Media Commentary about African Continent Research Paper

To think the media in Western countries believe their weekly programs can give a general overview on countries found in the African continent. This will be absurd even if they inject a small bit of good news on the African continent because the news cannot change the way the world sees the African continent. “Neither does the use of African presenters by the western media houses to report on the African continent in a way that it’s unable to fend for itself and the only solution is to get help from already developed Western countries”( Straubhaar, p. 15). “In the Western countries, Africa is seen as a continent which its inhabitants dying of hunger, war and HIV/AIDS which spreads like bush fire” (Katz, p. 12).

The Western media have every right to highlight the problems that affect the African continent to the rest of the world, however there reporting on the African continent tend to be unbalanced and most of the coverage about Africa tend to be on the negative side, giving little or no coverage of notable progress and achievement that is occurring in African countries. Most of these media houses in the Western countries continue to gain at Africa’s expense; they are doing a disservice to Africans who have started riding on the wheels of change in their respective countries. “These Western media are undermining Africa history, their rich culture and the overall historical contribution they have made to the world affairs” (Fourie, p. 45).

“All the efforts should be taken by the reporters and government in the western world and the people in general to uphold the professional ethics that calls for the highest level of balance in their reporting” (Rampa, p. 56), even if they are operating in a competitive media world. African governments and another private sectors should not depend on western reporters in terms of what is reported in the African press in their respective countries. The nations in Africa are high time to find the need of establishing an alternative media so that can be used to counter the western media reporting negatively on African continents. The Western views should be first being exposed to first-hand information to the Africa continent and with that, they will reduce their dependency on Discovery channels or Animal Planet to inform their view of the African continent. Many Americans when they visit the Africa continent get shocked about the reality that is there in the Africa continent. Most of these visitors from America get shocked when they discover that Africa is not a land of unrelenting disasters that is portrayed in the American media. Most of these reporters use the Africa continent as a springboard to fame their stall careers or in other i.e. they use Africa to breathe life into their flagging career. There will be no shortage of reporters or charity workers that will go to the Africa continent to do philanthropic work as a way to display their sympathy.

“It will be irresponsible to say Africa does not have problems, my disapproval of the general reporting by Western media on the African continent is not meant to overlook the problem of HIV/AIDs any less troubling and dangerous in Africa” (Manovich, p. 56). There are a lot of excellent things that are happening in the countries found in Africa, but the good things are not reported and well all know African continent is made up of 52 nations, yet the problems that are happening to small countries in Africa are used to generalized on the whole continent. The majority of TV viewers in the United State are inundated with news like “HIV/AIDs is killing the people in Africa” (Ross, p. 39).

“The CNN, Fox and BBC News are the culprits of these kinds of news of Africa. These reporters have made Africa continent to be the dumping ground for all the bad things that are happening in the world” (Sloan, p. 40). When this reporter or people from western countries get a chance to visit the Africa continent, what they will find in Africa is a different picture from those they see in their media – happy people going about their daily lives. They will wonder how come they are not dying victims of HIV/AIDs, how come people in Africa countries still afford to smile and they are friendly people, “they are supposed to live on less than a dollar a day. They will suddenly realize that things they are reporting in their media don’t add up and there has been some error in their reporting” (Dovey, p. 25).

“Most of these reporters use Africa continent as a springboard to fame their stall careers or in other i.e. they use Africa to breathe life into their flagging career” (Carilli, p. 23). Don’t get me wrong, there are genuine people who are passionate about helping people in Africa. In particular is Bob Geld who his main aim was to help poor Africans with his Live Aid concert, “which had an impact and drew the attention to the world to the suffering the people of Ethiopians were undergoing due to famine that happens that year” (Bradley, p. 34).

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