Arnold S de Beer
Lynnette Serfontein
Annelie Naude
Elanie Steyn
The democratization developments in Africa during the 1990s (and not the least in South Africa) offered new opportunities for researchers in the field of news flow studies. Since the 1950s a number of studies have been undertaken internationally, but relatively few comparative studies were done in Africa since 1990.
The end of the Cold War and the fall of the Berlin Wall demand not only new cartographic and conceptual maps, but also new news media maps, especially of Africa. In this paper a broad question is posed: 'How does African mass media portray Africa and the rest of the world in the 1990s through the process of international news coverage?'
This paper deals with some possible answers to this question as it pertains to specific newspapers and broadcast news media in Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa. (These were the three countries in sub-Saharan Africa included in the international projert on Global News Flow in the 1990s for the period 3-9 and 17-23 September 1995).
The general goal was to find answers to some of the questions set in the international projert. Aspects such as main news topics, main news events, datelines and sources of international news were, amongst others, addressed.
The 'news mapping' results suggest inter alia that the relevant African media tends to place bigger emphasis on non-disruptive news, and the greater use of own correspondents than was anticipated.
INTRODUCTION
Since the 1950s (Hjarvard, 1995), a number of news flow studies have been undertaken internationally (Atwood, 1984; Gerbner & Marvanyi, 1977). The end of the Cold War and the fall of the Berlin Wall, as Sreberny-Mohammadi (1995:8) indicates, demand not only new cartographic and conceptual maps, but also new news media maps.
In terms of international news flow research projects, a relevant question would be: 'How is African mass media portraying Africa and the rest of the world in the 1990s through the process of international news coverage?'
This paper deals with some possible answers to this question as it pertains to specific newspapers and broadcast news in Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa as part of the international Global News Flow in the 1990s project. According to Sreberny-Mohammadi (1996:1), this cooperative research project is one of the largest and most extensive projects ever undertaken in the field of international communication. It consisted of participation from 45 countries around the world. and used a triangulation of methods (quantitative, qualitative, participant observation and historical) in an effort to reassess the state of international news flow in a post-Cold War era.
As Sreberny-Mohammadi (1996) shows, the international geography of news-gathering before 1989 showed a clear pattern structured on Cold War rivalry and tension. Most studies showed a remarkably similar pattern of global news coverage: the USA and Western Europe as the most important news makers; the emphasis on the news hot spots of the Third World; the international news flow domination of the big four Western news agencies; and the imbalance in news flow with the Third World receiving far more news about the First World than vice versa.
The changing political order of the 1990s; the rapid economic development of several countries; the increasing debt crises in countries of the South and consequently political and social upheaval in countries such as Somalia, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Nigeria necessitated a new perspective on news flow.
Within the Western context of practical journalism, as well as in theoretical and research work, news and news values have traditionally been defined and identified according to the Anglo-American model, with conflict being one of the main news elements, especially when applied to Africa and other so-called Third World countries (see De Beer & Steyn, 1996a).
Over the last four to six decades, conflict or negative news became the staple diet of the media in the Anglo-American context. The main news value attribute of conflict, or as the Glasgow University Media Group (1976) defined it, bad news, apparently led to a common journalistic belief that bad news is good news and good news is no news. It is difficult to pinpoint the exact reason for Third World countries' infatuation with the negative. Lange (1984:71) argues that at least one reason might be that Western journalists use the journalism school definition of conflict is news as a rationalization to conceal a lack of talent for writing the much more difficult positive news story.
Consequently, to concerned governments, media researchers and others involved in the media, it seemed as if events in southern Africa and other parts of Africa could only become news (not only in the Western media, but also in African media) if conflict-orientated or disruptive themes such as corruption, coups, political unrest and famine were the main course on the news menu (for traditional American concepts of news values, see LeRoy & Sterling, 1973; Cohen, Adoni & Bantz, 1990; Hiebert, Ungurait & Bohn, 1991; Steyn, 1995).
In post-colonial sub-Saharan Africa of the 1960s and 1970s (as elsewhere in the Third World), a negative attitude developed towards Western style conflict-ridden news coverage of the continent. This disillusionment with Western media coverage of Third world countries led to the development of the New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO) in the 1970/1980s, as specifically espoused by MacBride (1980; also see Giffard, 1984, 1987, 1992).
In reaction to what was perceived to be the West's negative media coverage of Africa, and in line with the NWICO, many African states started their own developmental news programs in order to rectify the imbalance of news coverage about their countries (e.g. Giffard, 1993).
The mid-1990s, however, brought a number of changes to southern Africa, also affecting Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa, which are the focus of this discussion.
