Journal of African Media Studies - Media and the Coronavirus Pandemic in Africa (Part Three), Mar 2022

South Africa has had a long history of institutionalized racial segregation and although it came to an end in the early 1990s, the level of power, racial and inequalities are still evident to date, making South Africa one of the most unequal societies in the world. Kenya, on the other hand, has had its share of inequalities, particularly inclined towards political and ethnic dimensions. The emergence of COVID-19 has further uncovered social and political fractures within the two societies with racialized and discriminatory responses to fear disproportionately affecting marginalized groups. Using qualitative research design, and case study approach, a corpus of tweets from social media archive (Twitter) when the first COVID-19 cases were recorded in both countries were analysed to ascertain the conversations occurring and if it re-enforces existing postcolonial issues. The study argued that Twitter conversations that occurred in both countries show that postcolonial issues of power and race are rife and appeared in many public conversations on social media.

Despite its prevalence among Nigerian online readers, the motives for, and implications of, online secondary gatekeeping – a practice where online media audiences select further fragments from published news, aggregate them and share with fellow social media users – have remained unexplored particularly as regards possible sharing of news about the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, this study examined the motives for online news sharing, the newsworthiness criteria applied by Nigerian social media users while selecting and sharing COVID-19-related news and implications of this practice for users’ general knowledge about the virus. Online survey with 349 social media users and five Focus Group Discussion sessions with purposively selected social media users provided data for the study. Findings show that 94.8 per cent of the respondents shared news items about confirmed cases (48.7 per cent) and recoveries (46.1 per cent), while only 5.2 per cent of the respondents shared information about COVID-19 fatalities. Apart from fact-checking stories to confirm their veracity, users applied various newsworthiness criteria such as intensity (25.2 per cent), proximity (14.0 per cent), consequence (12.3 per cent), bizarre (11.2 per cent) and personality (10.9 per cent). Findings further show that the respondents applied 44.076 times the messages they were exposed to through social media to protect themselves against COVID-19. Nigerian social media users are active online secondary gatekeepers, and exposure to COVID-19 stories through social media during the pandemic enhanced their general knowledge about the virus.

Based on virtual ethnography and online interviews, we provide new evidence of how fact-checking organizations based in Zimbabwe, South Africa and Namibia responded to the influx of conspiracy theories, mis- and disinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study seeks to answer the following questions: What kind of responses did ZimFact, Africa Check and Namibia Fact Check put in place to combat the spread of the ‘disinfodemic’ during the outbreak of COVID-19 in Southern Africa? To what extent were these interventions effective in terms of combating the viral spread of the ‘disinfodemic’ in the broader information ecosystem? It argues that through a combination of manual and technology-enabled verification processes, these organizations were partly able to debunk some of the harmful, conspiratorial and misleading claims related to the coronavirus. It demonstrates that fact-checking alone is not enough to stem the ‘disinfodemic’ unless it is complemented by an ecosystem that prioritizes access to information, media literacy initiatives, proactive takedown interventions by platform companies and increased public awareness on truthful and credible public health information. Furthermore, fact-checking organizations need to increase the speed at which they respond to the ‘disinfodemic’ if virality, which is the major driver of this ‘phenomenon’, is to be mitigated. We recommend that fact-checkers should implement efficient mechanisms of decentralizing their activities, amplify the sharing of verified information, forge collaborative initiatives with key actors and ramp up critical media literacy programmes.

Senegal is a country with a long history of oral tradition, where the griot is the leading figure responsible for the transmission of messages from generation to generation over centuries. They are highly regarded and considered in society as a mediator and advisor through their music or spoken word. As Senegal witnessed the arrival of the first cases of coronavirus, a large number of musicians used social media to disseminate songs raising coronavirus awareness. Following these first initiatives, President Macky Sall met with several acclaimed musicians in the country. This led to the production of a polyphonic song released by the social media platforms of the Ministry of Health and Social Action. This article looks at music as an ‘edutaining’ and phenomenologically proximate communication strategy to raise awareness about coronavirus and the measures that can be taken to prevent its spread.

