This article was downloaded by: [119.154.15.

149] On: 11 October 2012, At: 06:55 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Journal of International Communication

Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rico20

The CNN defect

Last Moyo Version of record first published: 02 Aug 2011.

To cite this article: Last Moyo (2011): The CNN defect, Journal of International Communication, 17:2, 121-138 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13216597.2011.589365

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-andconditions This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae, and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.

The CNN defect

Representations of race and historical justice in the Zimbabwean election
LAST MOYO Abstract: Zimbabwe has been in a political and economic crisis for nearly a decade. Although the causes of the crisis are complex and multifaceted, the global media have tended to foreground human rights and good governance issues at the expense of other possible news frames. This article focuses on CNNs representations of the crisis within the context of an election. It argues that while CNN played an important role in human rights within that context, the appropriation of this discourse was largely selective and race and class were very influential in its news narratives. Apart from this, the article also observes that CNNs news frames on the election were episodic, simplistic and lacked contextual grounding. The networks sensationalistic reporting and its selective application of human rights are seen as largely caused by certain ideological and economic imperatives that continue to affect Western journalisms reportage of Africa even in the global age. While CNNs logistical problems of its ban in Zimbabwe are acknowledged, they are not seen as hugely influential in the organisations news reports. The article concludes that in the global age, global news media such as CNN need a paradigm shift from Eurocentricism to polycentricism where their news must embody and articulate the multiple narratives and worldviews that reflect the hybridity of Africas post colonies. The subtle demonization of the decolonisation agenda in CNNs news and its isolation from the democratisation project is seen as inimical to the creation of a post-colonial Zimbabwe that can transcend the greater questions of historical justice and economic democracy. Keywords: elections, global media, Western media, discourse, race, land, Zimbabwe INTRODUCTION It is now becoming increasingly clear that the collapse of the socialist bloc more than a decade ago had far reaching consequences for the African post-independence nation states whose fledgling democracies were still very weak and fragile (Bhabha 2005). The emergence of an all-domineering discourse of neoliberal globalisation in the 1990s to define and structure the new unipolar dispensation meant that these post colonial states had to relinquish or ignore certain aspects of their electoral and national agendas due to the pressure exerted on national economic policy by globalisations market forces. As Tsie (1996, p. 75) argues, in Southern Africa the free market reforms forced governments to fold back on economic matters, yet selective and co-ordinated state intervention [was] a necessary condition for growth and

Downloaded by [119.154.15.149] at 06:55 11 October 2012

THE JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION

17:2, 2011

121

MOYO

development in the SADC region. Globalisations push for the free market economy also meant that elections as a way of generating consent around certain public policy and developmental goals between the state and its citizens became heavily compromised due to the erosion of autonomy in framing national economics that responds to the needs of the poor majority. Suffice to say that from this perspective, globalisation weakened the social contract between the state and citizens. Globalisations language was deregulation, not decolonisation, free market reform and not the quintessential agrarian reform usually indispensable for addressing inequalities in most post colonial societies. In an almost idealistic fashion that ignored the poignant historical experiences of post colonies, globalisation immediately constructed a new myth of human equality that was inconsistent with the real historical experiences of these communities. The power of globalisation as a myth can be seen in that even today most people perceive it as an unquestionable and inevitable reality (Youngs 2003; Rothkop 1997). It is assumed simply to exist, rather than being understood as part of a politics of naming (Rizvi 2007, p. 257). The global media, famously castigated by Herman and McChesney (1997) as the new missionaries of corporate capitalism, are the ones that are deployed to generate a milieu of ideological meanings around events such as national elections, referendums, and the national political elite. They frame reality not necessarily truthfully or objectively, but in ways that raise interesting debates about the role of Western journalism in the African continent and the developing world. In view of the above, this article focuses on CNNs television reportage of Zimbabwes combined presidential and legislative elections in March and June 2008. It examines the discourses that were appropriated by the conglomerates news narratives and tries to problematise them against the backdrop of Zimbabwes reality of the colonial legacy and globalisations free market politics. The main question that runs through the critique is that of the extent to which the global media, as the agents of globalisation, can be seen as fighting for justice on behalf of all citizens of the world. How do they represent or frame postcolonial realities and in whose interests? For example, as an international organisation, CNNs editorial policy states that its news will always be independent and that it will always strive to quote diverse international public opinion on issues (Time Warner website, http://www. timewarner.com, 13 October 2008). In one of its news commercials, CNN also claims that its news is always based on a deep understanding of the culture and history of the communities that it covers in its news. Such claims imply that CNN consciously tries to transcend its structural, ideological and institutional limitations to be a voice of the voiceless wherever and whenever such people can be found. This point is critically examined within the context of the dialectic between globalisations rights discourse and colonialisms legacy of impoverishment of the black majority in Zimbabwe. As Massey (1994, p. 3) rightly observes, there is always a power geometry to globalisation, some people are more in charge of it than others; some initiate flows and movement, others dont; some are more on the receiving end of it than others; some are effectively imprisoned by it. Bhabha (2005, p. 12) also concurs that there is always a colonial shadow [that] falls across the successes of globalisation. Against this backdrop, the article also implicitly deals with the question of what prospects exist for democratic communication in a globalised world through the international television networks such as the CNN.

