Representations of Africa in African media

The case of the Darfur violence

Bibliographic Data

ID6024150
AuthorsJ Siguru Wahutu (0000-0002-4285-6048, corresponding author)
Year2018
Volume117
Issue466
Pages44-61
Publication date2018-01-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueAfrican Affairs (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0001-9909 • E-ISSN: 1468-2621
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/afraf/adx039
OpenAlexW2768058761
LanguageEN
Citations received23

This article examines representation of the conflict in Darfur by the media in Kenya, South Africa, Egypt and Rwanda. It analyses 850 newspaper articles published from 2003 to 2008 and journalist interviews from Kenya and South Africa. Using Mbembe's articulation of 'meaningful acts' and Bourdieu's field theory, the article highlights how the intersection of geopolitics, symbolic affirmation of unity and 'Africanness' and a ritualistic use of official sources led African media fields to mimic the global north in how they have framed the Darfur conflict. The most striking finding from the analysis of how these four countries reported the violence in Darfur is the salience of the ethnic conflict frame. However, the ethnic conflict frame was used in African media differently than in Western media, which often assumed a path-determined relationship between conflict and tribal identities. In contrast, African journalists used the ethnic frame to domesticate the news and as a part of specific political project to demarcate which actors should be understood as Other and with which actors audiences share an affinity

Articulation (sociology · Content analysis · Criminology · Ethnic conflict · Ethnic group · Ethnic violence · Frame analysis · Geopolitics · Media studies · Newspaper · Political science · Politics · Print media · Representation (politics · Salience (neuroscience · Social science · Sociology · Gender Studies · Law · Media Studies and Communication · Middle East and Rwanda Conflicts · Psychology

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