Engaging Journalism’s Future (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) - PhD Master Class with Barbie Zelizer

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Engaging Journalism’s Future PhD Master Class with Professor Barbie Zelizer (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) May 8th 2013

BEYOND AFRO-PESSIMISM?

French and British elite press discourse on Africa

Toussaint Nothias

University of Leeds

KEYWORDS Journalism, critical discourse analysis, media representation, political economy, post-colonialism, Afro-pessimism, Africa and Western media, international news production.

It emanates from all the discussion a strong sense of Afro-pessimism, although the word is yet to be invented.

Boubacar Boris Diop, commenting the French news media coverage of the celebrations that marked 50 years of African independence (December 2011).

My PhD provides a comparative study of French and British elite press discourse on

Africa. In particular, I am interested in the question of Afro-pessimism which is a discourse supposed to pervade Western news media. Ever since the NWICO debate, Western media have come under intense scrutiny from communication scholars for their reporting of the continent. Coverage of African news has been shown to be scarce but also selected in a specific way, with an emphasis on “negative” aspects of the continent (Larson 1984; Sreberny-Mohammadi, Nordenstreng et al. 1985; Hawk 1992; Schraeder and Endless 1998; Philo, Hilsum et Al. 1999; Golan 2008). This culminated in the 80s and 90s with intense coverage of various crises from famine to civil wars to genocide that led commentators to subsequently talk about Afro-pessimism (Rieff 1998; Biko, Gore et al. 2000; Ojo 2002; Smith 2004; Garman 2005; Hunter-Gault 2006; de B’béri and Louw 2011). Broadly conceived, this idea refers to the sense of hopelessness about the continent inherited from a colonial and racist view of Africa as the “Dark Continent” (Bassil 2011) that “homogenize the ‘African tragedy’, concluding that Africa has neither the political will nor the capacity to deal with its problems” (Ahluwalia 2000: 30) and that media contribute to reproduce by focusing only on certain images and tropes. The idea of Afro-pessimism then covers more than only scarcity and negativity but also the idea of a particular frame or bias constructed at a semiotic level (fig. 1).

Beyond Afro-pessimism? French and British elite media discourse on Africa - Toussaint Nothias (ICS, University of Leeds)

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FIGURE 1.

Epitomizing Afro-pessimism in Western media.

Various reasons for the production of this image have been explored: the supposed lack of interest from Western audience leading editors to select only certain stories, the possibility of a “white/western” bias on the side of media producers, media routine, the increasing commercialization of news, the decline of foreign correspondents, the role of international news agencies which act, as Paterson (1994) argues, as a form of “gatekeeping concentration” on a global scale (Hawk 1992; Ojo 2002; Paterson 1992 and 1994; Paterson and Sreberny 2004; Van Ginneken 2005; Vicente 2013; Bunce 2010). These studies point to the importance of looking at the structure of international news and the processes of news production to understand the why of this image, while more content based studies helped to elucidate the what and the how of media discourse.

Yet, it is as if this phenomenon had become taken for granted in communication studies with in fact little in-depth studies being done on the topic – with the only book dedicated to the issue dating back to the early 90s. This is all the more surprising given that recent media coverage suggest that things might be changing with an increasing awareness of the issue of “Africa’s media image”. In a previous research I notably found this in the context of the World Cup in South Africa, framed as an “African” World Cup in the media and which gave rise to many discussions within the media about the image of the continent. The most telling example of these new developments is the 2011 Economist cover which described Africa as the “rising continent” (Fig.2).

FIGURE 2.

Front page of The Economist, 2011.

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In a 2008 article and based on the results of a quantitative analysis of UK newspaper coverage of Africa, Scott found, rather surprisingly, that coverage was "not as marginalised, negative or trivial as it is often accused of being" (2008: 533). For him, and I follow his lead here, understanding how the Western media covers Africa is a question that continues to remain unanswered. In short, more research is needed to understand the actual map of meaning about Africa that can be found in Western media. In fact, I would also argue that the concept of Afro-pessimism lacks a clear conceptual definition and is sometimes used to simply refer to the “negative” coverage of African news. It then runs the risk of becoming a buzz-word without a clear signifier, which, in some instances, can be instrumentalized to hide some very real challenges such as structural poverty and social and economic inequalities that, if anything, need to be talk about more. Part of my PhD, then, aims at conceptualizing this idea of Afro-pessimism and to see how we can differentiate it, for instance, from a social critique. Is the simple fact of reporting a civil war or political instability in Africa necessarily Afro-pessimist?