not mentioned in reference list

Downloaded by [119.154.15.149] at 06:55 11 October 2012

122

THE JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION

17:2, 2011

THE CNN DEFECT

Year is mentioned inaccurately

Downloaded by [119.154.15.149] at 06:55 11 October 2012

The focus on CNN is because of its tremendous power in influencing international public opinion about events and processes in the developing world. Following Volkmer (1999), CNN has grown to be a global public sphere that is characterised by transnational news flows. As part of the gigantic Time Warner conglomerate, it is viewed by more than 1.5 billion people in over 212 countries and has hundreds of news offices and correspondents across the world (Van Ginneken 1998; Bagdikian 2004). Hence, in collapsed economies such as Zimbabwe where inflation was over 2 million percent during the time of the elections, global media virtually face no resistance to their news hegemony because of the weak and compromised national media systems. For example, Zimbabwes only broadcaster is state-controlled and has acute shortages of personnel and equipment. Thus in the absence of strong national media systems, the risk of media imperialism where foreign media and its concomitant corporate interests dominate the ideological and political landscapes of the weaker states legitimised through the rhetoric of globalisation is seen as high (Boyd-Barrett 2009). The result of this is that the national perspective of post colonies such as Zimbabwe can be reduced to a subaltern view because of the dominance of the global mainstream across the world. The Zimbabwean case is instructive of the misplaced optimism about the capacity of the post-colonies in Southern Africa to generate any contra-flows or reciprocity that engages with the centre on equal terms. Two issues, however, need clarification. Zimbabwe does not entirely represent the experiences and conditions of every post-colony in Africa and the CNN too is not entirely representative of all global media. I use the CNN case study merely as a prism that reflects on the types of representations that can hardly be said to be peculiar to itself.

Cosmopolitan global journalism: In search of a normative framework

Cosmopolitanism, as articulated within a post-colonial studies framework, must concern itself with questions of global justice and the continuation of the decolonisation agenda within the so-called global village. In the field of international communication, questions of the political economy of the global media, transnational cultural flows, and indeed of the politics of intercultural representations are of major interest. I use cosmopolitanism largely as a normative concept that should inform global journalism and lend a moral lens to its reportage of issues, especially in Africa. Cosmopolitanism is a complex and multifaceted theory that has a long and rich history (Hayden 2005; Tan 2004). This article, however, does not intend to deal with the history of the concept and its variants, but to highlight the normative aspects of contemporary cosmopolitanism, especially in relation to framing the role of global journalism in human rights. There seems to be a consensus amongst scholars that cosmopolitanism as an ideal has the capacity to provide a strong moral campus to the world although it is also deficient in many ways (Held 2010). Cosmopolitanism argues that national politics is in a state of transformation due to the push by the legal, political and ethical values of neoliberal globalisation that are seen as mostly embodied in international human rights law (Held & McGrew 2002). These global values do not only provide a framework of good governance to individual nation-states, but also create a sense of protection to citizens because they are considered as universal and inalienable. Cosmopolitanism is therefore a process of change whereby the powers of the state