A number of other reasons can be offered for Africa's negative image in Western media. One is that negative, conflict-orientated news reports (stories) about the trials and tribulations of southern Africa have two attractions for Western audiences. According to Lange (1984:71) these kinds of stories reinforce the superiority of being Western ('there but for the grace of God go we') and they keep Westerners informed about the possible threats to their affluence.
We suggest that negative news about Africa is not necessarily part of an international conspiracy against this part of the world or any comparable group of countries elsewhere. We submit the main reasons for so-called negative news are to be found in the following:
While these arguments might have held truth to a greater or lesser extent in the 1950s to the 1980s, it is not clear what kind of international news southern Africans are receiving towards the middle of the 1990s. This paper deals with some possible answers to this question.
Given the discussion on news flow and news content, the present researchers identified four major issues for the purpose of this paper:
Although we discuss news flow within the broader African context, we could only use news flow results from three countries in sub-Saharan Africa (Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa) due to the fact that these countnes were the only ones in this region included in the present international Global News Flow in the 1990s project.
Historically, the three countries offer interesting possibilities for research. After almost four decades of apartheid rule, South Africa could pride itself since 1994 with the scrapping of most of the prohibitive legislation and the media system was declared the freest in Africa by both national and international observers (Miller, 1995; Roelofse, 1995; Marcus, 1996). The past few months have, however, shown that the ANC government is becoming increasingly uncomfortable with certain aspects of press freedom in the country (e.g. see Nyatsumba, 1996; The Cape Times, 1996:5; Bateman, 1996:4).
Conversely, the situation in Kenya and Nigeria changed dramatically since the beginning of the 1990s. In both countries, the independent newspapers played an important role to achieve independence during the period of colonial rule (Faringer, 1991; De Beer et al., 1995). Since then, however, the media and media workers face different degrees of restriction from the present governments (Kasoma, 1995; Maja-Pearce, 1995).
The research results discussed in this paper form part of an international news flow research project (Global News Flow in the 1990s) initaited at a meeting in Tampere, Finland in 1994 with Kaarle Nordenstreng as chairperson. The project, with Robert L Stevenson and Annabelle Sreberny-Mohammadi as international project leaders, was undertaken during 1995 in 45 countries, and consisted of qualitative and quantitative content analysis. (e.g. see De Beer, Serfontein & NaudŽ, 1996; De Beer & Steyn, 1996b; Sreberny-Mohammadi & Stevenson, 1995). This paper reports on the sub-Saharan African part (Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa) of the quantitative research undertaken in the different countries on 3-9; 17-23 September 1995, with the first author as South African project leader.
Content analysis (according to a research framework supplied to all participants in the international project and according to traditional research methods, e.g. Stempel & Westley, 1981) was executed on all international news appearing in the following newspapers and electronic media broadcasts. A final group of international news reports was demarcated as international news and selected for this project (N=743 for Kenya; N=359 for Nigeria and N=820 for South Africa).
In South Africa international news in two newspapers, The Star and Sunday Times, as well as the main news broadcast at 20:00 from the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) for the period 3-9 and 17-23 September 1995 was analyzed. The project periods were chosen to coincide with that of the international project. All international news items were coded, regardless of the degree of involvement by South Africa. Film and book reviews, as well as letters and cartoons with international relevance were included.
The flow of news on a daily basis was fairly evenly distributed with the least stories (6,0%, N=820) in the first week appearing on September 8 and most of the stories (8, I%, N=820) on September 3. In the second week most stories (8,3%, N=820) appeared on September 20, and the least (5,6%, N=820) on 18th September 1995.
Five coders worked closely together to code a total of 1 505 news items. The coders discussed the coding instructions before coding started. The South African team participated in the international trial run for this project in May 1995 on a sample of two days' news items. Afterwards problems with the categories and coding instructions were again discussed and cleared with the international projecy leaders. While the coding was in progress, coders kept close contact with each other and any problems were discussed before a coding decision was taken.
Categories were identified by the international project leaders, such as prominence, source, most important country, the main topic etc. The focus of each story was determined as foreign news taking place at home as well as overseas. It included two elements: geographic location of the event and involvement of the country in which the coding was done.
Datelines (the name of the city from which the news story was reported) were identified. Thereafter datelines were coded according to the country in which the city was located. In most instances the dateline was the same as the most important country in the story, but there were a few anomalies, for example stories reported from an outside location and events that took place in a foreign location. These were then taken to have referred to the main country in the news story.
A distinction was also made between stories that emphasized disruption, conflict, and exceptional events (coded as disruptive) and stories that do not (coded as non-disruptive).