I argue therefore that there is both a lack of conceptual definition and of empirical investigation into the phenomenon. My research then investigates media discourse in order to discuss this question of Afro-pessimism. I aim at answering three sets of questions:

1. What is the nature of the elite press discourse on “Africa”, both linguistically and visually? Can we talk of Afro-pessimism and if so in what sense?

2. How do media representations reproduce or challenge power relations inherited from colonisation?

3. How does the context of production impact the nature of this discourse? How do journalists perceive themselves in regards to the construction of Africa’s media image?

The methodology I am using, Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) brings together three trends: a.) Critical cultural studies of media representation b.) Post-colonial studies and c.) Studies in news production and political economy of the media. The academic tradition of critical cultural studies holds that language and media texts enact and reproduce power relations; that media are pervaded by ideology and contribute to reinforcing a certain social reality. Within this broad critical cultural paradigm, I also follow a postcolonial tradition that analyses the spectres from the colonial era that continue to haunt the imagination of contemporary Western societies. The methodology that I adopt, Critical Discourse Analysis, therefore places an emphasis on the relationship between media discourse and power relations. This approach aims to uncover ideological assumptions contained and conveyed in media texts – linguistically and visually (Van Dijk 1993a; Chouliaraki and Fairclough 1999; Fairclough and Wodak 2004; Machin and Mayr 2012). As a methodology, however, CDA stresses the importance of the historical and cultural contexts in which discourses are produced. The making of news in particular obeys to a set of structural constraints and hence constitutes a peculiar context of production (Richardson, 2008). Therefore, my research is also grounded in studies of international news production and of the political economy underpinning the production of Africa’s media image.

Beyond Afro-pessimism? French and British elite media discourse on Africa - Toussaint Nothias (ICS, University of Leeds)

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As such, there is no blue print on how to ground or contextualize a CDA; rather, it is up to the researcher - and depending on the research project - to tailor this contextualization of the analysis. My research does so by exploring three types of data: 1. Textual: news articles with a particular interest on the various semiotic resources they make available – mainly visual and linguistic. 2. Meta textual: News agencies wires. News agencies used to be neglected by communication scholars, but a substantial body of literature now focuses on their decisive role in the production of foreign news (Boyd-Barrett 1980; Sreberny-Mohammadi, Nordenstreng et al. 1985; Paterson and Sreberny 2004; Paterson 2011). From a critical and qualitative perspective gaining access to the content produced by news agencies could provide fascinating insights. This content constitutes the “super-text” (Paterson 2011: 43) of news media, an interface between news articles/coverage and the broader context of news production; in other words, an essential component in the construction of media discourses. 3. Contextual: I will conduct interviews with journalists and editors. CDA scholars increasingly conduct interviews as a fruitful way to link texts and contexts of production (Aiello 2012; Machin and Niblock 2008). The interviews will therefore constitute further discursive material to be analyzed in relation to the articles gathered. In addition, I integrate a literature review of news production studies, ethnographic research and accounts of journalist (books, travelogues) as a way to further contextualize my analysis.

The data are analyzed following the three-stage process outlined by Thurlow and Aiello (2007: 313). The aspects tackle in each step are interwoven and will be combined in the final analysis. But for analytical purposes these separations are useful to understand the moves I go through during the collection and analysis of the data:

*Descriptive analysis: I identify the main discursive patterns contained in the textual data. *Interpretive analysis: I analyse how these discursive patterns communicate a certain meaning and I also draw on contextual elements to explain how this coverage is produced. *Critical analysis: I relate these discursive patterns to power relations inherited from the colonial and postcolonial era (Afro-pessimism) and possibly the relocation of Africa in a neo-liberal and global discourse of economic development. This approach aims at linking micro-analysis of texts (identification and analysis of textual strategies) with an understanding of their contexts of production and, at a broader level, of the power relations which frame them (Aiello 2012a; Aiello 2012b).

I explore two specific sites: the newspaper coverage of the celebrations that marked 50 years of African independence (2007-2013) and a selection of magazine articles and special issues that take “Africa” as their vantage point, rather than a specific African country (2012).1

1 I address in my research the reasons for selecting elite magazine and the French and British context but I can highlight a few in a nutshell. On the one hand, there are obvious colonial links between the two countries and the continent; the two languages are still very significant on the continent; the two countries still have an important place in the broader structure of international news (home to the two leading global news agencies covering Africa, Reuters and AFP). On the other hand, the selection of elite magazine is grounded in a lack of investigation into magazine discourse on Africa (as opposed notably to TV and daily newspapers), but also their elite orientation. In fact, a recurrent argument in the debate around Africa’s image is that this image impacts the economic development of the continent. Schorr (2011) for instance found a gap between potential and actual statistics in terms of Foreign Direct Investment, eventually arguing that this gap could be explained by a perception of

