Africa's global media image in a digital world as an exclusive western preserve?

Chikaire Wilfred Williams Ezeru

doi:10.1177/17480485211063789

Chikaire Wilfred Williams Ezeru

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1177/17480485211063789

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Abstract

Who constructs Africa's global media image? That is the main focus of this longitudinal study. It looks at both the journalists and the news sources applied in the British press coverage of Africa between 1992 and 2017. Four British national newspapers (The Guardian, Financial Times, The Times, and Daily Mail) and a mixed research approach (content analysis and semi-structured interviews) were used. A total sample of 7027 articles were utilized, while nine journalists were interviewed. This study discovered that the British newspapers’ coverage of Africa was dominated by Western journalists and the news sources used in the articles were a proportionate mixture of both African and Western sources, especially in the quality newspapers. It also uncovered that Africa's global influence, in addition to other factors impact on the UK newspapers’ coverage of Africa. This study concludes that there are some positive changes in the post-colonial British press coverage of Africa, especially in their use of news sources, but there are still some elements of neo-colonialism and racism in the British newspapers’ use of journalists in reporting on Africa.

Highlights

In the 2000s and 2010s, there were cuts in some Western media’s foreign news budgets, which resulted in the reduction of their usage of Western correspondents in covering Africa
This study discovered through the conducted interviews that a number of reasons account for the exclusive dominance of Western journalists, as well as the more usage of Western news sources in some of the studied UK newspapers’ coverage of Africa and they are treated below: 1. Africa’s poor global standing predisposes the continent not to be taken seriously in who reports Africa and the news sources used
According to the interviewed journalists, the British press coverage of Africa is dominated by Western journalists and Western organisations/NGOs as news sources

Summary

Introduction

In the 2000s and 2010s, there were cuts in some Western media’s foreign news budgets, which resulted in the reduction of their usage of Western correspondents in covering Africa. The above highlighted five levels of influences would be checked to see if they have any place in the use of journalists and news sources in UK newspapers’ coverage of Africa. From the interviews conducted in this study, most of the interviewed journalists admitted to the importance and usage Western organisations/NGOs. Larry Elliott of The Guardian stated, “Western organisations, Western NGOs are important sources of news for us in the British press coverage of Africa”.

Results

Conclusion