Douglas, Omega. 2019. Backstories / Black Stories: Black Journalists, INGOs and the Racial Politics of Representing Sub-Saharan Africa in Mainstream UK News Media. Doctoral thesis, Goldsmiths, University of London [Thesis] https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/26352/ The version presented here may differ from the published, performed or presented work. Please go to the persistent GRO record above for more information. If you believe that any material held in the repository infringes copyright law, please contact the Repository Team at Goldsmiths, University of London via the following email address: [email protected]. The item will be removed from the repository while any claim is being investigated. For more information, please contact the GRO team: [email protected] Backstories / Black Stories Black Journalists, INGOs and the Racial Politics of Representing Sub- Saharan Africa in Mainstream UK News Media Omega Douglas Goldsmiths, University of London A thesis submitted for the degree of PhD in Media and Communications 2018 1 Declaration I hereby declare that this thesis is my own work and that, to the best of my knowledge, it does not contain any material previously published or written by another person, nor material that has been accepted for the award of any other degree of the university or other institute of higher learning, except where due acknowledgement has been made in the text. Signed: Date: 18.07.18 2 Acknowledgements First, a huge thanks to my research participants for their time, enthusiasm and kindness. This project would not have been possible without their generosity, candour, insight and, for many, their staying power in what can be unwelcoming industries. I have been lucky enough to benefit from the sharp intellect and support of not one, not two, but three great supervisors: Natalie Fenton, Sara Ahmed and Anamik Saha. I want to thank Natalie and Sara for kindly and diligently guiding me through the first two years of what, at times, felt like a never-ending journey; Anamik for stepping in when Sara left for pastures new and, along with Natalie, expertly seeing me over the finishing line. Angela Phillips’ ongoing encouragement and cheerleading has been invaluable and both she, and Julian Henriques, were instrumental in my decision to take the plunge and embark on a PhD. I am also grateful to others at Goldsmiths for their smiles, time and feedback on draft chapters, including Aeron Davis, Des Freedman and Gholam Khiabany. Thanks also to Becky Gardiner for inviting me ‘back on board’ once the final write up was over. Kimberlé Crenshaw’s excellent teaching towards the end of my final year was a powerful reminder of the value of academic research. Sharing tea, food, wine and learning with fellow PhD students has made this journey fun and even more rewarding. A very special thanks to Chandra Frank and Edwina Peart, my PhD sisters. Finally, and most importantly, I want to thank my family for their never-ending love and support. Mark, you’re phenomenal, as is your warmth, patience, belief and good cooking. Cuba and Ruby, our bright stars, your smiles, laughter, witty observations and all-round brilliance never ceases to inspire me. Thank you for not complaining too much when I’ve been shackled to my computer. To my wonderful sisters, Esther and Okela, nieces, Isabella, Aza and Amber- Rae, nephew, Zachary, brother-in-law, Ken, and my best friend, Kate: one love. And last, but never least, to my mum, Louise, you really are the best, as is your proof reading. This is for you all, and in memory of Lance. A luta continua. 3 Abstract Academic concern with representations of sub-Saharan Africa in Western news media is intensifying. In particular, there is burgeoning interest in how INGOs and black journalists, within and outside the African diaspora, influence the narration of Africa in international news. The positionalities of both actors in the field of reporting on sub-Saharan Africa has far- reaching implications for whether historically rooted, racist Western understandings of the region may be subverted. Yet questions of race exist on the margins of scholarship in this area. Unlike most current research on coverage of Africa, this study inserts issues of race and racism into debate. It is distinctive by linking critical race and postcolonial theories to Bourdieu’s (2005) ‘journalistic field’. Through in-depth interviews with journalists of colour and INGO press officers who work for some of Britain’s largest news and aid organisations, the concept of postcolonial journalistic field theory (PCJFT) is developed. This new interdisciplinary framework, alongside the development of notions such as quadruple consciousness, schizophrenic inclusion and life-in- death, importantly adds to theories of representation, black (British) identity, journalism, race and cultural production studies, by showing how methods and critiques that are part of critical race and postcolonial theories, enable theoretically grounded accounts of how and why mediated racial discourses occur. PCJFT shows that a contextual study is essential to understanding the racial politics that this research found informs the production and representation of news on sub-Saharan Africa in UK media, by accounting for the complex relations between journalists’ experiences and ‘standpoints’ (Hill Collins, 1998, 2000), institutional culture and the power of news media and INGO sources. As such, this study reveals a historicised, racialised, capitalist, moralising discourse exists in relation to mainstream UK news on black African Others, and proposes a phenomenological approach to race within journalism as a vital means of dismantling such discourse. 4 Contents Declaration………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………2 Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………3 Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………4 Chapter 1: Introduction.………………………………………………………………………………………….10 1.1: Research questions located in academic debate……………………………………………………………..13 1.2: Research journey……………………………………………………………………………………………………………15 The absence of race on the media-INGO research agenda………………………………………………19 1.4: Approach and chapters……………………………………………………………………………………………………25 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………30 Chapter 2: Journalism studies meets postcolonial theory……………………………………….31 2.1:How did mainstream news organisations and INGOs develop closer partnerships?..............................................................................................................................31 2.2: The political economy of news…………………………………………………………………………………………32 2.3: Media-source relations……………………………………………………………………………………………………35 2.4: Media-NGO relations: extending the frame?.......................................................................39 2.5: Media-INGO relations in a post-colonial frame………………………………………………………………..42 2.5: How development can be understood as racialised…………………………………………………………45 2.6: The felt effects of networked containment……………………………………………………………………..47 2.7: Development discourse, race and media representation…………………………………………………49 Life-in-death……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………49 Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………53 Chapter 3: Mapping race onto the journalistic field …………………………………………………54 3.1: Field theory.……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………55 ‘Field’ as a research tool…………………………………………………………………………………………………57 3.3: Critiques of field theory……………………………………………………………………………………………………58 Scope for change in the journalistic field?............................................................................59 3.4: Reading race in Bourdieu…………………………………………………………………………………………………60 Habitus, race and class…………………………………………………………………………………………………..61 3.6: Race at the intersection of ‘habitus’ and institutional ‘doxa’……………………………………………62 5 Race, difference and cultural capital………………………………………………………………………………63 3.7: The building blocks of postcolonial journalistic field theory……………………………………………64 Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………69 Chapter 4: Standpoint theory as method …………………………………………………………………70 4.1: Standpoint theory as epistemological framework……………………………………………………………72 4.2: Key terms explained…………………………………………………………………………………………………………73 ‘Black journalists’……………………………………………………………………………………………………………73 ‘Mainstream news media’………………………………………………………………………………………………74 ‘Sub-Saharan Africa’…………………………………………………………………………………………………………75 ‘INGOs’……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………76 ‘Politics of representation’…………………………………………………………………………………………………76 4.3: The relevance of standpoint theory to interviewing…………………………………………………………77 4.4: Journalist interviewees……………………………………………………………………………………………………79 4.5: Organisational and production contexts…………………………………………………………………………82 4.6: INGO interviewees…………………………………………………………………………………………………………84 4.7: Analysing interview data…………………………………………………………………………………………………86 4.8: Discourse analysis of news stories……………………………………………………………………………………87 Selecting news stories……………………………………………………………………………………………………..87 Foucauldian discourse analysis as method………………………………………………………………………90 4.9: Conducting the research as outsider-within: messiness, issues and solutions…………………93 The question of anonymity……………………………………………………………………………………………..96 Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………97 Chapter 5: ‘Standpoint’ and ‘habitus’ in the journalistic field: black journalists’ experiences of reporting on sub-Saharan Africa …………………………………………………………98 5.1: Africa