101
Africa’s Reductive Images, Contesting the Sources, and New Generations as Passive Victims: A Reflection on Historical and Global Representational Practices
JOURNAL OF YOUTH RESEARCHES
In fact, one can observe a further function of the existing world information and commu-
nication order in giving the Western powers the legitimacy and the public excuse for a
sustainable superiority and the administration of African continent through the claimed
new international inter-governmental organizations. In this sense, there are growing crit-
ics targeting the UN for being highly dominated by Western interests over African affairs.
Gradually, the west seems ambitious to take over the legitimacy for the making of major
agendas about Africa in association with its developmental problems; and the discourse
is constructed in a way that would re-assure the sustainability of African bad images.
Source: Debalke, T. (2016, February 02). Corporate council on Africa or corruption coun-
cil for African authoritarian regimes?
cil-on-africa-or-corruption-council.
The Construction of Africa in the International Media Practices
As the result of all the services of the world information and communication disorder, we
find an over-domination and hegemonic character of the Western media in maltreating
African continent. Thus, examining the general journalistic procedures and practices of
these media sounds highly helpful to our discussion here. In the misrepresentation of
Africa in the Western media, Mezzana (2005) attempts to summarize various research
works to come up with the following representational and signifying characteristics, over
which I attempt to reflect too.
•
Selection/omission:
Reports on African continent have been subject to high level
selection and/or omission of news items over Africa. The selection and omission has
happened in consistent with their required “agenda setting” intentions. According to
McCombs and Shaw (1979) agenda setting is a deliberate attentiveness on, and repe-
tition of, certain news items and provision of newsworthiness for the events. According
to McCombs and Shaw (1979: 176) in choosing and displaying news, editors, news-
room staff and broadcasters play important parts in shaping the reality. And, readers
learn not only about a given issue, but also how much importance to attach to that
issue based on the amount of information in a news story and its position.
•
Decontextualization:
Decontextualization is the reporting of information without con-
sidering or emphasizing its historical, social, political, cultural or economic contexts.
At this particular point, in the Western media construction of Africa, there has been
high level skepticism in considering the impacts of colonialism and slavery on the cur-
rent developmental delays and image concerns of African continent.
