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Telling a story
In the news media we often remind ourselves perceptions of almost any subject can be shaped over time by biased or slanted coverage. It’s not a discussion that is often examined when it comes to entertainment, but there’s little doubt everything from TV dramas and comedy to multimillion-dollar Hollywood movies have an impact on many of the ways we see the world.
It’s one of the reasons I took part in a study last year by the Norman Lear Center’s Media ImpactProject which analyzed some 700,000 hours of US television news and entertainment to see how Africa and Africans are portrayed in US media.
The study results confirmed many broadly held views on US media’s Africa coverage but with plenty of detail. For starters it noted there’s very little coverage of “Africa” or African countries in US media and when there is much of it is negative. “Even when the coverage of Africa was, on its surface, positive, it was described as often glib, simplistic, predictable, and sometimes sensationalist or extreme, at the expense of showcasing regular voices and stories of Africa.”
It also found only 13% of entertainment story lines that mentioned Africa actually include an African character, and 80% of such roles were minor with barely any dialogue.
And to borrow the phrase, Africa is a country on US television, 44% of the references were just “Africa” without a country being mentioned. Just five countries accounted for most attention: Egypt, South Africa, Kenya, Seychelles, and Congo account for almost half (49%) of all mentions.
While none of this feels surprising on the surface it’s worth reiterating how these perceptions end up influencing real policy and business decisions. As the report says: “No matter how promising the economic outlook might be in any particular place in Africa, that information will be considered within a broader pessimistic narrative about Africa. Since many American business people are exposed to this narrative their entire lives, they grow up with this mindset, which can be incredibly difficult to dislodge.”
Some could rightly argue the US is just one country, but it’s still a very influential one in economic and political terms.
But it’s also important African countries do better at telling the positive stories they have about themselves both internally and to the world.
It’s a point the United Nations deputy secretary general Amina Mohammed emphasized in a keynote this week at University of London’s SOAS African Development Forum. As the former Nigerian minister said: “Who else is going to change our narrative but us?”
— Yinka Adegoke, Quartz Africa editor
Stories from this week
The Ethiopian Airlines crash signifies the importance of the Addis Ababa-Nairobi route. 157 people from over 30 countries were killed when ET 302 crashed on Mar. 10 just outside of the Ethiopian capital. In its wake, Ethiopia was one of the first airlines globally to ground its Boeing 737 Max 8 planes. Abdi Latif Dahir explains how the accident showcased the importance of the Addis Ababa-Nairobi flight route for diplomats, humanitarian workers, and business executives from across the world.
Netflix’s Boy Who Harnessed the Wind is a rare authentic dramatization of Africa by an international studio. There’s been a long history of Hollywood portrayals of Africa never looking like the continent we know. But Ugandan writer Rosebell Kagumire finds that Chiwetel Ejiofor, the British-Nigerian director, has depicted a rural Africa that rings true.
The best player in the NBA is “Nigerian” but most Nigerians have no idea who he is. Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Milwaukee Bucks is one of this year’s leading favorites for the NBA’s coveted Most Valuable Player award. But despite his proud Nigerian heritage and world-beating performances, Antetokounmpo is a virtual unknown in a sports-loving country where fans never shy away from claiming athletes with even vague links to Nigeria, here’s why.
What the initial collapse of a major bank reveals about the rise of Kenya’s powerful digital spaces. In April 2016, speculation that Kenya’s Chase Bank was in trouble unfolded first on Twitter and WhatsApp before the rumors turned into a bank run 48 hours later. In this excerpt from her book Digital Democracy, Analog Politics, Nanjala Nyabola examines how digital platforms in Kenya interact and often shape offline realities.
South Africa’s sugar tax is pitting job losses against national health. The first African country to implement a “health promotion levy,” South Africa’s health department implemented a tax on sugary drinks to curb diseases like diabetes. The sugar industry, however, says the long-term goal is leading to short-term losses like job cuts in a country already facing an unemployment crisis. Lynsey Chutel weighed both sides of a bitter debate.
Africa has forgotten the women leaders of its independence struggle. “She was the only mother of this nation,” sang Fela Kuti about his activist mother, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti. But she has never wholly recognized for her role in Nigeria’s anti-colonialism struggles and is not the only African female leader to have been forgotten soon after independence, finds Kwasi Gyamfi Asiedu.
Chart of the Week
Jumia, Africa’s largest e-commerce player, will list on New York Stock Exchange but its finances are troubling. Jumia’s much anticipated initial public offering was finally set in motion this week. Yomi Kazeem dug through the e-commerce giant’s regulatory filings to find the worryingly steep scale of Jumia’s mounting losses and cash burn and the cost of cracking e-commerce across Africa.
Other Things We Liked
‘Why I’m Moving Back To South Africa.’ Award-winning journalist Jonny Steinberg has decided to give up a tenured job and placid life at Oxford University to return to Johannesburg, “a city that heaves with umbrage.” He writes for Buzzfeed about the Somali immigrant who hustled his way to South Africa, built a business, watched xenophobia destroy it, then rebuilt it—and inspired Steinberg to give the country of his birth another chance.
The balancing act of promoting African languages and inculcating English. In an essay for The Guardian, Nigerian author Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani tackles the dynamics of the long-running culture clash between English and indigenous African languages, like her native Igbo. While citing the need to preserve and promote indigenous languages, Nwaubani also notes the unifying power of English in diverse countries.
The “Queen of Elephants” with 200-pound tusks. When the tusks of African elephants are photographed, it’s often as part of a seizure from poachers whose actions have left the animals vulnerable. But these stunning photos, tell the story of a “queen elephant” that survived poachers and lived in Tsavo, Kenya for over 60 years before dying of natural causes.
ICYMI
Mandela Rhodes scholarship. Citizens from all African nations can apply to undertake a fully-paid postgraduate degree at South African universities. (Apr. 15)
Human rights fellowship for people of African descent. The three-week United Nations-run intensive program engages Africans in the diaspora who are working in promoting the rights of Africans. (Apr. 30)
Keep an eye on
Lagos Tech Women exhibition (Mar. 16-24). The AUDACITY exhibition profiles 50 women in Lagos’ fast-growing tech sector all doing important work at various stages of their careers and in different segments of the industry.
Statue of Liberty climber faces sentencing (Mar. 19). Congolese-American activist Patricia Okoumou, who scaled the statue in protest of Trump immigration policies, was convicted last December on three misdemeanor charges that could send her to jail for up to one and a half years.
Algeria forms a new cabinet. After president Abdelaziz Bouteflika said he won’t run for a fifth term in office, prime minister Noureddine Bedoui said he would form a new cabinet that would start the process for a national conference on the political transition.
*This brief was produced while listening to Nterini by Fatoumata Diawara (Mali).
Our best wishes for a productive and thought-filled week ahead. Please send any news, comments, suggestions, sugar-free South African beverages and “Antetokounmpo” Milwaukee Bucks shirts to africa@qz.com. You can follow us on Twitter at @qzafrica for updates throughout the day.
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