The Racial Dynamics of Reporting Africa Colonial and Decolonial Practices in Mainstream Western News Media

Preface

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1. Media-INGO relations in a post- and decolonial frame

Chapter 2. Decolonial journalistic field theory: A toolkit for unpacking colonial and decolonial practices in dominant Western journalism

Chapter 3. In the newsroom: Being ‘diverse’, being Black, being included?

Chapter 4. In the field: Black journalists' experiences of reporting on Africa for Western news

Chapter 5. INGO sources for Western international news on Africa

Chapter 6. Black journalists, INGOs and representations of Africa

Chapter 7. Conclusion

Index

Biography

Omega Douglas is a lecturer in Media, Communications and Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths College, University of London, where she teaches undergraduate and postgraduate students across theory and practice and convenes the BA Journalism programme. Her research interests include race, representation and the role of diasporic and transnational communities, as well as international institutions, such as INGOs, in global communications. Prior to this book, she co-authored Journalism, Culture and Society: A Critical Theoretical Approach to Global Journalistic Practice (Routledge, 2022).

'In this analytically rigorous, elegantly written, theoretically ground-breaking and empirically embedded investigation of the racial dynamics of the UK reporting of the Ebola epidemic, Douglas takes to task Western-centric journalism and how notions of race and practices of racism are made and experienced. It is a fitting and forceful challenge to Western journalism and media studies to get serious about the racialisation of news production and representation. It needs to be read by journalism and media scholars and practitioners the world over.' 

Natalie Fenton, Goldsmiths, University of London

 

'Bringing a postcolonial perspective to the study of news production, Omega Douglas offers an urgent and incisive analysis of how race and racism shape the journalistic field in the West. This work stands out as one of the most innovative and original studies of journalism I have encountered in recent years.'

Anamik Saha, Professor of Race and Media, University of Leeds

 

'This is a compelling, insightful, original and thought-provoking book that challenges Western-centric coverage of Africa. Omega Douglas situates reporting on the 2014–16 Ebola crisis within the broader shift in global racial politics, developing our understanding of how the media racialises issues, and recognising the space in which journalists can help reorient perspectives in a decolonial sense. This timely book significantly contributes to helping us analyse the insidious ways that media continues to frame and racialise coverage about Africa.'

Ismail Einashe, international journalist and author