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Foreign Correspondents and the Imagination of Africa

  • Muiru Ngugi
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Abstract

This chapter examines how foreign media correspondents have always reported, and continue to report, on the African continent. It starts by providing a brief history of the origins and evolution of the foreign correspondent, before explaining how the output of this kind of journalist constitute a unique non-literary genre that is often rarely studied. The output of foreign correspondents constitutes a large sum of how Africa is represented and is therefore crucial in the imagination of the continent by readers. As a result, examples of how foreign correspondents cover Africa and how that coverage has evolved have been provided.

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Further Reading

  1. Desmond, R. W. (1978). The Information Process: World News Reporting to the Twentieth Century. Iowa City, IA: University of Iowa Press.Google Scholar
  2. Emery, M. (1995). On the Front Lines: Following America’s Foreign Correspondents Across the Twentieth Century. Washington, DC: American University Press.Google Scholar
  3. Gerbner, G., Mowlana, H., & Nordenstreng, K. (1993). The Global Media Debate: Its Rise, Fall, and Renewal. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Corporation.Google Scholar
  4. Hagos, A. (2000). Hardened Images: Western Media and the Marginalization of Africa. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press.Google Scholar
  5. Harden, B. (1992). Dispatches from a Fragile Continent. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers.Google Scholar
  6. Hawk, B. G. (2003). African Politics and American Reporting. In G. Hyden, M. Leslie, & F. Ogundimu (Eds.), Media and Democracy in Africa. Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Publishers.Google Scholar

Copyright information

© The Author(s) 2019

Authors and Affiliations

  • Muiru Ngugi
    • 1
  1. 1.School of Journalism and Mass CommunicationUniversity of NairobiNairobiKenya

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