Media Discourse of President Barack Obama in Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

This study examined how African (The Daily Graphic, The Daily Nation, AllAfrica.com) and non-African news media (The Times, The New York Times, Associated Press) covered Barack Obama’s first visit to sub-Saharan Africa (Ghana). A content analysis of 163 stories found five major themes embedded in media reportage of America’s first black president’s visit to the continent of his father. This includes: globalization, democracy, responsibility, historical and soft news narratives. Even though coverage was neutral across board, the African newspapers concentrated more on the historical and soft news frames while non-African newspapers reported heavily on the democracy and responsibility frame.