‘In the case of Africa in general, there is a tendency to exaggerate’: representing mass atrocity in Africa

Wahutu, Siguru james

doi:10.1177/0163443717692737

Cited by 13 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 23 publications

(19 reference statements)

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“…The photograph by Farah Abdi Warsameh -a Somali photographer -also illustrates that African journalists do not necessarily produce more optimistic narratives about Africa than Western journalists (e.g. Serwornoo, 2018;Wahutu, 2017 and The Times on 24 February 2018 ('Pirates scared off by tanker guards'). 8.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Visual Framing of ‘Failed’ States: Afro-Pessimism vs Afro-Optimism

Hellmann

2019

Media, War & Conflict

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The ‘failed state’ frame equates the collapse of formal state institutions with violent anarchy and destructive chaos. By analysing newspaper imagery of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Somalia through a multi-method research design, this article shows that tabloid newspapers are significantly more likely to adopt the ‘failed state’ frame than broadsheet newspapers. Visual narratives in the latter, on the other hand, tend to shift the focus away from issues of violence and instability, emphasizing instead the ability of alternative forms of governance to organize social and economic life. Of wider significance, the article therefore also shows that tabloids feed Afro-pessimism discourses to a much greater extent than broadsheets, which visualize Africa in more positive terms.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Visual Framing of ‘Failed’ States: Afro-Pessimism vs Afro-Optimism

Hellmann

2019

Media, War & Conflict

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“…4 In an exhaustive study, Wahutu (2017Wahutu ( , 2018 has claimed that African narratives often lack African voices. In his study on the African representation, Wahutu acknowledged that there was a complicated relationship between the African media and the people they represent since most of the information that was reported by the media came from government officials or aid workers who had clearly written down rules on what they should report.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring Literature on Alternative Media about African Narratives

Ong’ong’a

2022

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While studies on African narratives have concentrated on studying mainstream media, there is still little study on studying these narratives about Africans on alternative media. This study used a systematic literature review to establish the interplay between alternative media and African narratives by exploring journal articles published between 2006 -2021 and using 15 published articles as a unit of analysis for this study. The findings from the study indicate that social media plays a crucial role as a platform for alternative media where audiences can engage with one another without fear of victimization through using the comment and reply sections on social media platforms. The results further point towards critical media theory and ubuntu as important theories in studying alternative media and African narratives. Scholars have focused majorly to study social media usage in political activities by youths in Kenya, Uganda, and South Africa as alternative media. Therefore, this study furthers the literature on alternative media and African narratives.

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“…What we know today as the Rwandan genocide appeared as "tribal warfare" in 1994 on the front page of The New York Times, which characterised those involved as "savage" and "bloodthirsty". Because of these patterns, it is a common phenomenon that African journalists do not trust the reports of "Western" journalists about African conflicts (Wahutu, 2017).…”

Section: Africa In Literary Accounts: the Land Of The Noble Savagementioning

confidence: 99%

Visual variations of violence – The metonymic framing of violence in the featured images of online news about Africa