THE JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION

17:2, 2011

123

MOYO

and its claim to sovereignty is seen as receding and overtaken by a new and nascent brand of global democracy and global citizenship (Keane 2003). It is a process that sees human beings as the ultimate for moral and political concern. It posits that human beings possess equal moral status . . . and persons are subjects of concern for everyone (Hayden 2005, p. 11). One critic describes cosmopolitanism as a concept that advocates for a form of justice without borders (Tan 2004, p. 1). He further elucidates that the individual is entitled to equal consideration regardless of nationality and citizenship . . . [as] . . . principles of justice ought to transcend nationality and citizenship (p. 2). From a cosmopolitan perspective, although people live in their local communities, they . . . [still] . . . belong to a wider community of human ideals and aspirations (Brock 2005, p. 10). This contentious notion of global citizenship is defined as an idea that makes everyone a member of the wider community of all humanity, the world or a similar whole that is wider than that of the nation-state (Dower & Williams 2002, p. 16). All global citizens, according to cosmopolitanism, therefore share a universal responsibility to protect each other regardless of national boundaries, culture, religion, and race. Human rights and justice must never be constrained or restricted by any of these frontiers. The concerns of cosmopolitanism extend beyond the individual to institutions. For example, Nussbaum (2010, p. 31) perceives institutions as an important pillar in the advancement of cosmopolitan ideals and practices: she contends that whatever form . . . institutions take, they must be structured to have a mature recognition for personhood and humanity. Cosmopolitan humanism entails certain duties of hospitality to the foreigner and the other and the duty to educate oneself about the political affairs of other countries . . . and . . . to engage actively in those affairs in a way that shows concern for all citizens (Ibid., p. 33). Applied to global journalism, this means that the global news media such as CNN must always endeavour to be sufficiently informed about countries that they report on. They must capture the richness of the stories they cover by attending fully to the diversity of voices on an issue in a way that unravels the fundamental complexities within nations. Apart from the media, cosmopolitan institutions also include the political and economic global governance institutions that play the roles of watchdogs and protectors of the global citizen. They are the monitors and enforcers of the cosmopolitanism order and laws. However, these institutions are seen as non altruistic and therefore not informed by a moral obligation to protect the weak, but the perpetuation of a neoliberal order that uses the human rights and democracy discourse to advance Western interests. Similarly, Western based transnational corporate media form part of this surveillance structure as they police and report states and other institutions that do not comply with the this universalisation of neoliberalism. Yet, in principle, these transnational media giants are supposed to be good global corporate citizens and agents of the cosmopolitan ethos of shared responsibilities. However, they and other cosmopolitan institutions are often criticised for being more vocal about civil and political liberties and not about . . . economic and distributive justice issues (Tan 2004, p. 7). This selective appropriation of human rights is often compounded by a similar predicament of selective the selective application of human rights. Cosmopolitanism is also criticised for its denial of cultural relativism in human rights yet ironically, it advances and imposes a Western view of morality and political order on other

