COVID-19 and the constructions of Africa in African news media

Abstract

This article examines the constructions of Africa in COVID-19-related stories that were produced by African news media. Dominant scholarship indicates that western media generally reproduce and perpetuate harmful stereotypes on Africa. Given that there is scant literature on how African media covers Africa, this article uses the COVID-19 pandemic as an entry point to explore the disease narratives on Africa. Drawing on Afrokology as decolonial perspective, this article examines the discourses and narratives on Africa that were produced by African news organizations. Data were drawn from ten news organizations from Ghana, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, South Africa and Egypt. A quantitative corpus analysis and a qualitative critical discourse analysis were used to analyse the COVID-19-related stories. Findings demonstrate that harmful disease stereotypes about Africa as a place of danger, darkness, tragedy and human rights abuses were reproduced by the African media.