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Media Imperialism in Coverage of Armed Conflicts

Media Imperialism in Coverage of Armed Conflicts
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Western media seem to be a fan of choosing sides when it comes to complicated conflicts, such as the Israeli-Palestinian escalation or the Ukrainian crisis. AfroVerdict host sits down with an expert in digital communications to explore media imperialism and the reflection of Western bias in certain African media.
Western journalism "functions within the Western news values" and "within the neoliberal paradigm", thus promoting the "de-legitimizating the concerns" of Palestinians, according to Prof. Mandla Radebe, Associate Professor in the Department of Strategic Communication, Director of Centre for Data and Digital Communications, University of Johannesburg.
"Media coverage on contentious issues is not incidental, [but] rather informed by the choices that are made by journalists. It is important to note that the neutral stories that this journalism will tell us about, they adopt what many scholars would have characterized as description bias. This is when the media avoids unpacking underlying causes on important issues and this is extremely largely the case in the Palestinian situation," the communications expert says.
The media researcher unfolds a study he conducted on the coverage of the Ukrainian crisis in South African media. He emphasizes the "reliance on Western media" as a "source of information".
"The Western media itself has not been neutral and objective in its coverage of the war in Ukraine. Instead, it takes NATO's side and paddles that as an objective story, Prof. Radebe explains.
National news agencies across Africa "are forced to rely on Western agencies for content", due to a "lack of financial resources".

"In this way what happens is that the dominant Western views are therefore perpetuated in the process. The hegemony is therefore constructed and reconstructed," the professor elaborates.

That said, BRICS provides a platform for media cooperation among countries of the Global South to "ensure that there is a two-way flow of information".
"I'm talking about the equal media that would be used for distribution and redistribution of resources on an equal basis so that humanity can grow and be able to sustain and also defend our planet from all forms of degradations, Prof. Radebe states.
To hear what else the expert had to say, check out the entire episode of the AfroVerdict podcast, brought to you by Sputnik Africa.
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