War in the North? a Critical Study of News Coverage of the Lord's
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War in the North? A Critical Study of News Coverage of the Lord’s Resistance Army 2004-2008 BY Nicole P Reiz Submitted to the graduate degree program in Geography and the Graduate Faculty of the University of Kansas in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. ________________________________ Co-Chair Steve Egbert ________________________________ Co-Chair Shannon O’Lear ________________________________ Garth Myers Date Defended: 10/1/2010 The Thesis Committee for Nicole P Reiz certifies that this is the approved version of the following thesis: War in the North? A Critical Study of News Coverage of the Lord’s Resistance Army 2004-2008 ________________________________ Co-Chair Steve Egbert ________________________________ Co-Chair Shannon O’Lear Date approved: 10/1/2010 ii Abstract In the northern region of Uganda a conflict between Ugandan governmental forces and the Lord’s Resistance Army, a regional rebel movement, has been ongoing for more than 20 years. Though this conflict has resulted in the abduction of thousands of children, the mutilation and murder of thousands more and the displacement of millions, is has been largely ignored in the international media. This study employed mixed methods to evaluate the volume, frequency, tone and type of coverage the conflict has received in The New York Times, The Guardian (London), The Mail & Guardian (Johannesburg, SA) and the Monitor (Kampala, Uganda) from January 2004 – December 2008 to gain some sense in how the media is covering this conflict. To attain a deeper understanding of why the discourse surrounding this conflict is being shaped in the way it is through the media, the Theory of Media Gatekeeping was utilized to posit possible explanations for the differences in coverage between the four media outlets under study. The analysis demonstrated a general lack of coverage in the international periodicals in respect to the conflict, however, the Guardian and Mail & Guardian though low in volume provided generally more nuanced and in-depth analysis of the conflict than The New York Times . The study highlighted the general lack of coverage in the international press but also further demonstrated the ways in which the US media differs from the European press, a point that previous studies have identified. Results of the study revealed that the conflict is framed differently in the various periodicals and certain aspects are focused on more heavily in some periodicals than others. For instance, in the Mail & Guardian the Juba Peace Talks received more attention while in The New York Times episodes of violence were more prevalent. In line with other popular geopolitical studies, the results of this study further demonstrate the need for critical analysis of the press and other media because of their ability to shape public perception and knowledge of places and events. iii Acknowledgements This thesis would not have been possible without the support of many close friends, family, and supportive faculty members. My parents have been beyond supportive through my decision continue my studies. My advisors, Shannon O’Lear and Stephen Egbert have been the best advisors I could ever ask for, always supportive but also never failing in pushing me to become a better scholar. I would like to thank Dr. Bill Woods for planting the idea in my head that I might enjoy graduate school and teaching me how to do proper fieldwork. I have countless friends to thank for understanding the many, many times I have been MIA for days at a time and always listening when I have vented my frustrations about certain aspects of this study. Lastly, I would like to thank La Prima Tazza for being open to late and supplying me countless shots of espresso. I never would have completed this thesis otherwise. iv Table of Contents Chapter Page I. INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………….1 a. Colonial Uganda………………………………………………………5 b. Post-Independence Uganda…………………………………………...7 c. Important Events in the Period Under Study 2004-2008………..........15 d. Importance of the Newspaper and International News……….............19 II. CHAPTER TWO: Literature Review…………………………………20 a. Brief History of Geopolitics………………………………………….21 b. Critical Geopolitics…………………………………………………..27 c. The Role of Popular Geopolitics Case Studies………………………31 d. A Critique of Critical Geopolitics……………………………………36 e. Trends in International News Coverage……………………………..37 III. CHAPTER THREE: Methodology…………………………………….40 a. Framing………………………………………………………………40 b. Periodicals Under Study……………………………………………..42 c. Mixed Methods Discussion………………………………………….46 d. Article Selection and Quantitative Methods…………………………48 e. Episodic vs. Thematic News Coverage………………………………53 IV. CHAPTER FOUR: