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Jamie B. Wallace is currently a PhD student in Anthropology at University of Oxford.
“Africa is special because there is little common understanding between Africans and Americans to provide context for interpretation” (Hawk 1992:4).
When we think of Africa, images of famine, poverty, sickness, and war are embedded in our Western minds. “AIDS,” “tribal warfare,” and “chaos” are the associative key terms that remain in our thoughts. Even with the coming of the 21st century, these notions have not been fully abandoned. Most people don’t realize how these concepts have become part of our lives – often using colonial history, literature, and the news as justification. However, very few Westerners who are not involved with scholarly research and education question this stereotype. When we see a programme on television about hostile behaviour and unfair treatment we are taught to question. Why we are not compelled to question our stereotypes about Africa?
The majority of the American population have never visited Africa and most likely will not. Therefore, any information that is received about Africa is taken for granted, as there are no means for contestation. Textbooks, classrooms, news, media, entertainment, museums, internet, and religious missionaries are the formats for which the American public learn about Africa.
One of the most crucial mediums of shaping public knowledge, and which often works subconsciously, is the media. Television, newspapers, films, and magazines are the ways in which the American population receive “reliable” information. Flashy headlines and eye-catching leads provoke further investigation in events and subjects. However, most of the distributors of this insight often go unchallenged. Most Americans soak up the knowledge presented to them, without questioning its credibility. It is left up to the media to portray what they deem to be facts, accurate portrayals, and interpretation. As with any form of interpretation and circulation of information, there is some level of subjectivity. Whether considerations are based on financial, commercial, personal, or political motives, the information given to the public is moulded, shaped, and tainted. In addition, issues of what has been omitted and ignored should be questioned.
Most of the headlines in newspapers and television are ones that continue the American disillusionment with the African continent and its population. Led by a history of colonialism, European domination, and slavery since the 18th
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-19th centuries, Africa has been labelled a “dark continent”(see Conrad, 1990; McCarthy, 1983). The visions of wild savagery and irrational tribalism still prevail. Racial terms such as “black-on-black violence,” “black factionalism,” and “tribalism” are not only still applied by the media, but are symbols of degradation, primitivism, and dehumanisation of the West toward Africa (Hawk 1992: 9). As the public has no frame of reference on which to contest these inaccuracies, these images are compared to those of their own Western culture, with the most advanced economies, technologies, standards, and values.
Western beliefs about Africa have constructed an image of Africa as the repository of our greatest fears. The colonial image has become the media image. Image becomes fact. This image of Africa has important ramifications beyond American public opinion and foreign policy. Media set out the categories (primitive/modern) and define the concepts recognizable to readers and viewers. These metaphors frame the questions for American policymakers (Hawk 1992:13).
As a vast majority of the public does not read newspapers from other nations than their own, and the American media industry employs mostly Americans, American journalists have the responsibility to represent Africa. Americans are shaping American minds embedded with their own belief systems and perspectives. “The negative portrayal of Africa by American media is a deliberate and systematic process that is created and sustained by the bias in the way American media select foreign news stories”(Ebo 1992:15). Riveting news of war, crime, sickness, corruption, and poverty flood the headlines. Stories that catch the public eye are what sell. Narratives on ways of life, working, religious beliefs, and cultural festivals are not considered exciting enough to capture the American public – and are therefore excluded, eliminating social and cultural relevance, context, and background to any awe-inspiring story (Ebo 1992:20). African officials have criticized the American media on their “misguided” and “unbalanced” accounts, that are “’motivated only by the pursuit of the sensational – coups, corruption, chaotic economics, crocodile attacks, and quaint tribal rites’” shaped by the skewed political power distribution in the world (Ebo 1992:17).
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View Comments
Missie Hahn
Date:Feb 23, 2010
Hello I am writing a similar article to your brilliant piece American Perceptions of Africa based on Media Representations. I was wondering if I could ask you questions on your insight and opinions about American media controlling the perspections of their citizens. Please contact me at your earliest convenience.
Thank you and Have a Fantastic day!
Missie Hahn
daydreamingartistic@yahoo.com
