
13 January 2020 Standard It's now Ruto VS Kenyatta and Raila.
1. Macrostructures
As van Dijk postulates, headlines encapsulate the topics or themes of news items. In our study certain topics stand out from the headlines. In most of the headlines, conflict is either explicitly or implicitly stated. The dominant conflict in the pre-handshake headlines is between Uhuru Kenyatta, the incumbent, and his main challenger Raila Odinga. These headlines as we shall elaborate later create a sense of stalemate and impending doom. Conflict is also seen between Raila and the electoral commission, where the former tries to discredit the commission by accusing them of being pro Uhuru. It is important to note that the name 'Raila' sometimes represents the entire NASA coalition. This can be interpreted as a strategy by the editors to heighten or deepen the sense of animosity between Raila and his antagonists. Ideologically, these types of headlines cement the dominance of personalities designated as elite in society. In September headlines, there is also conflict between Uhuru Kenyatta and Chief Justice Maraga who annulled the re-election of Uhuru. The headlines depict Uhuru as hostile towards the Chief Justice. He feels that nullification of his re-election was biased and orchestrated by Raila.
In the post-handshake era the political cast remains the same, but there is a reconfiguration of alliances which also changes the roles of actors. As mentioned before, the handshake is Kenya's press phraseology for describing the ending of hostilities between Uhuru and Raila. With Raila and Uhuru coming together, we increasingly see the president's deputy William Ruto becoming the key antagonist in the political landscape. What started as a minor disagreement between Ruto on the one hand and
Uhuru and Raila on the other, has over the months exploded into a full blown conflict. The conflict is framed in three ways in the headlines: Uhuru and Raila as one entity against Ruto, Uhuru against Ruto and Raila against Ruto. The most striking thing is the conflating of the names Uhuru and Raila by the editors. Thus, they are presented to the readership as a unit, which underlines their oneness, and accentuates the isolation of the deputy president.
2. Microstructures
2.1. Lexical choices
Words convey the imprint of society and value judgements, in particular they convey connoted as well as denoted meanings (Richardson 2007). In this section, we undertake a lexical analysis of the headlines published during the two periods under study.
2.1.1. Lexical items that signal conflict
Intense political conflict is apparent from the way political developments are exposed. The month of September, 2017 covers a period when the 2017 General elections had been annulled by the Supreme Court and the front-runners were reacting to this annulment and were preparing for the repeat elections. The dominant figures (Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga) are engaged in bitter rivalry. This is evident from the media coverage and more so by newspaper headlines that disseminate messages in a terse and powerful way, and as a result influence the cognitive shape of the audience. War metaphors dominate the headlines in form of words and phrases. Examples include: big victory, political storm, reject, court battle, kick out, threatens, poll boycott, tug of war, angry and pained, seasons of unease, the big divide, fear for her life, Big two, tough week, protests, positions harden, demos, uproar, talks collapse, storm, political stalemate. These words signify political contention that had been staged as a two-horse race with the main contenders Uhuru and Raila bracing for war. This is expressed like it is the natural way to do politics.
In March 2018, the warring patriarchs agreed to join forces via what is famously referred to as 'handshake' and the politics of handshake effectively set in where the discourse of a possible referendum begins to dominate. Interestingly, cracks begin to occur within the main alliances (Jubilee and NASA) as allies drift away from each other. As noted earlier, what we witness is a new 'enemy', Deputy President, William Ruto, and a new friendship between Raila Odinga and Uhuru Kenyatta, who had previously been bitter rivals. The two, in this period, seem to have developed common interests and are fighting a common enemy. This trend intensifies in 2019 up to 2020. The newspaper headlines cultivate this new relationship among the audience by spelling the agenda of unity versus divorce. War metaphors and allusions continue being used only that in this period, the camps have changed. Examples of words used include: jibe, mocks, ditched, dilemma, clash, locked out, big clash, gloves off, Ruto vs. Kenyatta and Raila, fight on, sack, snub, rebels, retreat, counter wave, revolt, palace coup, power struggle.
2.1.2. Lexical items that create fear
The choice of words in September and November 2017 headlines, from both newspapers, seem deliberately aimed at evoking a sense of fear and uncertainty among readers. September followed the nullification of Uhuru's re-election, while November followed Uhuru's win in the rerun election, which was boycotted by Raila's NASA coalition. Predictably, the political atmosphere in these two months was characterized by acrimony. We encounter words like fear, and tense which create anxiety to the
readership. Additionally, judgement day is a result to interdiscursivity, where the editor borrows from Biblical discourse. This seeks to generate a sense of apprehension in the readers. Words like destiny engender a state of dilemma or unpredictability. The headlines are also full of metaphors that construct a war scenario, for example, in fires of war, storm and war. They are all drawn from the domain of war. They establish an atmosphere of violence and bloodshed. It is important to note that words like storm and war keep being repeated in a number of headlines, further emphasizing this mood of fear and terror. All this is caused by the key political protagonists, Uhuru and Raila.