Downloaded by [119.154.15.149] at 06:55 11 October 2012

124

THE JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION

17:2, 2011

THE CNN DEFECT

societies. While the concept invokes the universality of rights and responsibilities, the reality is that it is a partial and exclusive discourse that promotes the interests of elite classes and elite nations and the expense of poor masses and poor nations. METHODOLOGY The data used for analysis was gathered from CNNs televisions news broadcasts between 1 March and June 30 when elections took place. The first election was held in March while the second one, a re-run of the presidential poll, took place in June. Whereas the first was largely seen as peaceful by election monitors, the second was extremely violent. Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) was used to analyse the myths or ideologies that were embedded in news about the election and the candidates. Using typical case sampling, five news bulletins were selected for each month for the four months. In total, ten news texts on the election were selected from the bulletins that fell within the period of analysis using a similar sampling method. To be selected news texts simply needed to be on either of the two elections. CDA was seen as an appropriate method because it is generally perceived as pivotal in understanding how discourse is implicated in reproducing myths within which individuals or events are framed (Fairclough 2003). As a textual analysis method, it focuses on texts as the actual instances of discourse occurring in some concrete audio or visual material form (Johnstone 2002, p. 19). Fairclough (2003, p. 27) argues that texts are generally seen as rich in detail: they simultaneously represent aspects of the physical world, the social world, the mental world. CDA also examines the role played by genres as conventionalised schematically fixed uses of language (Wodak 2001, p. 66). The news genre, for example, follows some clearly defined codes and conventions which are culturally and ideologically entrenched. Apart from analysing the role of news genres in ideological representation, the article also focuses of how language is used. Habermas and McCarthy (1985, p. 124), for example, once argued that language is a medium of domination and social force. It serves to legitimise relations of organised power. In CDA, the competing representations of reality are therefore generally seen as not neutral, but as directly or indirectly linked to the opaque as well as transparent structural relationships of dominance, discrimination, power and control (Wodak 2001, p. 2). Following these scholars and others my CDA of the news concerned itself with the analysis of language such as the semantic macrostructures, local meanings . . . implicit or indirect meanings . . . implications, presuppositions, allusions, vagueness, omissions, and polarisations (Van Dijk 2001, p. 26). Most of my critique focused on the questions of selection and exclusion in CNN news paying attention to what was said (inclusion) and how (semantics, modality, etc.), was obviously important. However, even more important was the question of what was not said and the possibilities of the observed political and ideological biases. In short therefore, my analysis paid attention to the wording (choice of diction or words), cohesion (rhetorical mode of text), modality (degrees of affinity with a proposition by the text producer), metaphors (figurative language that constructs a certain type of reality) and transivity (linguistic presentation of phenomena) (Fairclough 2003, p. 68). The deployment of CDA, sought to show that language in news does not reflect reality in a neutral way; but it interprets, organises and classifies the subject of discourse in an

Downloaded by [119.154.15.149] at 06:55 11 October 2012

THE JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION

17:2, 2011

125

MOYO

Downloaded by [119.154.15.149] at 06:55 11 October 2012

ideological manner. Most importantly, CDA explores and provides an effective way of news frame analysis which is about how news producers collect, select, and infuse personal experience and gained knowledge into their reportages (Johnson-Carte 2004, p. 25). In news analysis, frames can be analysed at textual and social levels (Clausen 2003). Whereas textual framing in this article focuses on languages denotative and connotative functions in the construction of meaning, social framing is mainly about how journalists naturalise certain worldviews as conventional knowledge or commonsense at the expense of others. It examines the interaction between professional conventions, news genre codes/conventions, and ideology where news texts become semantic ice bergs of the journalists reliance on knowledge systems and values of their societies. In international journalism, the framing theory therefore perceives news as a product of professional and cultural modelling. It considers it as a product of social or cultural shaping where journalists use implicit mental scripts, schemata or frames that are culturally conditioned. The link between news and cultural ideology implies that Western media news frames serve to confirm the myths and stories that [their audiences] already belief to be true and obvious about Africa (Fulton 2005, 223). This view is premised on Clausens concept of domestication in which she argues that the global media news is often adapted and presented within frames of reference of their local audiences (Clausen 2003, p. 6).

Framing the first round election: Of violent dictators, innocent white farmers, and rampaging land invaders
The first election that was held in March consisted of the presidential and legislative polls. It was generally peaceful and without incident. I argue that since the initial election lacked drama and conflict, CNN failed to use this as an opportunity to develop issue-oriented, analytical and informative journalism on the Zimbabwean crisis. I argue that its news frames were largely episodic, simplistic, stereotypical, and unhelpful to its global audiences in the understanding of the nature of the conflict in Zimbabwe. One of the major techniques of the news media is to frame stories around personalities or individuals (Allan 2004). In political news, they often do this by focusing on an individual and constructing them as the protagonist of a story where the myths of heroism, villainy, or turpitude are used not only to thematise the story, but also to produce a sense of conflict in it. This news strategy always looks as a normal way of reporting issues especially in elections where individuals campaign for political office. However, of interest is the sharp contrast between the use of personalisation when some Western media report elections taking place in their countries and other places, especially in Africa. In the Western context, personalisation is often used although not at the expense of social context. Consequently, there is always an effort to make the actions and policy choices of candidates understood by local and foreign audiences. This technique helps these media to avoid the stereotyping of, for example, American local candidates, to non-American audiences. From George Bush to Barrack Obama, for instance, their policies in Iraqi and Afghanistan in all the previous elections have always been understood within the context of global terrorism and not the usual stereotype of imperialistic aggression. However, Western media do not show as much effort to link agency and context in elections taking place in other societies especially when the candidate

