Jiwani and Young’s article on “Missing and Murdered Women: Reproducing Marginality in News Discourse” introduced a concept that I found particularly compelling: the idea of media framing. They cite researcher Robert Entman in defining the term as “selecting and highlighting some facets of events or issues, and making connections among them so as to promote a particular interpretation, evaluation, and/or solution” (902). Essentially, the news chooses a particular storyline which will get the biggest audience and which benefits hegemonic social powers. I read the news daily from a number of international sources (Al Jazeera is my fave), so “framing” isn’t something I’m too worried about falling for, but the following case in the Central African Republic is certainly a slap in the face. Often, it seems media framing can result from oversimplification of very deep, convoluted issues into one which is more palpable for a wider audience. However this palpability creates a barrier between the people involved in a conflict and everyone outside of it, rendering lost agency for those directly affected and eliminating a sense of responsibility by the unaffected.
While the CAR has been in conflict since its independence in 1960, the nation has most recently broken out in a religious conflict between majority Christians and minority Muslims. Thousands of people have been killed already, with statistics certainly pointing towards religious-ethnic based cleansing and recently displayed in the media as a genocide (or verge of genocide– once the “g” word is spoken then it’s a go). Fortunately, UN peacekeepers and French troops have definitely been more active in the country since the conflict began. Many liken it to the 1993 Rwandan genocide, even though the political dynamics are entirely different (discussed below).
French soldiers becoming more involved in the conflict
The situation in the CAR is similar and different than the horrors of Rwanda (and trying to compare it to other genocides again removes the complexity and agency of the conflict). Firstly, like I mentioned before, the importance of the media framing the situation as genocidal has been beneficial in advocating for international aid and a timely UN response (unlike Rwanda ahem). However, not only is genocide an inaccurate description of the situation, for reasons cited here, therefore inciting ineffective solutions for aid, by labelling it as “genocide” the international community feels a sense of relief that they don’t have to do anything about it. Genocide means the peacekeepers show up, government gets reinstated, and hopefully things calm down in a few months with a lengthy healing process. The UN will take care of it (except they usually accomplish little) (but I’m not bitter).
But, the “heart of darkness” region has been in chaos basically since the Brits showed up two hundred years ago. Summing it up as “genocide” just doesn’t quite explain the whole of it. “Framing” the conflict as genocide is problematic for citizens of the CAR in that the nation’s agency is lost in conceptions of, oh, just another war in Africa. While the Responsibility to Protect initiative aims for genocide prevention (rather than only interfering once officially “declared” a genocide), there are significant doubts in its complications of semantics and logistics, which often defer international involvement out of fear of political partisanship (e.g. in Syria).
It is imperative that the politics and history of the conflict are discussed and presented throughout media more thoroughly, so that methods of international aid be significantly more effective and long-term. The storyline created by the media as Christians killing Muslims is extremely basic, and leaves out how Christians are being killed by Muslims too, there is a possibility of the country splitting in half, not to mention all of the other, to borrow a term from Jiwani and Young, “invisible” groups involved.
Yes, “genocide” gets people’s attention. But is attention more important than discursive investigation? Both solutions for representation are ethically challenging and provoking. It’d be great if you could comment with your opinion!
In my opinion, as I mentioned briefly in my blog post, ultimately it comes back to the responsibility of the consumers of the “framed” news. If we are keen on listening to the detailed dilemma that foreign nations are facing with, I hypothesize that the media will inevitably be force to serve that discursive investigation to us. Having said that, not everyone pays attention to foreign issues for multiple of reasons. Thus we have the “framing” or the overview of the global issues at hand. As you mentioned, the simplification of the issue by the use of the word, “genocide” gives this “sense of relief” to the international audience. This is by no means the best way of distributing the news but this will get people’s attention at least. And concurrently, if there were to be detailed discourse discussed about the issue, there is a possibility that the media would lose their audience members (unfortunately) because people are simply not concerned. Thus, like I have mentioned, it starts in urging the shift in the value of the common audience. To be aware of the issues around the world and to make sure that they are not completely unaffected from the events happening on the other side of the world.
Hi Rachel,
I really enjoyed your blog post. Thank’s for bringing to light an issues I did not know existed. I think that often time it’s true in news there there is a sense of disillusionment in the conflicts occurring in the African continent. We are told of South Sudan, The DRC, Rwanda, Uganda, and Kenya that often times that news get’s framed as that ” just another war in Africa.” How the news frames western understandings can be seen explicitly through the lack of education in western countries on the conditions of a HUGE and diverse continent. There is the tendency of the media to blanket the content as “Africa” a poor-black-conflict ridden continent. This is damaging because like you said it creates false ideas and stereotypes behind the continent, such as with the need to save the continent from genocide.