Coronaviruses have been in existence for over five decades – shaking and taking lives around the world. COVID-19 is similar to others in this regard, but different because it has had a more global impact, causing more deaths than previous life-threatening viruses. In order to reduce deaths and curtail the virus, different communication forms are being used in various countries. Hinged on the agenda-setting and the individual differences theories of media, this study analyses the use of photographs, comedy and music in communicating coronavirus messages on Instagram, the influence of these messages on preventive measures and the attitude of Nigerian citizens to prevention tips based on the content of the messages. Using mixed method of qualitative content analysis and survey, 120 Instagram COVID-19 messages from sixteen social media skit creators/influencers were analysed. Responses of 247 survey respondents, mostly from South West Nigeria, were used to examine the influence of these messages on citizens’ preventive habits. Results of the study reveal that different methods including pictures, comedy, music, satire and spoken words were used in communicating coronavirus messages and preventive tips on Instagram. However, music, comedy, photograph and short film messages gained more attention and responses from citizens. Citizens identified them as helpful in cultivating preventive habits because these messages were easier to remember and they gave detailed explanations of prevention habits citizens should adhere to in order to curtail the spread of coronavirus. Media should therefore continue to use different strategies, especially music, comedy, photographs and short films, to reach citizens.

When the first death from Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was reported in Kenya on 15 March 2020 the mainstream media seemed to play its role of sensitizing the public and giving coverage as the government enforced regulations to fight the pandemic. However, a critical observation indicated that the media were not doing much more than government propaganda. The focus of this study is to analyse the ideology that drives the Kenyan mainstream media. The research particularly focuses on the study of photographs that were published in Kenya’s two leading newspapers, the Daily Nation and The Standard, between 15 March and 30 April 2020, to decode the ideological meanings hidden in the photographs. This study is guided by these three research questions: how is the fight against COVID-19 photographically represented in Kenyan newspapers? What mythic meanings are embedded in these photographs? What ideological nuances can be read in these photographs? The analysis used Roland Barthes’s framework of semiotic analysis. Findings show that the photographs published in the two newspapers in the period of study support the dominant government ideology and promote gender and class inequality.

As part of its efforts to manage the pandemic, the government of Ghana has tried to control messaging via press conferences, only to find out that it has to contend with a preponderance of, sometimes conflicting, narratives from a variety of sources. These messages come from traditional and social media, adopting conventional and alternative formats for content and delivery. In this article, we examine the dialectical relationship between the government’s COVID-19 communication strategy and alternative messages from a select range of sources that have emerged. We evaluate the extent to which the latter messages reinforced or undermined official narratives; the relative trust that each set of messages is generating among citizens; the implications for effective management of the crisis; and steps that the state took to maintain/regain control as it sought to combat what it considered to be (dis)misinformation from some of these sources.

This research is conducted to ascertain informed public’s views on Nigerian government’s management of news and information during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic in Nigeria. Purposively selected participants were engaged in a WhatsApp conference to investigate how they perceive government’s management of news and information on the pandemic; expose government’s efforts in disseminating news and information, and its influence on the overall management and control of the disease in Nigeria. Using framing theory in its analysis, the article argues that government’s nepotistic, secretive management of news and information on COVID adversely affected public trust, which is read as a form of censorship through silence designed to obstruct transparency, accountability and citizenship participation on national issues, contrary to the principles of Open Government Partnership (OGP) which Nigeria, is member to. The article reiterates on the need for government to build the confidence of Nigerians and boost its overall image.

In addition to the devastating loss of lives, the harm caused by the COVID-19 pandemic to individuals and communities around the world has caused seismic disruptions in economic, social and interpersonal relationships. The pandemic has affected international diplomatic relations as well by amplifying existing geopolitical tensions. By situating discourses of Africa and Africans within global ferments of pandemic politics, this study interrogates how Africa and its peoples were invoked in global media. Drawing from postcolonial theory and conceptual propositions of Afrophobia, the study uses multimodal discourse analysis to critically examine news stories that engaged with two phenomena: controversies regarding the African director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO) and xenophobic treatment of Africans in China. Findings indicate elements of Afrophobia were evident in the Trump Administration’s and US conservative media outlets’ engagement with WHO. Additionally, the study showed the mainstreaming of non-western Afrophobia through the example of the xenophobic treatment of Africans in China. It concludes by proposing a contextual, intersectional and critical geopolitical analytical optics for a more robust understanding of the global Black experience.