In post-handshake headlines lexical items and particularly metaphors which construct a war scenario abound. We encounter, attack, fight, clash, shock, battle, war, troops, wreck, kill, and destroy. These words as shown previously are aimed at creating fear and panic among the readers. Cases of interdiscursivity are also sometimes witnessed like when we meet the terse headline ' Tower of babel' in reference to Ruto's tweets. Again this is drawn from Biblical discourse pointing to confusion.
2.1.3. Lexical items that emphasize stalemate
Several headlines in the pre handshake period choose lexical items that indicate that there is a political impasse. The headlines seem to stress that there is no progress among political protagonists. From a psychological point of view this creates a sense of despondency in the minds of readers. The Standard in particular at times uses brief headlines which occasionally constitute single noun phrases, for example, Tug of war and Season of unease. Yet another one screams: Positions harden. The power of these headlines partly arises from their brevity. They literally scream for attention. A feeling of a hopeless deadlock is encoded in their very terseness and choice of words. The word season, for example, points to a lengthy process while the noun phrase tug of war implies an endless and violent disagreement.
In post-handshake headlines, a sense of dilemma is comparable to the stalemate we see in pre-handshake headlines. The reason behind this seems to be the fact that no one clearly knew what the political realignments meant for the nation, especially, in the early period of the handshake. A look at some of the lexical items chosen makes this patently clear. Consider, dilemma and puzzle. This may mean that during this period no one really knew where the handshake was going. The headline 'Moment of truth' also keeps reappearing which implies that the time to make an important decision is about to arrive, thus for such a headline to appear more than once is ironic.
2.1.4. Lexical items signalling dialogue
After every election episode, Kenyans witness intense political contention among the elite, which in most cases divides the people along ethnic lines. This is because, often, political leaders claim to represent their ethnic groups, and they appoint ethnic kingpins in every region to help in creating inroads to those regions. Amalgamation of ethnic communities via their leaders often leads to warring alliances. During election campaigns, foregrounding and backgrounding strategies are used by political actors and the results are that inter-ethnic tensions arise. The political leaders are never worried about the repercussions of this tradition. It is after elections and subsequent conflict that we see various bodies calling for dialogue, among them diplomats representing various nations (majorly EU and United States of America), the religious and civil societies in Kenya. This is the time we also witness reportage of such unity calls. For example, in the month of July 2017, when political tension had intensified as Kenya headed for the poll day, there is no headline alluding to unity. It is in September 2017, that a headline that hints to unity calls pops out towards the middle of the month. The Nation headline of 12th September: Church brokers IEBC peace deal. In fact, this deal is targeting the electoral body instead of addressing two presidential candidates who are the genesis of the wars in the electoral
body. The use of the lexical items brokers and peace deal intimate that the relationship existing between members of the commission was irreconcilable, especially because they seemed to have taken sides with their preferred presidential candidates. This, unfortunately, points to the speculation that the electoral body has never been independent as is expected. The Nation newspaper headlines of 23/9/2017 (Uhuru, Raila pledge to accept poll results) and 6/11/2017 (Talks in the air as Uhuru, Raila meet) give a ray of hope to the citizens that political tension will decrease or come to the end. This also points to an ideological view that the stability of the country in this period was in the hands of the two.
As it is evident, very few lexical items talk about integration; almost all the headlines focused on the duo's fiery contest and disintegration of political alliances. This exclusion of dialogue from the headlines shows that the newspapers set the political agenda of disillusionment, conflict and self-centredness. Even when dialogue takes place, it is for the interests of the elite. Paradoxically, the occurrence of dialogue between the main antagonists, Raila and Uhuru, births a new conflict between Uhuru-Raila and Deputy President, William Ruto who had been a close ally of Uhuru.
2.2. Representation of social actors
2.2.1. Exclusion
According to van Leeuwen (2008) exclusion of social actors may be motivated by ideological concerns. This seems to be often the case in the headlines we studied since exclusions are systematic rather than incidental. In all the headlines that we examined, in both the pre- and post-handshake phases, ordinary people are completely excluded. What they feel about the ongoing political events is rarely expressed in the headlines. We are not told what their views are about, for example, the handshake or the protracted political conflicts. This is strange because in a democratic society the people play a primary role in political activities and have a say in decision-making processes. Their exclusion therefore implies that politicians are not accountable to the people.
