The Role of Media in Reporting conflicts

We have seen in the previous articles that, like policymakers outside the continent, the media also have a tendency to attach a low priority to conflicts in Africa on the whole. This seems to apply to even to certain media corporations within Africa. This topic aims to investigate why this is the case. Media agenda-setting is determined, to a certain extent, according to internal dynamics, but it is also subject to influences from other actors.

Internal Dynamics

Decision-making within the media needs to be viewed through the process known as ‘gatekeeping’. In a world overflowing with massive amounts of information, the difficulty in media decisions is not necessarily in finding adequate information, but perhaps more in filtering, selecting and making sense of it. ‘Gatekeepers’ do this at each step of news production, deciding which information to ‘let through the gate’.

Gatekeeping happens when an editor or a producer decides to send a reporter to a particular country to cover a particular event, or to open a bureau and station a reporter permanently. Reporters gatekeep when they decide which information to include and exclude from their reports. Editors and producers again become gatekeepers when they decide which stories to include and exclude, and the order in which they are printed or broadcast.

So how do gatekeepers make these decisions? What rules do they follow, when deciding which foreign conflicts to report on, if any? Media gatekeepers may be guided by many considerations: at times they may feel the need to raise an issue that they think is important, or they may simply try to give the consumers what they think want.

Usually, decisions are made on ‘gut instinct’ developed through years of experience in what sells and what doesn’t, without confirming with their consumers each time. Some of the ‘rules’ that may affect the selection or rejection of a conflict may include the following: proximity (is it close to home?), timeliness (did it just happen?), prominence (are many people interested?), significance (how many people are affected?), novelty (is it unusual?), and emotive appeal (is there sadness or a thrill?).

Regarding conflict, a major concern is: does it involve our country’? Another question is: are other media corporations interested? A story in one newspaper on an event may attract others to cover it leading to a snowball effect, or ‘pack journalism’. Furthermore, by focusing on one particular conflict, editors and producers feel they can keep their audiences interested, tuning in again to see what has happened in that country. They can also keep costs down.

There are a number of other factors affecting the media industry that have had an impact on the selection of conflicts for coverage. During the Cold War, conflict was easily ‘framed’ within the context of the East versus West political climate. The nature and background of conflicts in the post-Cold War world appeared more complex without such a frame to easily define and categorise them, and so coverage of them simply declined.

Competition between media corporations has also increased over the past twenty years, meaning less profitability, and consequently the amount of funds available for information gathering has decreased. Media corporations appear to be closing down bureaus in Africa rather than expanding them.

Technological advances have also affected coverage. The development of satellite phones and satellite video links has meant that reporters can increasingly report live from the field (which adds to the appeal of news), but the increased spending on such technology leaves less budget for news gathering. On top of this, the preference for live reporting and `fresh’ news means that unless reporters are on the ground and able to report live, a story is unlikely to be broadcast.

Logistical difficulties in many African conflict zones mean the events are less likely to be chosen. Danger for reporters in covering conflicts is also given as reason, though not very convincingly — Iraq is one of the most dangerous places for Western journalist, yet coverage of that conflict is high.

All in all, considering the issue of competition and technological advances, the priorities have shifted from news gathering to news packaging and presentation. Sensationalism thus becomes another key factor in the selection of conflict. While conflict in the DRC may have difficulty in receiving coverage, a volcanic explosion, or a plane door coming off in mid-flight in the same country, are likely to be covered or at least mentioned.

One of the major factors behind the Western domination of news and the increasingly assimilated news agendas is the concentration of ownership of the media. Approximately 90 percent of the media is controlled by one individual in Italy (the former prime minister), while in Turkey 60 percent of ‘media is controlled by two corporations. Global media tycoon Rupert Murdoch has 175 editors working for him across the world.

Western domination and assimilation are ensured in the media industry because, with few exceptions, it is only the Western corporations who have the budget to enable them a global reach in information gathering. The majority of media corporations in developing countries simply cannot afford to station reporters outside their borders for any length of time. Foreign news in Zambia’s The Post, or ZNBC comes almost exclusively from external (usually Western) sources. News on Angola, for example, is not gathered by Zambian journalists, but is bought from a Western wire service or from the BBC.

Due to these factors, much of conflict coverage throughout the world is Western-centric. This is compounded by the fact that Western media corporations themselves are largely dominated by white people. Non-whites make up approximately 30 percent of the population, but less than 12 percent of the newsrooms in the USA.

