Continent to discover

The Italian media always talk too little about Africa and mainly in anxiety-producing and security terms, without giving space to development and innovation news that can change a limited narrative. May 25, Africa Day (on that day in 1963 today's African Union was founded) is the day of L'Africa MEDIAta, report presented by Amref Health Africa-Italy. Curated by the Media Observatory of the University of Pavia, it aims to analyze how and how much the Italian media report on Africa. Unfortunately, the trait of continuity is the marginality of communication on Africa and on African and Afro-descendant people in the so-called mainstream media, i.e. the main radio, television, web and printed newspapers. Yet, as we often recall also from these columns, there is potential and a dynamism due to the young average age that add another face to the continent of our destiny. Just to give an example, for African technological startups compared to 2020, in 2021, there was a +113% for investments. The study reveals the prevalence of information aimed at the security and migration issues of our country ("Africa here") or - much less - on wars that are by definition "forgotten" by us.

From the examination of the overall coverage of Africa in the six main Italian newspapers (Avvenire, Corriere della Sera, Il Fatto Quotidiano, Il Giornale, La Repubblica, La Stampa) in the course of 2022 it emerges that the average number of news items on the front pages of newspapers is 13 on average per month (-3 compared to 2021), with 84% of articles relating to Africa "here" (migration flows and security).

In the prime time news and infotainment programs the tendency towards the progressive reduction of news on Africa is accentuated. In the 7 main news programs analysed, only 1,174 relevant news items were recorded (22% less than in 2021), of which three quarters concerned migratory flows and reception management. The migratory emergency is in fact one of the most discussed topics, especially in relation to particular facts, such as the case of the Ocean Viking. In 2022, news on war and terrorism decreased in favor of news on institutional travel of Italian ministers in Africa, gas supplies, cop27 and news events such as the Soumahoro case. For the other issues, silence on Africa is almost total.

The marginality of attention for the continent is also confirmed in the 85 infotainment programs analyzed on seven television networks: out of 61,320 hours broadcast in a year, 700 references to the Africa, on average one reference every 87 hours of programming. Africa is represented as a single reality, devoid of specificity and uniformly characterized by a hopeless future. Furthermore, following the start of the war in Ukraine, the presence of a narration of migrations within the programs is noted which distinguishes between real refugees fleeing an invasion (white Ukrainians) and "convenient" refugees who come from the African continent. It doesn't help to understand the narrative denoted by echoes of despair, death, torture, without there being the possibility of deepening paths, stories, places of belonging, biographies and experiences. It's crushed. in short, the global gaze is missing.

The online magazines that have dedicated the most space to innovation, and therefore to different Africa, are Africa magazine and Nigrizia. Africa del XXI century there is still a continent largely to be discovered by the majority of Italian public opinion.


Paolo Lambruschi
NP June / July 2023