Africa in the Canadian media: The Globe and Mail's coverage of Africa from 2003 to 2012

Western and Chinese media representation of Africa in COVID-19 news coverage

“…A few exceptions disagree with the assumption that Africa has been extremely misrepresented by Western media. For instance, Ojo (2014) and Obijiofor and MacKinnon (2016) argue that Africa was not negatively represented in special manner by Western media. Nothias (2014) says that representation of Africa in the globalization age by Western media is evolving towards 'hopeful Africa' image.…”

4. Methodology

“…7. Discussing Africa's Media Image in Ghana General State of the Art I contribute three general insights to the ongoing debate about Afropessimism by contesting the literature (Bunce et al, 2017;Bunce 2015;Nothias, 2015;Ojo, 2014;Nothias, 2017;Obijiofor and MacKinnon, 2016;Scott, 2015). I contribute to this debate with a disruption of their argument that Ghana's representation of the continent, to which she belongs, is largely negative and determined mostly by the influence of the press from the Northern Hemisphere.…”

Introduction

“…The argument of improvement in the continent's media image in the Northern press over time, which has been reported by several scholars (Bunce et al, 2017;Nothias, 2017;Obijiofor and MacKinnon, 2016;Scott, 2015;Ojo, 2014 andScott, 2009) is yet to be witnessed in the Ghanaian press. It can be argued, based on this, that Afro-pessimism (among African countries) still largely exist.…”

“…Academic literature of the late 1970s and 80s highlights the negativity and bias on the part of developed nations not only in the way they write about Africa but also regarding their control of international news flow due to the growing influence of a hegemonic private press (Nordenstreng, 2012;Sreberny-Mohammadi, 1997;Hawk, 1992;Sreberny, 1985;Stevenson and Shaw, 1984;Nordenstreng and Schiller, 1979;Galtung, 1971;Galtung and Ruge, 1965). This literature seems to suggest that a socially constructed discourse about Africa, which has come to be known as Afro-pessimism, has either improved in the wake of Africa rising discourse (Bunce, Franks andPaterson, 2017, Nothias, 2015;Ojo, 2014) or is in fact a non-existent myth (Scott, 2015). Indeed, recent publications argue that the claim of negative representation has no validity beyond certain few Western countries (Scott, 2017;Obijiofor and MacKinnon, 2016).…”