Open AccessAfrica's global media image in a digital world as an exclusive western preserve?
Author(s) -
Chikaire Wilfred Williams Ezeru
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
the international communication gazette
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.911
H-Index - 36
eISSN - 1748-0493
pISSN - 1748-0485
DOI - 10.1177/17480485211063789
Subject(s) - newspaper , guardian , colonialism , content analysis , media studies , journalism , political science , advertising , social science , sociology , law , business
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.