Framing African genocide: location, time and gender in the coverage of genocide in Rwanda and Sudan

Abstract

This paper explored how genocides in Rwanda in 1994 and Sudan in 2004 were framed in three American midwestern newspapers, namely the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Wisconsin State Journal. Looking through the lens of postcolonial theory, the paper analyzed a sample of newspaper texts in both a quantitative and qualitative manner, describing some of the ways the frames used in the text evolved, with particular reference to time, gender and space. It was found that the papers examined covered genocide in Rwanda more prominently; there were more stories about Rwanda than Sudan, and those stories were longer and more detailed. The coverage of Rwanda was more intimate, personal, detailed and comprehensive than that of Sudan. Rwanda was also depicted in more gory and violent terms than Sudan. Sudan was framed in neutral, political terms. Women were overrepresented as passive victims of the violence.