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Site 1 – Celebrating 50 years of African independence

Between 1957 and 1963, 26 African countries gained their independence from colonial powers; 15 were French colonies and 8 British colonies. Between 2007 and 2013, these countries celebrated – or will celebrate – their 50 years of independence. I’ve gathered articles concerned with the “celebration of 50 years of African independence” (branded as such in 2010 since 17 countries celebrated their independence this year) and with the celebration of 50 years of independence for each specific country, covering the time frame 2007-2013. The debates around these celebrations offer a particularly interesting vantage point to explore the issue of Afro-pessimism; it is a moment where the postcolonial past and present are assessed and the future possibly predicted. Since Afro-pessimism, it has been argued (Louw and De B’Beri 2011) was a reaction to the optimism surrounding the independence, these celebrations could provide a fertile ground for Afro-pessimism to flourish.

Site 2 – Continental narratives

I am gathering articles which explicitly focus on “Africa” as a whole between 2011 and 2013. Afro-pessimism is a discourse which claims a form of authority over the knowledge of the African continent, an essentialist assumption right from the start. Therefore, looking at what print media have to say about the continent as a whole is a relevant entry point for an empirical research into the enactment of Afro-pessimism in media discourses.

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Preliminary observations and thoughts

*Diversity and constraints

What comes out of my analysis for the moment is a rather dense and complex map of meaning. In site 1 for instance, there are notable differences between the types of stories covered in the French and British context, with each country prioritizing news about African countries that were former colonies. Similarly, the political orientation and positioning of the media outlets on the marketplace impacts both the amount of news they dedicate to covering the continent (with for instance Le Monde and The Guardian dedicating significantly more space for African news) or the focus of their stories (with for instance the Telegraph emphasizing more “sensationalist” stories; the Financial Times and Les Echos keeping a strong focus on economic and financial issues; Le Monde and The Guardian making more room for culture related stories).

Beyond these differences, though, we found a map of meaning that remains nonetheless very constrained by existing tropes about the continent. This is made clear by a quick look at the main visual tropes found in the coverage (Fig .3): terrorist attack, accident, emphasis on military, France-Afrique, corruption and undemocratic leadership. The majority of them, in their own ways, point to an essentially dysfunctional Africa, with little if no

risk constructed in the media to which Western investors turn to. I argue that we actually don’t have a good knowledge of the discourse on Africa of this section of the media, which justify the need to investigate them. + definition for elite.

Beyond Afro-pessimism? French and British elite media discourse on Africa - Toussaint Nothias (ICS, University of Leeds)

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improvement to be highlighted at the time of evaluating the last 50 years of these African countries, and more importantly no prospect for change in the future.

FIGURE 3. Picturing the celebrations of 50 years of independence

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*From Afro-pessimism to post-colonial pessimism.

At a micro-level, for instance, a key rhetorical trope found throughout the press and in both countries is the idea of “what’s there to celebrate?” closely followed by comments about “very little – if nothing - is expected to change in the near future”. While such a discourse, especially when expressed about “Africa”, can amount to Afro-pessimism - by denying any sense of agency and possibility of change, by conflating from one country to the continent, by refusing to see the complexity or by refusing to acknowledge the responsibility of former colonial powers and existing international structure such as the World Bank or the IMF– it can also express a form of post-colonial pessimism that condemns local elites and existing structures as expressed for instance by African intellectuals such as Achille M’Bembe (2001). The difference then between Afro-pessimism and post-colonial pessimism – within media coverage of African news – is one that deserves critical and analytical attention.

*Impact of news agency material

While the use of news agency material remains most of the time hidden (depending on the contract linking the newspapers with the news agencies), initial results suggests that stories covered the most throughout the press (and in both countries) draw heavily on the language of news agencies, hence that the news agencies almost play a role of agenda-setting at a discursive level for newspapers and contribute to a process of homogenization that constrain this media map of meaning - of the most visible news at least.

*Positive discourse: the other side of the Afro-pessimist coin?

An interesting feature of media coverage – especially in my Site 2 - is the emergence of “newer” narratives about Africa. I mentioned the Economist earlier but there are other examples. In august 2012, French broadsheet magazine Le Point read on its cover “Africa: she2 is not the one you think she is. Her successes, elites and promises”(Fig.4). In the same month, British magazine The Observer dedicated its cover to “the New Africa” promising to its readers “the script (of poverty, disease, corruption, HIV and drought) is starting to change”(Fig.5). Finally, Courrier International published a special issue on “Africa 3.0: Africans tell the new dynamic of the continent” (Fig.6).

