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The Politics of Representation: Wire Agencies and Local News Organizations in the Coverage of Darfur
Author(s) -
Wahutu j. Siguru
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
sociological forum
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.937
H-Index - 61
eISSN - 1573-7861
pISSN - 0884-8971
DOI - 10.1111/socf.12417
Subject(s) - kenya , invisibility , narrative , politics , sociology , representation (politics) , content analysis , political science , narrative inquiry , media studies , public relations , law , social science , linguistics , philosophy , physics , optics
Sociologists are not at the forefront of studying African news organizations’ coverage of atrocity despite having the tools to do so. This article works to remedy that. I investigate how a media field in Africa frames and represents an atrocity unfolding in Darfur. The article relies on content analysis of news reports published in Kenya between 2003 and 2008. To provide more nuanced analysis, I also rely my own interviews with journalists who had covered and traveled to Darfur. The content analysis delineates the article through the use of by‐line accreditation to allow for an analysis between different journalists working for either local news organizations or wire agencies with offices in Nairobi. I find that Kenyan journalists are not central actors in the process of “meaning making” when it comes to the atrocities in Darfur for the Kenyan audience. They are, effectively, silenced from the knowledge‐construction process in Kenya. Consequently, being Kenyan conspires to produce a condition of invisibility and erasure of Kenyan journalists in the global narrative construction.