Another blatant case of exclusion is found in the reporting of the Kibra by-election by the Daily Nation in November 2019. This election no doubt elicited a lot of interest from the three aforementioned politicians, Uhuru, Raila and Ruto. In the public domain, Raila and Ruto were quite active and visible. It is believed that the Jubilee leader, Uhuru, kept a low profile because he silently supported the ODM candidate owing to the recent bad blood between him and his deputy, Ruto. Indeed, Uhuru's key men were openly supporting the opposition candidate. Imran Okoth was the candidate for Raila's ODM party while McDonald Mariga was Ruto's Jubilee candidate. Imran was the winner of this hotly contested by-election, but ironically neither he nor the loser Mariga featured in the headlines. The following day's (November 8) headline screamed: 'Raila's big victory as ODM retains Kibra'. Thus, the victorious Imran Okoth is excluded from the headline. In the same spirit, the November 9 headline announces: 'Ruto locks out Kibra team in poll's loss fury'. Again, the loser McDonald Mariga is not mentioned. Noteworthy also, only the comments of Raila and Ruto concerning the election violence that marked the process are headlined. A visitor would have been forgiven for thinking that the contest was between Raila and Ruto.
2.2.2. Role allocation
The question of which social actors are represented as agents or patients is important in CDA (Fairclough 2015; van Leeuwen 2008; Paltridge 2012). Social actors may be given active or passive roles. According to van Leeuwen (2008, 33) 'activation occurs when social actors are represented as active, dynamic forces in an activity, passivation when they are represented as "undergoing an activity" or as being "at the receiving end of it".' In the pre-handshake headlines, Uhuru and Raila are the main
actors, though there are a few cases where Ruto is also captured as an actor. Both Raila and Uhuru are cast in these headlines as the central actors in the ongoing political conflicts. The headlines frame the conflicts as heroic actions. Thus, conflict in Kenyan newspaper headlines is cast as an indicator of superiority.
In the post-handshake headlines examined Uhuru, Raila, Uhuru-Raila and Ruto are key actors. In the main headlines, Uhuru and Raila seem to be given positive actions while Ruto's actions are largely negative. Uhuru and Raila are, for instance, portrayed as fighters of corruption, while Ruto is portrayed as the embodiment of corruption. Uhuru is, on the other hand, headlined in unity bids and fighting corruption. Uhuru and Raila are also involved in heroic deeds of salvaging the economy and fighting greedy and unreasonable members of parliament. In this dichotomy, Uhuru and Raila are represented as pro-people while the MPs are anti-people. We, for instance, witness MPs 'defying' Uhuru and Raila on 'key bill'.
Halliday (2004, 171) also notes that verbal processes are 'symbolic relationships constructed in human consciousness and enacted in the form of language, like saying and meaning'. A good example is when we encounter Raila saying that he has a 'big agenda for Kenya and Africa'. Raila, in another case of verbal processes, tells Ruto to 'carry his own graft cross'. The converse, on the other hand, is true as we see Ruto 'fighting' corruption 'allegations'. What makes these accusations important to a critical analyst is the fact that corruption is at the centre of Kenyan politics, and prosecutions tend to be selective, often targeting those that have fallen out with the government.
2.3. Shifting alliances, stable ideologies
Despite political alliances shifting radically and dramatically, ideologies have remained fairly stable in Kenya. Thus, in both the pre and post handshake periods, the destiny of the nation is put in the hands of three men by the headlines. Other politicians and the general populace have no place or role to play in the political landscape. Additionally, it is difficult for Kenyans to think beyond the three politicians as their choices have already been predetermined by the headlines.
The key ideological stand is that political leadership exclusively belongs to certain groups. Indeed, as shown in our analysis so far, Uhuru and Raila and to a lesser extent Ruto dominate most of the political headlines. 'Sons of their fathers' is one glaring headline that gives us a glimpse to this kind of reality. This is in reference to the sixties when Uhuru's father, Jomo Kenyatta, was president pitted against Raila's father, Jaramogi, in the opposition. It points to the fact that historically, there have been few families at the political helm. Political competition can be seen as supremacy battles, thus, to make Raila and Uhuru dominate in the headlines, is to put them in the centre of power and everyone else in the periphery.
Gee (2008) asserts that the elite manipulate reality to make it appear the way they desire if their power is to be enhanced and maintained. The press facilitates this by assisting in the expression of domination of the ruling ideology. We therefore, are served with illustrations of the powerful families in Kenya and the way they define our political history. These ideas have been naturalized and they are now the living standards whenever people talk about political leadership, and especially, the presidency. This confirms that news "is not an objective representation of facts—news is a cultural construct that encodes fixed values" (Caldas-Coulthard 2007, 273). In other words, what is reported exposes the ideological stance of news producers.
