Changing the narrative

In Chapter Nine, Yemisi Akinbobola’s ‘Changing the Narrative: British Press’ Portrayal of Women’s Rights Issues in Africa’, the subject is that of the representation of African women in the British press, and the title speaks to continental agendas, like the African Union Commission’s ‘Agenda 2063: The Africa We Want’, and thus the desire to change the narrative of Africa. As such, she starts with a discussion of the challenge of local applicability of global agendas, and the role dominant media discourse plays in influencing global developmental agendas. Using feminist discourse analysis, she supports this with empirical data that investigates the representation of gender equality and women’s rights in Africa by The Guardian, UK. Thus, this chapter asks what does the selection and construction of women’s rights issues in Africa by Western press reveal about the social conditions Western media gives prominence to; how does this narrow our understanding of women’s rights issues in Africa; and how does the Westernised lens present in these stories? Moral panics and its construction in British press’s coverage of women’s rights issues in Africa is a prominent theme in her chapter.