Nagy-Béni

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As early as 2009, Forceville pointed out that the examination of non-verbal metonymies is more suitable for revealing their inherent power and nuanced, unnoticed effects than the analysis of their verbal counterparts. Although the ubiquity of (verbal) metonymy logically implies the frequent occurrence of nonverbal manifestations, visual metonymies have so far been pushed into the background behind verbal counterparts (Benczes, 2019). This does not mean that there is no discourse on visual metonymies at all, in fact this discourse is becoming more and more active. One of the most productive “sites” of visual metonymies is the world of advertising (see Qui, 2013; Pérez-Sobrino, 2016; Kashanizadeh & Forceville, 2020; Chatti, 2022; Hidalgo-Downing & O’Dowd, 2023). Others have identified visual metonymies in children’s books (Guijarro, 2019; Puspitasari, 2022) and in political campaigns (Goehring, Renegar & Puhl, 2017; Benczes, 2019; Tasić & Stamenković, 2022). The puzzle is more about the exact steps along which visual metonymies can be identified, because authors do not offer details about the process and aspects of analysis and identification. The dissertation specifically focuses on the rhetorical function of visual metonymies, namely the fact that they highlight certain features of a given phenomenon, while relegating others to the background. This characteristic makes metonymy an effective framing device. Although the mentioned studies all imply that visual metonymies are effective framing tools, visual metonymic framing has not yet been defined. The thesis reflects on both the theoretical (i.e., lack of definition) and methodological (i.e., lack of analytical framework) shortcoming by examining the potential inherent in visual metonymic framing in the light of the news genre, more specifically, violent news about Africa. To account for the research niche, an analytical framework, examining the substitutions through which violence is depicted in online news via detecting the metonymic relations of the Action ICM and the metonymies of the Complex event ICM, was set up. The model was validated on a sample of 289 units of analysis. The sample, including articles from BBC Africa and CNN Africa in the period 2011-2020, was compiled in a semi-automated manner. First of all, the results revealed that the INITIAL SUBEVENT FOR COMPLEX EVENT and FINAL SUBEVENT FOR COMPLEX EVENT metonymies greatly outweigh the CENTRAL SUBEVENT FOR COMPLEX EVENT metonymy, thus supporting the related hypothesis. Second of all, the obtained results highlight that the AGENT FOR ACTION and PATIENT FOR ACTION metonymic relationships are responsible for more than half of all the metonymic relations detected in the images. Although the proportion of RESULT FOR ACTION and INSTRUMENT FOR ACTION relationships in themselves is not negligible, overall, an anthropocentric result (driven by AGENT FOR ACTION and PATIENT FOR ACTION) emerged. This finding also supports the related hypothesis. Based on the findings, it can be said that the visual representation of violence in online news is a very fertile ground for the analysis of metonymic framing, since the display of violence is limited in several aspects, so news portals are forced to depict the events through substitutions. The analysed sample suggests that the majority of the substitutions strive to humanize the events, giving way to the emotional involvement of the readers (via the HUMAN OVER NON HUMAN principle and the news value of personification and impact). The thesis provides new results in terms of theory and methodology as well. The following points summarize the novelties explored in this research. • Introduction of a novel definition of visual metonymic framing: despite the fact that scholars agree that (visual) frames are often mediated by figurative language types, such as metaphors and metonymies in texts that offer a particular interpretation of events (among others, Burgers, Konijn & Steen, 2016; Charteris-Black, 2004; Catalano & Waugh, 2013; Catalano & Musolff, 2019), no definition has yet been offered as to what we mean by metonymic framing. This niche is even more evident in the literature on visual metonymies. The dissertation reflects on this deficiency by defining both metonymic framing and visual metonymic framing. • Development of a novel model for the visual metonymic framing of violence: although the discourse on visual metonymies is increasingly active, the puzzle is posed by the lack of clearly defined steps along which visual metonymies can be identified in news images. Focusing on violence as a timeless news value, the dissertation advances an analytical framework that lays the foundations for application of the Violence ICM (motivated by the Action ICM and Complex event ICM). • Identification of a novel metaphor-metonymy interaction in news images: the metaphor-metonymy interaction has so far been primarily investigated in advertisements, at least as far as the visual or multimodal scene is concerned (Pérez Sobrino, 2016; Kashanizadeh & Forceville, 2020). Although not the focus of the thesis, the identification and discussion of metaphor-metonymy interaction in the light of news images is a novel result. I trust that the method can be suitable for examining the visual representation of any violent act, given that the analytical framework is specific enough to identify the Violence ICM, but at the same time flexible enough to be extended to the interpretation of visual representations of violence universally. It is particularly important in the present day to examine through which interpretive frameworks the media portrays violent events, such as wars. Thus, the presented model, allowing for the investigation of the narratives (and their implications) that are prioritized by visual substitutions in online news, is highly relevant and novel. After all, violence, conflict and negative events have always been considered newsworthy, they have always represented news values, and this will certainly remain so in the future as well.

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‘In the case of Africa in general, there is a tendency to exaggerate’: representing mass atrocity in Africa

Cited by 13 publications

References 23 publications

The Visual Framing of ‘Failed’ States: Afro-Pessimism vs Afro-Optimism

The Visual Framing of ‘Failed’ States: Afro-Pessimism vs Afro-Optimism

Exploring Literature on Alternative Media about African Narratives

Visual variations of violence – The metonymic framing of violence in the featured images of online news about Africa

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