Intellect

Authors:  Rui Alexandre Novais 
DOI: 10.1386/jams.1.3.415/1

Keywords
representation of Africa, dark and invisible continent, Portuguese press, meta-performance analysis, Western Sahara

Abstract
This article explores how the media, in a country that used to be a colonial power yet belongs to a relatively peaceful culture, depicts one of the oldest disputes in Africa. Drawing on a three-year analysis of the Portuguese press coverage of the Sahrawi conflict, it also tests some basic foundations of the selective representation of Africa in news reporting: the predominantly one-way traffic of information between the North and the South, as well as a similar imbalance in terms of the nature of the news treatment which tends to focus on negative and deviant issues often portrayed in a highly stereotyped fashion. The study does not corroborate Africa's thinness and invisibility but rather points to the pivotal influence of national context – the Portuguese afectio comunitatis combined with a notable sensitivity towards human rights and self-determination issues – in the reporting of a given political process.