Ethnic minorities are almost completely absent from French media, and former BBC Director-General publicly admitted in 2001 that BBC was “hideously white”, with the 98 percent of the management structure being white (BBC Scotland, 2001). Domination by a white media primarily for white audiences may be a major factor some of the selection of conflicts, explaining why in 2000, for example, violence against a relatively small number of white farmers in Zimbabwe was given greater coverage on CNN than was the DRC conflict (black on black violence), although admittedly there was little coverage on either.

Policymaker Influence

Policymakers appear to have a considerable influence on the media, to the extent that the policymakers are seen in a number of studies as the major players in determining the media agenda. This influence is manifested in a number of ways. As noted above, competition and expensive new technologies are reducing the budget available for news gathering in foreign conflict zones.

Taking advantage of government sources (instead of going to the actual scene of the events), much of the reporting on foreign affairs p” general takes place in the domestic capitals where media corporations are based. This, of course, reduces the costs of reporting on conflicts, but it also adds perceived credibility to the story (the media cannot be held responsible for errors made by their government sources).

The use of government sources and government perspective is not simply a matter of cost-cutting and credibility, though. Journalists are accustomed to looking at foreign conflicts from the perspective of their own country, and how that conflict may affect their country and people and their interests, partly out of patriotic sentiment and partly as a means of helping their local audience to identify with and feel concerned about that conflict.

 But it is not only active probing by the media of government officials that results in policymaker influence. Policymakers actively take advantage of the media to propel their own agendas. When the media ‘detect’ a rising conflict, it may be because policymakers (whether at an executive level, legislative level or at a departmental level such as humanitarian aid agency bureaucracy), seeing the conflict as an issue of importance, have attempted to raise its profile by co-opting the media.

They may use the media as a tool to raise a particular conflict’s position on the public agenda, sparking pressure from that quarter, or they may use the media to speak to other elites, to convince other departments, ministries or political actors of the importance of the conflict. They may even hire public relations firms to produce and distribute press kits on certain issues, and encourage the media to accompany them on fact-finding missions.

On a more sinister note, policymakers can use a number of techniques to prevent media activity on issues that they want to keep out of the spotlight. They may release, or ‘leak’ information of importance on another matter to push a particular issue off the front pages of the newspapers.

They may also exclude certain journalists from their circle of information for reporting on a particular issue or in a certain way that is damaging to their interests (or reward journalists with information who are supportive of them). They may also organise ‘flak’, a campaign involving numerous calls or letters to complain to a media corporation about certain news coverage. In conflict zones in which the military of a country are involved, they may control access to information by restricting access to the actual battlefield, or instead placing journalists within their own military units as ’embeds’.

Public Influence

Media corporations (with some exceptions) are essentially businesses that aim at making profits through sales of their product (the news) and of advertising. To a certain extent this makes them accountable to their customers. The media are particularly interested in satisfying those customers with considerable buying power, usually the advertisers. This gives advertisers considerable power over the programming of both print and broadcast media. Advertisers are generally wary of disturbing complexities that will interfere with the buying mood (Herman and Chomsky, 1994: 14-18).

 Satisfying their other customers (the readers and viewers) also means keeping coverage of foreign conflicts simple and easy to understand, as well as generally keeping them interested so that they will continue reading or watching their product the following day. Such influences are likely a major factor in the tendency of the media to focus on a single conflict at a time, and to package their news in a morality play format that is emotive and designed to evoke sympathy for the victims and anger for those perceived to be the perpetrators.

Conflicts that cannot be easily framed in such simple terms with a ‘good guy’ and a ‘bad guy’ are likely to be dismissed and not covered. The media may also perceive that the public is becoming disinterested or fatigued by extensive coverage of a particular conflict and that conflict will also fade away from the spotlight. Such views may be misplaced, editors and producers may make less than accurate assumptions about the mood of their customers, but consideration of the perceived satisfaction of the customer gives the public influence over the media agenda.

Other actors from the public realm can influence the media in different ways. NGOs active in humanitarian aid in a conflict zone may attempt to use the media to draw attention to that conflict, out of concern for the lack of attention given to that conflict, but often also to appeal to the general public to donate funds to their organisation and cause.

They may even exaggerate the magnitude of the crisis and inflate the numbers in their needs assessments in order to draw greater media attention to that crisis. Celebrities or other individuals moved by the plight of people suffering as a result of a conflict may also champion the cause of a neglected conflict, using the media to draw attention to the issue and encourage action, through visits, demonstrations or interviews.