Results……………………………………………..57 a. Quantitative Analysis…………………………………………………57 b. Key Terms Analysis…………………………………………………..64 c. Restrictions of the Quantitative Analysis……………………………..70 d. Episodic vs. Framing Analysis………………………………………..71 e. Limitations and Potential Issues………………………………………73 V. CHAPTER FIVE: Discussion……………………………………………75 a. Towards a Critical Geopolitics………………………………………..76 b. Media Gatekeeping…………………………………………………....76 c. Economic Influences…………………………………………………..78 d. The Role of Wire Agencies and Stringers…………………………......83 e. Issues of Journalist Placement and Reporting in Conflict Zones……...86 f. Frameworks……………………………………………........................88 VI. CHAPTER SIX: Conclusion……………………………………………95 v Introduction In the U.S. media and much of the Western world, news coverage of Africa tends to be dominated by war, violence, disease, and disasters, both natural and man-made. Coverage of these events is usually graphic, accompanied by violent images and often lacking in-depth analysis or background information. The result of this episodic coverage is a public perception in the West of Africa as a “dark continent” with many problems and few solutions (Kothari 2002, 2). The dominance of negative coverage of Africa by the Western media has consequences. Reader fatigue can push editors to run fewer and shorter stories regarding Africa, further exacerbating the simplistic and negative perceptions of Westerners towards Africa. With the development of technology, the increased ease of communication, travel, and the proliferation of news availability, one would think that coverage of Africa would improve and become more nuanced and diverse, however this is seemingly not the case. Numerous studies indicate that in the current 24-hour news environment, news coverage of Africa continues to be dominated by violence and framed in graphic, simplistic, and tribal terms (Hawk, 1992; Fair 1992; Myers et al. 1996; McNulty 1999). This study examined news coverage of one specific conflict in Africa through four geographically diverse media outlets over a four-year period. Specifically, this study examined media coverage of a four-year period (2004-2008) regarding the long-term conflict in northern Uganda from The New York Times , Guardian (London), Mail & Guardian (Johannesburg, South Africa) and the Daily Monitor (Kampala, Uganda). I analyzed the coverage through content and intertextual analyses to assess whether the 1 simplistic and negative media bias seen in other studies still held true, and posited possible factors for why or why not this bias does or does not remain. The following study examined a subset of media coverage of a civil war that has been affecting the peoples of northern Uganda for over 20 years. Although this conflict has affected millions of Ugandans, few outside of Uganda know little if anything about the conflict. Jan Egeland, the former UN Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, has said of the situation: "I cannot find any other part of the world that is having an emergency on the scale of Uganda, that is getting such little international attention,"(BBC 11/10/2003, last accessed 6/12/2009). This raises the question: why has the conflict in northern Uganda, which has killed thousands and displaced millions, been largely ignored by the international community and international press? Media are a powerful mechanism for distributing information. Because the media are powerful hubs of information dissemination and shapers of public awareness and perception, the way in which they frame events and issues is worthy of study and critique. This study followed methods set out by previous popular geopolitical and communication studies (e.g., Sharp 1993, 1996; Dodds 1996; Myers et al. 1996) to examine the different narratives found in the national and international media regarding the ongoing conflict in northern Uganda. We can generate possible explanations for the existence of multiple narratives by integrating the theory of media gatekeeping set out by Lewin (1947), White (1950) and Shoemaker (1991, 1999) into the methods set out by Sharp (1993, 1996); Dodds (1996) and Myers et al. (1996). The possible explanations for these different narratives were set in relation to the agents and power structures located at different scalar levels within the structure of the media, as well as extra-media influences. 2 The objectives of this study were: to ascertain if there are measurable differences in the amount of coverage regarding the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and the northern conflict in the four periodicals under study, to qualitatively demonstrate how the conflict is portrayed differently through four geographically distinct print media outlets, to highlight missing voices regarding this conflict within media reports, and finally to posit possible