Newspaper sources were also included. The first reference to any source was coded as 'source 1' and the second reference as 'source 2' (regardless of whether it referred to a person/correspondent or a news agency).
Where the main topic was concerned with international politics and international military/defense/conflict the distinction was made as follows: international military/defense/conflict were only used where there were references to physical violence/war/conflict. In these cases the second topic was coded as international politics. The term domestic, (as used with several topics, eg. domestic politics) was coded as referring to the most important countryy for that specific news item. As soon as there were more than one country involved, the 'international' codes were used.
The data was analyzed with the use of the Statistica computer programme. Several recordings and subsets of datelines were executed in order to compare different aspects with each other. Subsets of the different continents according to datelines were made to got a clearer picture of the main countries and the main topics according to the different continents.
The present authors weren't involved in the coding of the Kenyan and Nigerian data. This was obtained from Denis Wu School of Journalism, University of North Carolina, who collected and consolidated the data from the different participating countries with Robert L Stevenson as international project leader. It is assumed that the data was coded according to the same guidelines as described above, and as prescribed in the international project instructions.
In this case of Nigeria (Project leader Festus Eribo) the Daily Times and The Observer, Nigerian Television Authority and Radio Nigeria were coded in the period 3-9 September 1995. A total of 359 stories were coded.
The media outlets coded in Kenya (Project leader Eda Muiua) in the period 3-9 and 17-23 September 1995 were The Daily Nation and East African Standard as well Kenya Broadcasting Corporation television news items. A total of 743 stories were included in the study.
For the purpose of this paper, the following research questions were posed by comparing the different data sets from the three countries (Kenya: N=743; Nigeria: N=359 and South Africa: N=820).
There was a marked difference in the coverage of the main topics. From the data below one can conclude that Kenya and Nigeria more prominently emphasized societal/cultural issues like gender, religion etc. than was the case in South Africa. Compared to the situation in Nigeria and South Africa, the Kenyan media also put less emphasis on international economic and trade issues. Sport featured prominently in the Nigerian and South African media coverage compared to that of Kenya.
Kenya (N=743):
Nigeria (N=35-9):
South Africa (N=820):
North America
News about entertainment/personalities and sport featured highly in the Kenyan, Nigerian and South African media, although there were differences in terms of emphasis on other stories, as can be seen from the following:
Kenya (N=49):
Nigeria (N=28):
South Africa (N = 131):
Western Europe
There was a different emphasis in the three countries on news about Western Europe:
Kenya (N=91):
Nigeria (N=40):
South Africa (K=317):
Eastern/Central Europe
As was expected, the main focus of international stories on Eastern/Central Europe appearing in Kenya and South Africa referred to international military/defence/conflict (Kenya: 38,7% [N=31]; South Africa 38,3% [N=47]) followed by civil war/domestic conflict (Kenya: 22,6% [N=31]; South Africa: 10,6% [N=47]). Very much the same trend emerged in the Nigerian media, where 69,2% (N=13) of the stories were of an international military/defence/conflict nature.
Middle East
As was expected, news on international military/defence/conflict was the staple diet for the media. In Kenya (N=32) (28,1%) and Nigeria (N=14) (28,6%) this element was high on the agenda, while in the case of South Africa (N=21) it was put second (23,8%) to news on Crime/justice/police (28,6%).
Latin America/South America/Central America/Caribbean
Very few stones rferred to this region. News stories covered in Kenya (N=9) identified energy/conservation/environnient (33,3%) as the most important topic when referring to South America. In the case of Nigeria (N=8) international politics (37,5%) and international economics/trade (37,5%) were the most important topics. In the South African media (N = 10) natural disasters (50,0%) were the most important issues addressed.
Asia/Pacific
What could be regarded as an interesting, if not a new, trend in international news coverage, was the predominance of gender issues and related issues such as human rights. Although one has to realize that the number of news reports were not very high and the UN Women's Conference in Beijing might have affected the general flow of news from this region. More specifically:
Kenya (N=157):
Nigeria (N=27):
South Africa (N=96):
Africa
Contrary to our assumption, African news covered in the three countries were not predominantly of a disruptive or conflict nature (see later). Most of the stories in the Kenyan media (N=335) associated Africa with domestic politics (15,2%) and religion (11,4%), while the Nigerian media (N=218) identified international aid/development/relief (15,6%) and sport (32,6%) as most important topics when referring to Africa.
Again in the case of South Africa (N=317), sport (34,4%), followed by international economics/trade (11,4%) and international/military/defence/conflict (11,0%) were most important topics in stories referring to Africa.
