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- Volume 4, Issue 1, 2012
Journal of African Media Studies - Volume 4, Issue 1, 2012
Volume 4, Issue 1, 2012
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Terrorism and news of Africa post-9/11 coverage in The New York Times
More LessWestern media coverage of the world decreased considerably in the post-Cold War world. The terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 and the western response appeared, to a limited degree, to have contributed to some renewed media interest in the outside world – primarily the parts of it that were seen as threatening western interests. But to what degree has this applied to Africa, a part of the world that has been perhaps most consistently marginalized by both policy-makers and the media? Did media coverage of Africa in the West rise following 9/11? If so, to what degree was this rise attributable to issues of terrorism or the response? Furthermore, was coverage of Africa related to terrorism focused primarily on western concerns or did they apply to a broader variety of terrorism in Africa? With a particular focus on the United States, this study aims to answer these questions using quantitative analysis of coverage of Africa by The New York Times pre- and post 9/11.
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The ‘War on Terror’ frame and Washington Post’s linking of the Sierra Leone Civil War to 9/11 and al-Qaeda: Implications for US foreign policy in Africa
More LessThe Washington Post’s linking of the ‘blood diamond trade’ carried out by Sierra Leone’s rebel movement, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), to al-Qaeda published after the 9/11 terrorist attacks signalled a major shift in US foreign policy from that of withdrawal from to engagement in African crises, albeit because of geo-strategic national security interests rather than for global justice. Using quantitative content and critical discourse analyses, this article aims to demonstrate the resonance between this ‘War on Terror’ frame and the subsequent summoning of the author of the article, Douglas Farrah, to testify before Congress, and how this served as a wake-up call for the United States not to abandon Africa since its ‘ill-fated sortie’ in the wake of the failure of ‘Operation Restore Hope’ in Somalia in 1992. The article concludes with a brief critical reflection on the implications of this ‘War on Terror’ frame that contributed to a shift from withdrawal from to engagement with Africa for the mediation of conflict and global justice.
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‘Nigeria as a country of interest in terrorism’: Newspaper framing of Farouk Abdulmutallab, the underwear bomber
By Mercy EtteMedia coverage of the ‘War on Terror’ has generated different frameworks of understanding that have been shaped by meanings and images that emerged after September 11, 2001. These frameworks of meanings are routinely used to structure and contextualize news stories and events associated with terrorism. This article investigates news frames that four Nigerian newspapers applied to the coverage of an attempted suicide attack on a US-bound aircraft on Christmas Day in 2009. It analyses the newspapers’ interpretation of the aborted act of terrorism by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a 23-year-old Nigerian man, which resulted in the United States categorizing Nigeria as a ‘country of interest in the context of terrorism’. The article outlines recurrent themes and issues that the newspapers primed for their audiences by interrogating a selection of editorial contents of the publications. It seeks to highlight how discursive fields in the coverage emphasized specific understanding of the event. The article argues that the constructed accounts of the foiled attack were framed and structured to create a distance between Abdulmutallab and his country and that the news frames the newspapers used narrowed public understanding of the significance of Abdulmutallab’s radicalization and its possible implications for Nigeria.
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A grey area: The Nigerien Sahel in the French media
By Gado AlzoumaThis paper analyses how the French media perceive the advent of Al Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in the Sahel, and particularly in Niger. It shows that the French media are constructing Niger as a ‘grey area’, a dangerous place and a ‘failed state’ through a monolithic discourse rooted in French cultural and ideological presuppositions about Africa and Africans. I argue that the monolithic discourse of French media on the War on Terror in the Sahel is the result of similar educational trajectories, cultural backgrounds and positions shared by journalists within the field, which tend to produce similar patterns of thinking. The paper is based on a critical analysis of ‘representative’ articles written between 1 January 2008 and 30 September 2011 in three leading French newspapers. It uses a qualitative approach and takes place within the framework of media content analysis.
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Editorial cartoons and the War on Terror in Kenya’s print media
More LessThis article probes the dominant frames in the first three months after the launch of the War on Terror as revealed through Kenya’s editorial cartoons. While most studies on media and terrorism have focused mainly on the traditional media of television and the mainstream print media, editorial cartoons reveal that the legitimacy of the War on Terror was still a coveted attribute, as is the case in other media. To achieve its objectives, this study appropriates frames from the analysed media content and reveals the ideological positions and discourses that paved the way for the invasion of Afghanistan. Additionally, the study shows that after the launch of the War on Terror in early October, it was not very long before counter-hegemonic frames critical to the war effort emerged. Focusing on the two leading newspapers in Kenya, the Daily Nation and The Standard, this article reveals that even before troops landed in the Gulf, the War on Terror had already found a nascent legitimacy that was to mutate to varying degrees of illegitimacy as the promised war script increasingly veered from the actual war.
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Socio-economic incentives, new media and the Boko Haram campaign of violence in Northern Nigeria
More LessThis article seeks to analyse and explain the emergence of the extremists Islamist Boko Haram sect that is currently perpetuating a reign of violence in Northern Nigerian cities and factors that have aided its rise. It takes a look at the changing political and socio-economic situations in the country especially from the early 1980s when, despite of the oil boom of the late 1970s, people’s standard of living continued to deteriorate. Following a field study in some Northern Nigerian cities and interviews with some Nigerians in the United Kingdom this writer argues that: the violent Islamist group is using religion as a decoy, as its main motivation is economic; it is capitalizing on the extreme level of poverty in the north-east of Nigeria to swell its rank of foot soldiers; and the growing use of the new media (the Internet and mobile phone) is rapidly contributing to the success of the group’s violent agenda. The article suggests the use of dialogue and reconciliation to deescalate the violence and economic empowerment to dissuade young people from making themselves available for manipulation and in the execution of campaigns of violence.
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BOOK REVIEW
More LessAFRICAN MEDIA AND THE DIGITAL PUBLIC SPHERE, MUDHAI, O. F., TETTEY, W. J. AND BANDA, F. (2009) New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 276 pp., ISBN 9780230614864, h/bk, £60.00
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FILM REVIEW
By Connor RyanTHE MIRROR BOY, OBI EMELONYE (2011) Gambia/UK: Nollywood Factory/OH Films, 87 mins Live premier at Silverbird Galleria, Lagos, Nigeria
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