Decolonising conflict reporting

Abstract

Election violence in postcolonial societies presents the media with numerous conundrums, not least because violent electoral contests are often the canvas upon which hegemonic and counter-hegemonic struggles play themselves out. Previous studies have accentuated the anti-democratic elements of election violence while shunting its discursive aspects of election violence to the periphery. Yet, there is compelling evidence to show that the polarising nature of election violence creates a fertile ground for the reproduction of journalistic tropes rooted in neo-colonial power relations. Combining insights from decolonial approaches and conflict-sensitive journalism theory, this chapter is a qualitative exploration of the structural, institutional and professional constraints faced by the mainstream press in reporting election violence in post-2000 Zimbabwe. The extent to which election violence reporting is implicated in Anglo-American journalistic practices and how they help in inflaming conflict is germane to this chapter. Data were drawn from in-depth interviews with 19 purposively selected journalists working for six of the main newspapers in Zimbabwe. The chapter argues that reporting of election violence in Zimbabwe is situated within ongoing tropes of coloniality embedded in structural, institutional and normative professional journalistic tropes. The chapter advocates for conflict-sensitive reporting anchored on Afro-centric values and decoloniality.