Review Reports

1. Summary

We would like to thank the Reviewers for taking the time to review this manuscript. The Reviewers constructive feedbacks have helped us improve the conceptualization and clarity of the manuscript. Please find the detailed responses below and the corresponding revisions/corrections highlighted in red ink in the re-submitted files.

Reviewer 1

Point-by-point response to Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Comments 1: The article presents an extensive review of the literature on media and protest movements; however, the review is somewhat lengthy and repetitive. The same sources (e.g. Bennett & Segerberg, Uwalaka & Nwala) are frequently cited, and the theoretical framework could be more critically synthesised. The introduction emphasises the significance of radio, but it does not always clearly demonstrate the difference compared to earlier studies. The research questions are clearly formulated, but the absence of explicitly stated hypotheses makes it difficult to rigorously test assumptions. The methodology (snowball sampling, N=384) is described in detail, yet the authors should place stronger emphasis on the limitations relating to participants’ recall and the non-representativeness of the sample. The discussion offers interesting insights, particularly on the role of radio as a “protest drum”, but at times the interpretations are too categorical in relation to the data. The claim that the study “settles the debate” on the importance of radio is too far-reaching given the study’s limitations and should be moderated. It would also be valuable to separate more clearly empirical findings from speculative interpretations.

Response 1: Thank you for robustly reviewing our manuscript. The above comments are well stated. We agree with the comments around the limitation of the study in terms of the representativeness of the sample and the sampling technique. We have revised the limitation of the study section. This revised section expressed discussed the limitation of the study and its impact on the result.

“This study has some limitations. The sample of this study are protesters who pro-tested in Port Harcourt during the 2019 #Ikokwu4 protests. This means that these protesters may misremember some aspects of what happened during the protests. This is a limitation of the study as the participants’ recall ability might be faulty. Such faulty recall may impact the outcome of the study. Further, the adoption of a snowball sampling in this study is also a limitation as a snowball sampling technique is an availability sample and may not be representative of those who participated in the protest. Having pointed out these limitations to the study, the researchers tried their best to mitigate any of these shortcomings. First, given the difference between when the protests took place and when the study was conducted, the researchers provided the participants with enough information to aid their recall.  The researchers also mixed positive and negatively worded questions to improve the validity of the study. On the sampling issue, the researchers caution that the findings reported in this study be viewed with the possibility that it may not be representation of those that participated in the protest.) (Page 13, section 6).

While we agree that it is ok to highlight the hypothesis that is being tested, there are also instances where the hypothesis is implied. That is the case for this study. There are many social movement studies that have adopted this style and that did not inhabit the meaning and validity of such studies. One of the most referenced social movement studies is Tufekci and Wilson (2012) and their study utilized the implied hypothesis and not the expressly stated hypothesis. For example, if we state our hypothesis as:

“Protesters who used radio to learn and plan the 2019 #Ikokwu4 protests will report joining on the first day of protest.” It means that we will outline the hypothesis for all the media platforms used. We implied these hypotheses and thus, rejected anyone that was not significant.

We do agree that some of our phrasing could sound speculative and have revised the manuscript to be more measured in stating our findings and the contribution of the manuscript.

“This study shows the potentials of radio as a medium of protests. The researchers asked the protesters to highlight their media use during the protests. This ensured that the protesters were not aware of the focus on radio. The results show that radio is still considered as a protest drum among the participant of this study. The cheapness to acquire and maintain a radio indicates that listeners are more likely to own and listen to the radio than any other mass media in Africa. The fact that 68% of surveyed Africans reported radio as their main source of news (Malophane et al., 2022) lend a weight to the findings of this study.”  

“The findings from this study align with other studies and highlighted the role that radio can play during protests. Like Bonini-Baldini (2017), this study illustrates how radio mixed itself with Facebook to continue to amplify political discourse and activist movements. The regional radio stations like community radio enable protests movements in Nigeria (Day et al., 2021). This study shows that radio is arguably one of the instruments of protest movements (Bosch, 2006), and a form of nano media (Dawson, 2012). Like Mare (2014) and Bosch (2024), radio, particularly regional radio, was used among other media platforms such as Facebook to organize the protests. This illustrates the salience of radio as one of the protest drums in Nigeria.” (Page 11)

Comments 2: The results are presented in a transparent manner through tables, figures, and logistic regression, but some statistical interpretations require clarification – for example, the misleading phrasing regarding X/Twitter (“more likely/less likely”), which may confuse the reader. The article contains a very extensive bibliography covering both classic and recent literature (2023–2024), although there are redundancies, and some local and grey literature sources require a more critical assessment of quality. The conclusions are ambitious but not always directly supported by the data presented. In particular, the claim concerning the “emancipatory potential of radio” requires more caution, further comparison with other media, and reflection on whether the findings are specific to the Nigerian context or have wider relevance. Linguistically, the text is comprehensible but requires stylistic editing. There are repetitions, awkward constructions, and imprecise formulations (“this result is self-explanatory as radio continues…”). The article would greatly benefit from professional language editing.

Response 2: We agree that our description of the inverse relationship of X in our result could be confusing and have revised those paragraphs to ensure that the reader understand the inverse beta sign and its meaning.

“Furthermore, using X to learn about and plan the participation in the protests has an in-verse relationship. This shows that protesters who used X to learn about and plan their participation in the protests are over 2.866 times less likely [this is due to the negative beta (β) value] to report joining on the first day of the protest than those who used other media platforms, controlling for all other factors in the model. The odds ratio (OR) is used to compute the connection between independent variables and the likelihood of a binary outcome (e.g., attended protest on the first day or attended protest on subsequent days). It represents the change in the odds of the outcome occurring for a one-unit change in the predictor variable, making it a useful measure for interpreting the effect of predictors in a binary outcome scenario.”

“There are two major impacts of this result. First, the significance of radio use and report joining on the first day of the protest. This is because the mainstream media has been assessed to be inactive in protest organizations due to advancement in digital technology. However, this finding adds a nuanced insight on the debate. Even with the limitations inherent in this study, it however, shows that radio is relevant and influences the organization of protest movements. Second, X has consistently been praised as a cardinal media platform for protests in Nigeria and around the globe. This unbundled examination shows that it does not predict joining on the first day of the protest. This means that X use does not denote innovative and sophisticated activists, at least in the context of this study.” (Page 9).

Comments 3: Undertake professional language editing to improve clarity and stylistic consistency

Response 3:  Thank you for highlighting this point. We have undertaken a critical language editing to improve the clarity and stylistic consistency of the manuscript.