The Media's Role in Fueling Afro-Pessimism
*Definition of Afro-Pessimism*
1. Discuss the media's focus on negative aspects of Africa.
- Famine
- Poverty
- Disease (especially HIV/AIDS)
- Political Corruption/War
2. Cite study from Harvard
When covering Africa, the media:
- Omits information
- Frame subject to fuel negative views
- Generalize & over exaggerate
Discuss the effects this has on people's views of Africa
*Picture of the portrayal of Africa*
Their Job is to Cover Facts
*Present the other side - balance & fairness*
1. Because of the Surveillance function, the media's role is to shed light on issues
- Famine, poverty, and conflict are all ongoing issues in Africa, so the media is not wrong for covering them.
2. *Discuss "Freedom" article: the media's coverage of negative issues (famine & poverty) foster relief efforts, and persuade people to donate to charities/NGOs.
*insert picture of relief effort donations*
The View of African Journalists
*BBC clip of Sierra Leonian journalists' efforts to improve image of Africa*
1. Discuss UN article about the attempts to improve Africa's image
2. Expert Interview
*Insert positive Picture of Africa*
Conclusion: The Media is not Balanced nor Fair in their Coverage of Africa
Although Africa is plagues with problems, the media's focus on these problems fuel negative views. They fail to highlight positive aspects of Africa, which is problematic in shaping people's views of Africa; it fuels afro-pessimism.
Kaira’s ePortfolio summary contains a lot of good ideas overall. To start off, your main header does a very good job of getting straight to the point in alerting the reader what they are about to read about, however it could use a bit more substance on whether it is positive or negative portrayal. Building off that, you do a very nice job in your briefing by discussing the aspects of angling and framing and the role it plays in your research. Another “pro” to this is how you break down your outline. You do an excellent job laying out what points you are going to touch upon and how you are going to incorporate it into your writing. One “con” that can go along with that however is just to provide more detail to do a better job of complementing the research being provided. You also do a good job providing a case study from Harvard, which will validate your claims more strongly. Another area in which you do a very good job on is dealing with the “other side” of the issue and how you address it. Also, I think your subheads are strong but need a little more depth behind them, maybe you could try and add a little more substance to them so that the readers understand better what you are trying to get across. Furthermore, you could provide more case studies and articles like the one attached at the bottom. Overall, I really think this is a great topic and a very solid outline. I personally think that everything is there but you need to just make sure you add more depth and substance to whatever you write to really build a perspective so that you also could potentially frame your writing to the way you want it to be perceived.
ReplyDeletehttp://cyber.law.harvard.edu/digitaldemocracy/mezzana.htm
Kaira is very concrete in expressing the problem about media portrayal in Africa and how it affects reader’s perceptions about the country. There are many positive aspects of her topic and outline, including the fact that Kaira included both the positive and negative coverage about Africa and the impact of the types of coverage. They were great in expressing their angle of their topic and their proactive personality towards making sure the readers know the impact of negative news coverage, which was the fueling of afro-pessimism. Another pro was that Kaira already had examples to include in her outline, like the several articles and studies that will help with strengthening her research and post.
ReplyDeleteThere were a few cons about her outline, but not many. One con was that although the topic seems to be gearing towards reducing the amount of afro-pessimism based on news coverage in Africa, the outline makes it appear that negative news coverage about famine, poverty, disease, and war will be strongly emphasized in the article which might make the readers think that Africa is solely in a state of despair. This can be prevented by including even more positive news article coverage about Africa. I also noticed that afro-pessimism might be unclear to those who do not know what the words mean, or what types of stereotypes are derived from news coverage if readers do not typically read news about Africa.
Overall, the outline was extremely interesting and included great research. It was also well organized and thought out, showing what exactly will be included in their article.
http://www.bbc.com/travel/feature/20131119-an-underwater-hotel-opens-in-africa (This article can help with the famine and poverty aspect of the topic.)