What important role does the media of south africa play with regaed to covid 19 pandemic
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Role of the media during COVID-19 pandemic highlighted at ... media professionals and scholars from China and South Africa. ... I think that is very important," she said.
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It is often said, with reason sometimes, that much of what is known about Africa around the world comes from narratives created and images carefully curated by the media, often global media. African media is often said to either play the role of unsuspecting facilitators of such narratives, in cases where it plays the part of ‘local partner’ for international media houses, or direct, stand-alone, purveyors of such narratives, as they seek to satisfy international news hunger for clichéd African stories by simply feeding such hunger with stories that affirm its prejudices.
Others say that African media players do not always make enough effort to deliberately correct misconceptions about the continent or, at least, counter much of the negative stories making the rounds in global media with positive ones that depict a continent of many narratives, with a plethora of positive stories just waiting to be told. Much of what currently circulates out there is focused on the usual themes of poverty, political and economic instability, corruption, poor health facilities and services, etc.- the global hunger for which seems insatiable.
AFRICAN MEDIA IN THE TIME OF COVID-19
The African media reality, however, is a lot more nuanced than what many people out there have become accustomed to. And, contrary to popular and stubborn perceptions, Africa is neither a country or one homogenous piece of land with one history, one culture, one government and the same political and economic realities from North to South and West to East. The same applies to African media. It is as diverse as the continent in which it operates, both in terms of sophistication and reach.
While free and independent media space has often been quite constrained in much of the continent, with many governments preferring state-owned media over private media, there is an increasing community of pan-African media houses and practitioners who jealously maintain their independence from political power. Africa is also not immune to the growth of citizen journalists.
They are younger, more globally connected, curious, informed, opinionated and, importantly, concerned about the impact of negatively clichéd reportage on how Africans are perceived around the world and on Africa’s economic well-being. Since the onset of the Coronavirus, reportedly in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, and its arrival in Africa during March, African media has sought to work with national, regional and continental bodies, also in concert with the World Health Organisation (WHO), to coordinate messages aimed at Informing, Educating, Empowering, and Assuring communities in specific countries and across the continent about, amongst others:
The origins and pathology of Coronavirus/COVID-1
What it is and what it is not
The best hygienic practices for the protection of self and others
The importance of testing; especially when symptoms are suspected
Steps to take after testing positive
The dangers of “fake News” and the importance of distinguishing between legitimate sources of information on Coronavirus/COVID-19 from false/misleading sources that are often designed to manipulate public opinion
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