Most of the stories covered in the three countries did not refer to a special event:
In all three countries, the UN Women's Conference in Beijing received the most coverage as special event:
In the full report (see footnote 4) an analysis is given of the flow patterns in terms of datelines. As far as news from Africa is concerned, in both the Nigerian (32,9% N=225) and South African (32,8% N=338) media sport was the most important topic, while only 0,3% (N=366) of the stories from Africa in the Kenyan media referred to sport as the main topic.
Other prominent topics in the Nigerian press were international aid/development/relief (14.7%) and international economics trade (13,8% N=225). In the South African media, other than sport, international economics trade (10,7%) and entertainment/personalities (8,9% N=338) were prominent.
In the case of the Kenyan press the most important topics originating in Africa were domestic politics (14,2%), civil war/domestic conflict (10,1 %) and human rights (10,9% N=366).
Another interesting finding, and running counter to our expectations, was that most foreign news stories referred to Africa as the main country in the news:
The data also showed that Kenya (28,7% [N=335]) and South Africa (12,5% [N=335]) were the most important African countries in the Kenyan press. In the Nigerian press Nigeria (7595% [N=218]) was the most important country, while in the South African press South Africa (69,7% [N=317]) was the most important country.
A major deviation from our initial assumption that the big four news agencies would be the main sources of international news, was that the newspapers/broadcasting stations' own correspondents took over this role. This was the case in all three countries:
It should, however, be noted that in most cases in both the Kenyan and Nigerian media it was impossible to identify the source:
Otherwise, agency copy was used within a story byline 'own correspondent'. Even so, one could aver that the main sources for international news were as follows:
Kenya (N=743):
Nigeria (N=359):
South Africa (N=820):
More than half the South African (51,6% N=820) and Nigerian (57,1% N=359) news stories were minor stories, while 42,5 % of the stories in the Kenyan media (N =743) were of medium length and (37,1 %) were minor.
One of the major findings of the present study was the emphasis on non-disruptive international news covered in the three countries' media. Despite the predominant trend identified in the literature that news about Africa would be of a disruptive nature, the present study contradicted this. Most of the stories used in the project period in the applicable Kenyan (N=743) (59,6%), Nigerian (N=359) (73,0%) and South African (N=820) (71,8%) media were of a non-disruptive nature.
Also in contrast with the trends indicated in the literature, all was not 'doom and gloom' as far as African news in the African media is concerned, as there was a high percentage of nondisruptive stories in the Kenyan (N=366) (64,2%), Nigerian (N=388) (77,3%) and the South African (76,3% N=225) media.
However, a caveat should be placed on these findings. One cannot necessarily draw the conclusion that non-disruptive news will equally 'good news' in the sense that it will add value to society. Compare for instance the high percentage of non-disruptive US news appearing in African media which mainly deals with sport and entertainment. A further analysis of this issue is warranted. Another complicating factor is the fact that during the project time, the African Games were held in Zimbabwe. This issue again led to the percentage of nondisruptive news from Africa gaining higher prominence.
Initiators of the news
In Kenya (53,7% N=743) and Nigeria (62,1% N=359) the government was the most important initiator of news, while in the South African media public/civic organization/individuals (49,3% N=820) were the most important initiators of news, followed by the government (21,3% N=820).
Main actors
State officialstnations were the most important actors in Kenya (52.0% N=743) and Nigeria (42,6% N=359) while in South Africa the public sector/civic organizations/individuals (33,9%), followed by the private citizens (20,7%) and state officials/nation (18,8% N=820) were the most important main actors.
The international Global News Flow in the 1990s project presented numerous possibilities in terms of research on international news flow. In accordance with the theory of news values and what elements constitute news, the researchers decided to focus on countries in the subSaharan region (specifically Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa) when compiling this comparative analysis of international news flow and international news events. Specific research questions were identified which were analyzed and discussed. The following trends (amongst others) were identified:
To answer the question in our title, 'African news for Africa - or is it still the same old story?', the indications are that the African news scene is changing more than was expected in terms of dependency on the big four news agencies and that perhaps more news of a nondisruptive nature is presented. While there is obviously still a long way ahead to fully address this and other issues, it does seem as if the African story is not necessarily the same old story anymore.
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FOOTNOTES
1 The authors wish to thank Jaco Vorster (for research assistance), Lonise van Wyk and Sarenda Eloff (for coding a number of South African news reports). They also wish to thank the South African Center for Scientific Development (CSD) and the Faculty of Arts Research Committee at Potchefstroom University for financial assistance. Statements and viewpoints are those of the authors.
2 For conference papers on the quantitative South African part of the international research project see De Beer, Serfontein & Naude (1996) and for the qualitative part De Beer & Steyn (1996).
3 Details of the full report is available on email from komlms@puknet.puk.ac.za.