The exclusion of ordinary Kenyans from these headlines, means they have no say in Kenya's politics and constitute the Other. The handshake, for example, was a deal executed in secrecy by Uhuru and Raila. There were Kenyans who questioned this, yet their views were not headlined. Ideologically, it means that the headlines legitimize the culture of politicians entering into secret deals without consulting or involving the people. One may, for example, pose the question: why would a politician
enter into a deal without consulting the electorate? The failure to ask this question means that the people have no voice in how they are governed.
Ethnic belonging is also a key factor to ascending to the presidency as calculations of how rich someone's ethnic community is dominate media discourse. Again, since the two politicians belong to two of Kenya's largest communities, this type of reporting reinforces the hegemony of big ethnic communities in Kenya's national leadership. Legitimation of such lopsided views is engendered by the newspapers through the headlines: 'Raila briefs Moi on Uhuru 'handshake"; 'Raila: why I met Moi, Kenyatta, Kibaki'. These headlines crystallize hegemonic practices where the masses are made to believe that the Moi, Odinga and Kenyatta families are the gatekeepers of good politics. These headlines appeared after the handshake and what they communicate is unification of mighty families. The headlines also ensure that ethnicity remains a latent but powerful ideology in Kenya's politics. The three belong to three of Kenya's largest communities, thus, the headlines imply that politicians from minority communities have no place in leadership.
Women are also excluded from the headlines, thus, patriarchal ideology continues to be naturalized by the media. In the headlines we studied, the voices of women are almost wholly muted. Thus, the headlines contribute massively to maintaining a power structure in society where women are subordinated to men. To paraphrase Butler (1999) women, according to these newspapers, are not qualified to perform political roles. Thus, these headlines perpetuate and maintain "patriarchal definitions of femininity" (Eggins and Iedema 1997, 165).
We also notice that the headlines focus on conflict between Raila and Uhuru and Raila and Ruto at different times. This confirms the observation of critics that the media thrives in conflict, and especially if the conflict involves prominent figures. The headlines serve to polarize the audience. At the ideological level these types of headlines naturalize political brinkmanship. The readers are being indirectly asked to consider perpetual political strife and disputes as normal. Thus media discourse both produces and reproduces social practices (Fairclough 2015; van Dijk 1988a). While disputes elsewhere would raise eyebrows, among the elite, the headlines seem to be saying it is civil or even reassuring. It is important to note that there is absence of criticism in the tone of the headlines. On the contrary, the two are cast by the headlines as heroes rather than warlords, which suggests that this kind of politics is normal. In a nation with a history of post-election violence, these headlines seem to normalize acrimonious and violent politics.
Conclusion
This article examined how two of Kenya's leading newspapers reported shifting political alliances in the pre and post handshake periods. Operating from the premise that mainstream media is in the service of the powerful, the elite and the state, the article further examined the ideologies embedded in the headlines. Using van Dijk's (1988b) CDA model for news analysis, the article argues that at the macrostructure level the key topic or theme in the headlines is conflict. The political actors occupy different positions in the conflict when alliances shift. This finding supports views of many media analysts that the press thrives on conflict and negative developments (see for example, Richardson 2007). The analysis at the microstructure level also seems to buttress this observation. Most of the lexical items chosen are negative and are largely calculated to enact conflict. Words that spell doom, fear and uncertainty abound. The headlines also use metaphors that construct a war scenario.
Analysis of how social actors are represented reveals that conflict in both pre- and posthandshake periods, revolves around Uhuru Kenyatta, Raila Odinga and William Ruto. The article contends that the exclusion of other political actors and ordinary people in political developments,
implies that the three politicians are the most powerful individuals in the land. Again by almost wholly concentrating on only three personalities, the headlines create the impression that they hold the destiny of the nation in their hands.
The article concludes that despite the radical and dramatic shift of alliances, political ideologies expressed by the media remain stable. In both the pre- and post-handshake periods, the voices of ordinary people are absent in political discourse. The headlines create the feeling that the three politicians are accountable to no one. The newspapers do not, for example, headline the views of Kenyans who are critical of these endless conflicts. This silence seems to be powerful affirmation that acrimonious politics is normal. The article additionally maintains that the newspapers studied deepen the notion that women constitute the Other, since they are also absent from the headlines. The article thus lays bare the naturalization of a power structure that marginalizes women, ordinary voices and dissenting views. The findings of the article, thus, corroborate findings of other studies that view news as a cultural construct that encodes the stance of news producers.
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