War Reporting In Africa: A Quantitative Content Analysis of Kenya’s Nation Newspaper Reporting Of Sudan’s War In The Nuba Mountains

Abstract

A continued struggle to achieve successful democracy in Africa has changed the way stories are being told; from and about Africa in both local and international news media. Reporters have realized their obligation to the public equally to the press. Compared to western media, the way media in Africa reports war creates a knowledge gap about the wars in the continent. The problem of this study therefore was to find out the knowledge gap created by the African media in reporting war. The major objectives of this study were to find out the frames used by the Nation newspapers to report war in Sudan between the years of 2014, 2015 and 2016; the story placement in the newspapers and the frequency and uniformity of reporting the war. This study used content analysis research design in which stories from the newspapers were analyzed. The methodology was quantitative content analysis that employed filling data in code sheets obtained from the code book. The data collected was later presented, analyzed and interpreted from the coding sheets. The key findings showed that the Daily Nation reported the highest number of stories at 82%, followed by the Sunday Nation at 11% while lowest was Saturday Nation at 7%. Another key finding showed that there was no story at the prime pages of the newspapers, therefore there were not given prominence. The study found out three major frames that were used. These were frames of authority that included the president, the rebel leader, the AU chief, the UN Sec general. The frames of location covered places which included; Khartoum, Nuba Mountains and Darfur. The frames of ‘war’ checked on the frequency of the mention of the word war. The study recommends more study on effects of Sudan war on the economies of neighbouring countries considering how refugees fleeing Sudan war have impacted economies of host countries.