FIGURE 4.

Front page of Le Point, 2011.

2 This gendered dimension is expressed clearly in French through the use of the feminine pronoun “elle” (she).

Beyond Afro-pessimism? French and British elite media discourse on Africa - Toussaint Nothias (ICS, University of Leeds)

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FIGURE 5.

Front page of The Observer, 2012.

FIGURE 6.

Front page of Courrier International, 2013.

A good amount of this positive coverage on Africa is surrounded by a neo-liberal jargon of growth, investment and progress; the same jargon attacked by some (Garrett and Schmidt: 2011) as constituting Afro-pessimism as a ranking framework. If such coverage provides a welcome counter-weight to the litany of tragedies that have historically dominated Western media coverage of Africa, we still need to ask: how much of it really constitutes a new paradigm through which Africa is apprehended?

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Based on a review of the literature on Afro-pessimism, I identified elsewhere (Nothias 2013) that there are five key components to Afro-pessimism:

(1) It essentializes Africa as a single, homogenous place. (2) It is a racialized view of the continent that more or less implicitly refers to sub-Saharan Africa rather than to the continent as a geographic entity. (3) It is therefore selective, and in particular has a tendency to ignore more complex or positive aspects. (4) It is a ranking framework through which the continent is assessed against criteria set by the West. (5) It is predictive since it predicts a bleak future to the continent. Coming back for instance to Fig.2 or Fig.4 we need then to ask: to what extent does a positive narrative about Africa’s economic progress challenge Afro-pessimism? After all, doesn’t this discourse also essentialise, racialise, rank, describe selectively and predict (in positive term this time), thus echoing the five components of Afro-pessimism?

*Meta-discursive reflexivity and its limits

Finally, one of the most interesting aspects of this coverage is the fact the media themselves are increasingly discussing Africa’s media image. Some of the covers I have shown for instance (Fig.4 and 5) play on a form of reflexivity that demonstrates an increasing awareness on the side of the media about their role in constructing an image of the continent. In a Guardian article journalist George Alagiah said that he felt that “as a foreign correspondent, (he) ha(d) done Africa a disservice, too often showing the continent at its worst and too rarely showing it in full flower”. If the article is a great piece of self-reflexive assessment made available to casual readers thus showing that a critical discourse about coverage of Africa is starting to filter through the media (just like in fig. 4 and 5), the article’s title “New light on the Dark Continent” shows, for Ankomah, the limits of this critical assessment :

Even when Alagiah was pleading that ‘historical baggage’ should be dropped, The Guardian, in its infinite mercy, still put the abominable ‘Dark Continent’ headline on the very article in which Alagiah was making his plea. And therein lies the problem of the negative reporting of Africa: the inability of the 21st century journalist and their giant media houses to drop the historical baggage about Africa (Ankomah 2011)!

The “and” makes the crucial point; some journalists do not seem to lack awareness and self-reflexivity; and they might even go disseminating these views in the media. But it seems indeed that it is “the giant media houses” or in other words the structure of news production which prevents even this meta-discourse to break free from historical baggage. This kind of discourse, I believe, reveals a gap between awareness on the side of journalists and new types of coverage – from theory to practice – which is prevented by structures of production and the political economy of Africa’s media image. As a result, this self-reflexive discourse where power is tried to be undone is possibly one where power is redone (Ahmed 2012: 13); or, as Mbembé puts it

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as if the most radical critique of the most obtuse and cynical prejudices about Africa were being made against the backdrop of an impossibility, the impossibility of getting over and done “with something without running the risk of repeating it and perpetuating it under some other guise”(2001: 1).

What is the actual gap between awareness and practice will be a key aspect of my interviews with journalists. In a way it echoes the long standing debate in political economy of the media about structure and agency. What makes it particularly interesting in the context of my research is the fact that this structure/agency debate is played out within media coverage, hence constituting a form of meta-discourse about Africa’s image. Is there, then, a contextual impossibility for Western journalists to escape an ethnocentric view of the continent? Even further, could it be, as Kenyan writer N’Gugi Wa Thiongo famously argued, that colonial languages inherently constrain the knowledge that Western journalists can produced about the continent? But if there is indeed a form of impossibility – either contextual (that is, structural) in the political economy approach or epistemological in the post-colonial perspective of Wa Thiongo – we are then left with a crisis of normativity in journalism, a crisis that in facts also concerns media and communication scholars and journalist educators.

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Toussaint Nothias, Institute of Communications Studies, University of Leeds, cstn@leeds.ac.uk