Reporting African Elections - Towards a Peace Journalism Approach

The ability to be divided along ethnic and religious lines is inherent to much of Africa's media. Such potentially divisive reporting has the ability to incite violence through prejudiced information, particularly during election processes.
Reporting African Elections examines the impact of media messages on society, focusing on these electoral processes in Africa. Drawing upon the Peace Journalism approach to political reporting, this book offers a unifying conceptual framework for analysing the role journalists play in ensuring peaceful elections. Joseph Adebayo also looks at the impact training can have on election reportage, studying recent elections in Kenya and Nigeria in order to present a 17-point plan for reporting elections in Africa.

Reporting African Elections will be of interest to scholars and students of journalism, peace and conflict studies, and politics.

List of contents

1. Contextualising Peace Journalism 2. Political Reporting of Elections in Africa 3. Instigators or Mediators: Exploring the Role of the Media in Electoral Violence 4. The Need for Peace Journalism Training 5. Bringing Peace Journalism to Journalists Engaged in Reporting Elections in Nigeria: An Action Research Case Study 6. Journalists' responses to Peace Journalism 7. Journalism or Advocacy? Understanding the limits of Peace Journalism 8. A 17 Point Plan for Reporting African Elections 9. Conclusion: Towards a Proactive Approach to Reporting African Elections

About the author

Joseph Adebayo is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cape Town. He holds a PhD in Public Administration (specialising in peace-building) from the Durban University of Technology.

Summary

Reporting African Elections examines the impact of media messages on society, focusing on electoral processes in Africa. The book also explores the impact training has on election reportage and makes a case for a peace journalism model as an alternate approach to reporting African elections.

Product details

• Authors: Joseph Adebayo, Joseph (University of Cape Town Adebayo
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd.
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 30.06.2021
• EAN: 9781032094175
• ISBN: 978-1-0-3209417-5
• No. of pages: 136
• Series: Routledge African Studies
• Subjects: Social sciences, law, business > Political science > Political science and political education; Media Studies, LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Journalism, POLITICAL SCIENCE / General, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Political Ideologies / Democracy, Africa, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Peace, POLITICAL SCIENCE / World / African, Press & journalism, Peace studies and conflict resolution, News media and journalism, Peace studies & conflict resolution, Elections & referenda, Media studies: Journalism, Elections and referenda / suffrage, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Cultural & Ethnic Studies / African Studies