Africa is often misrepresented in the media as a poverty-stricken safari-land. Who benefits from such stereotypes? How can we reshape the image?
Outsiders and Africans themselves often resort to stereotypes to represent the continent — wild animals, jungles and poverty.
Who better than Africans to set the record straight?
In the latest episode of News Decoder’s podcast, “The Kids Are Alright,” African Leadership Academy (ALA) students Clarice Achola and Alexander Osodo Omondi discuss how images of Africa can misrepresent the complex continent and what can be done about it.
“Africans need to take the initiative to understand each other’s diversity and rid ourselves of learned colonial biases,” says Omondi, noting that Africans can write about their own continent to counter stereotypes commonly promoted by Western media.
Achola discusses an expression — “If it bleeds, it leads” — that captures why some media leverage hype to bolster their bottom line.
Some media promote stereotypes of Africa.
The ALA student, a social activist promoting women’s rights, cites a collection of satirical essays by the late Kenyan author Binyavanga Wainaina, How to Write about Africa, that examines why Western media is so unwilling to tell the whole truth about Africa.
In this, the second episode of this season’s “The Kids Are Alright,” Towela Tembo, a Zambian-born Botswanan photographer, urges Africans to think critically about each other.
“Deconstructing the opinions we have about each other is the first step in leading the way for others to unlearn the untrue African perceptions of being ‘less than’ and to encourage critical thinking about the African experience,” Tembo says.
ALA is one of 20 News Decoder partner schools in 14 countries. For more work by ALA students on News Decoder, click here.
“The Kids Are Alright” is produced with News Decoder partner Podium.me. Mollie Davidson edited this episode.
Great article.
BBC Africa recently discussed African representation and stereotypes in relation to Beyonce’s new Disney film, “Black is King.” http://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-africa-53697386
Sadly, the political and economic performance of the entire continent has been dismal and on a deteriorating path in the last years again, even though wars of previous decades are no longer as wide spread. So there might be individual success stories, but the aggregate has been utterly disappointing, for Africans and others alike.
Well Said! I believe we are all the puzzle piece in the bigger picture for the future of Africa. It is a continent with vast undeniable riches from coast to coast. It is our part to change the narrative in our daily interaction with non-Africans.