Representing Conflict: Gatekeeping Practices and Framing Devices of African Diasporic Press

Abstract

This chapter sheds some light into the gatekeeping practices of African diasporic press and its effects on framing African conflicts. The theoretical approach of gatekeeping enables the author to elicit how diaspora journalists develop an inclination to give prominence to African conflict news, and the framing approach gives an insight into their preferred framing devices. These were empirically grounded through an interview with the editors of the African Voice and the Nigerian Watch newspapers and textual analysis of their content. Hence, the data reveals that they are sceptical of reproducing African conflict stories from western news agency and that they also have a tendency to prioritise ‘conflict’, ‘human interest’ and ‘responsibility’ angles.