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NEGATIVE IMAGES ABOUT AFRICA ON AMERICA MEDIA

I have lived in America for the past fifteen years. In those years, I think I can count just in one hand the number of times Africa as a whole has been potrayed on the American media positively.

The first misconception that most American have about Africa is that its one country, instead of as a continent with fifty-two countries. Each independent countries with it’s own constitutions, governments, head of states and national anthems.

The portrayal of images about Africa on American News Media is no way an accident or a mere coincident. This is a part of a deliberate attempt major US media for whatever reason it serves them to have the entire continent of Africa to be shown negatively and constantly all the time.

A good example is that, of the fifty-two countries that are in Africa only fifteen of these countries have wars, famine and instability. When one of these worn torn countries are shown on the nightly news like CNN, NBC etc., some how the word “Africa” keeps coming up, even though that event happen in one particular country. Another example was President Clinton visit to Ghana in 1999. There was a particular incident were in the crowd that went to meet both presidents in the Independent Square in Accra Ghana got out of hand. The American News media choose to only focus on that one particular incident and they repeated it over and over again. I am sure there were other positive things they could have shown of President Clinton visit to Ghana, which they ignored.

The civil war in Yugoslavia did not resulted in the entire Europe been potrayed as an entire continent in war unlike the double standard they do for Africa. Another negative image the media is guilt about is the amount of airtime given to documentaries about wild animals, safaris and villages with their inhabitants who most of the...