A change of discourse order

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the double bind in which Africans are caught: “One also tends to feel that success in life depends on working with the same devil which thrives on racial superiority and which excludes the majority of one’s brothers and sisters from participating in history,” (Diawara, 2000: 55). This idea that African successes cannot be achieved without the assistance of the West makes the Africa is Rising Narrative more Afro-pessimist than Afro-optimist in that sense.

Joye (2017) adds the critique that Western sources continue to be overrepresented as central characters of the stories. Instead of citing local Africans, Western media have the tendency to rely on compatriots. This domestication practice does not only result in the absence of local voices, but also in the subordination of Africans vis-à-vis Westerners (Joye, 2017: 55). Domestication as the central practice of the Africa Rising Narrative can thus have similar implications as the Afro-pessimist discourse: the exclusion of local, African voices.

Another critique is offered by Wright (2017), who argues that the simplistic, positive narratives of Africa is Rising do not do justice to the complexities of African events and issues (Wright, 2017: 154-155). Bunce, Franks and Paterson (2017) also characterise the positive Afro-optimist news coverage as one-sided and as such, not doing justice to “an impoverished and often hungry majority [that] is left out of the story” (Bunce, Franks, Paterson, 2017: 4). In other words, they question whether the produced media image of Sub-Saharan Africa is a realistic picture of the region.

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or morality as opposed to civilized, educated and progressive Westerners (Spurr, 1993). This inferior depiction of Sub-Saharan Africa was created by the colonisers to allow for civil and racial classifications (Nothias, 2014: 34). Besides serving this political purpose, the image also came to dominate the field of journalism – it was embraced and reproduced by Western journalists. In short, this resulted in pessimistic coverage of events and peoples in Sub-Saharan Africa.

On the one hand, Afro-pessimist reporting is based on the 19th century European Statehood Ideology, fuelled by notions of Eurocentrism, European exceptionalism and Orientalism (Wolff, 2017: 9). On the other hand, the output of such journalistic work reinforces and thereby strengthens the relations of power, as laid out by the colonial ideology;

social hierarchy which Sub-Saharan Africans to Western people. Even after the end of colonialism, journalists continued to reproduce this inferior image of Sub-Saharan Africa and its inhabitants. the stereotypes and prejudices

Scholars (Joye, 2017; Nabudere, 2001; Wolff, 2017; Havnevik, 2015) recognized a shift towards more positive reporting on Sub-Saharan Africa and its inhabitants at the end of the 1990s. According to this Afro-optimist discourse, the region is portrayed as a place of economic growth, a strong labour force and improved governance (Eriksen, 2015). Besides presenting Sub-Saharan Africa in a more positive way, Joye (2017) recognised the recuring practice of domestication, which journalists use to make foreign events more comprehensible to their audiences (Joye, 2017: 53).

The Afro-optimist discourse is based on the 20^th/21^st century African Renaissance-ideology, fuelled by anti-colonialist and anti-imperialist sentiments, struggles and philosophy.

According to Wolff (2017), there are two different interpretations of the African Renaissance.

The first interpretation emphasises the growth of Sub-Saharan Africa according to Western measurements and as such, maintains the unequal power relation between Sub-Saharan Africans and people from the West. Recognising the deep-rooted differences between the Western World and Sub-Saharan Africa, the second interpretation argues for an independent course of development for the latter (Wolff, 2017: 1). In this of line of thinking, African civilizations and their way of living and developing are presented as being equal to the Western way (Van Hensbroek, 2002: 6). As such, this interpretation offers the possibility of a transfer of power from the West to Africa.

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This thesis aims to analyse whether indeed a change of discourse order has taken place [from a dominating Afro-pessimist towards an Afro-optimist discourse] and if so, whether this has ideological consequences for the relations of power between people from the West and Sub-Saharan Africans. The Afro-pessimist discourse and its subordinating ranking frame are used as starting point, to which the communicative events, analysed in this thesis, are compared. The articles published by The Economist are explored for the detection of either Afro-pessimist or Afro-optimist framing devices. Through this first step in the analysis, it is possible to see whether the colonial image of Sub-Saharan Africa is either maintained or whether a more Afro-optimist image is created.

Such a change of discourse is ideologically motivated, yet it also has ideological implications (Kelsey, 2022: 253). In the first scenario, the power structures are expected to remain the same; Sub-Saharan Africa continue to be subordinated to the West. The discourse used can be ideological, but only as force that strengthens the status quo. In the second scenario, the discursive practice goes against the dominant process of hegemony, which equip Sub-Saharan Africa with the knowledge and power to achieve social change. his can result in the improvement of the social status of Sub-Saharan Africans, which might result in equal standing with the West and its journalists and audiences.

To explain how ideology functions, the following exemplifying belief is used: Sub-Saharan Africans are inferior to people from the West – a thought that has been dominating the image of Sub-Saharan Africa (Nothias, 2014: 35-36). Now take two imaginary articles.

One of them refers to Sub-Saharan Africans as “poor people in the need of help,” while the other ones characterises them as ‘successful businesspeople”. While the language performed in the first sentence won’t change the discourse order, the second sentence could. Hereby it is important to understand that the power relations between the actors influencing the discourse order does not change. Journalists remain in power, which is visible through their depiction of Sub-Saharan Africans according to Western standards, which means that the Western way of living is still perceived as superior to the Sub-Saharan African one. However, there could be a shift in power dynamics from an Afro-pessimist discourse towards an Afro-optimist one. This shift is definitely expected to be ideological, due to the ideational, relational and social functioning of discourse. A change in the identification of Sub-Saharan Africans can result in a more equal social hierarchy. Yet, within this hierarchy, the position of its subjects continue to be decided upon according to Western parameters.

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II.II.III.I Opponents

Joye (2017) and Bunce (2017) question the actual happening of the shift in discourse use.

According to Joye (2017), “It appears that traditional discourses of Afro-pessimism still prevail in everyday (domesticated) foreign news reporting in Africa” (Joye, 2017: 60). Bunce points to the lack of research. He writes that: “It is wrong to conclude that we have moved beyond Afro-pessimism to an era in which Afro-optimism and “Africa Rising” dominate the news agenda” (Bunce, 2017: 26). “We do not know if these stories are now commonplace in mainstream day-to-day coverage, or if they remain the exception” (Bunce, 2017: 18). Scott (2017) also recognized this research gap: “We know remarkably little about how most of Africa is represented in much of the news media, most of the time” (Scott, 2017: 44).