126

THE JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION

17:2, 2011

THE CNN DEFECT

Incompleted
is not popular with their governments. In Africa, for example, the easy stereotypical explanations of any social conflict are ethnocentricism and dictatorships (Young 2003). As such, Western media socialise their audiences to understand and judge other societies through stereotypes and perceived cultural differences, instead of political and economic processes by which we . . . [in the West] . . . judge ourselves (Bagdikian 2004, p. 94). In the CNN, individualisation or personalisation in the news was through Mugabe who became the archetype of Zimbabwes protracted crisis in the narratives of the election. Mugabe was repeatedly portrayed and framed as a former liberation hero who had simply become a dictator and destroyed his country because of greed and selfishness. He was continuously represented as having transformed into a destructive, irresponsible and villainous character that symbolised continued suffering for Zimbabweans if they voted for him:

Downloaded by [119.154.15.149] at 06:55 11 October 2012

A hero of the countrys civil war against the white Rhodesian government, Mugabe became the first black prime minister in 1980. But nearly, three decades later, he has consolidated his rule over all aspects of Zimbabwean life, and the country does not appear better for it . . . The economic free fall is traced to Mugabes . . . controversial seizure of commercially white-owned farms in 2000. Mugabe gave the land to black Zimbabweans who he said were cheated under colonialist rule and white farmers who resisted were jailed. (CNN, 30 March 2008)

CNN thus represented Mugabe in the typical frames of yet another African dictator who is merely interested in consolidating his rule regardless of the fact that the country is collapsing because of his long stay in power. Here, the subtle and ideological nature of news as a mythmaker can be seen in how CNN spins information into a narrative where cause and effect are constructed as obvious and commonsensical. From a number of other possible news angles or frames on the causes of the crisis, the crisis is only attributed to Mugabes long stay in power and his controversial seizure of commercially white-owned farms. No reasons, historical or otherwise, are given to explain Mugabes behaviour other than consolidating his rule. This act of simplification which is normally aimed at reducing the ambiguity of news by minimising other possible interpretations unfortunately amounts to distortion through the selective articulation of phenomena by CNN. Fulton aptly explains this point:
By presenting events as the work of individual people, constructed as characters by reference to their names, ages, occupations, and often stereotyped or conventional attributes, news media suggest that most events are a result of individual human agency and their impact is to be perceived mainly through individual experience. At the same time, institutional factors, political relations or environmental consequences are often elided. (2005, p. 242)

CNNs selection, abstraction, and elision of the institutional and political variables that explain Mugabes behaviour demonstrate how framing operates as a basis for myth making in news. What is said is as important as what is elided. As Barthes (1982, p. 116) once argued about narratives many years ago: myth hides nothing and flaunts nothing: it distorts: it is neither a lie nor a confession: It is an inflection. The distortion by CNN here is in imputing the Zimbabwean crisis solely to Mugabe as an individual in both his official and personal capacity. Bagdikian (2003) and Chomsky (2004) contend that the big Western media such as CNN do not completely negate the truth in their narratives, but tend to allude to it and then twist it and frame the narrative in a manner that promotes their news agenda

THE JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION

17:2, 2011

127

MOYO

Downloaded by [119.154.15.149] at 06:55 11 October 2012

and is consistent with certain interests. While it is true that Mugabe seized the commercially white-owned farms in 2000 and gave the land to black Zimbabweans who he said were cheated under colonialist rule, CNN hardly engages with Zimbabwes colonial and postcolonial contexts that can potentially explain Mugabes radical approaches. A careful analysis of the quotation shows that CNN is also going for easy explanations of the Zimbabwe crisis. The use of binary oppositions of black versus white sought to delineate the Zimbabwean crisis through the conventional frames of an ethnocentric, racial conflict since, as CNN claims, Mugabe gave the land to black Zimbabweans who he said were cheated under colonialist rule. Apart from these constructed polarities which obviously have an effect of not only misrepresenting the nature of the crisis in post-independent Zimbabwe, there is an interesting point about modality. The clause Mugabe gave the land to black Zimbabweans who he said were cheated under colonialist rule shows that CNN clearly distances itself from Mugabes view that post-colonial racial disparities were a product of an unjust colonial system. Conversely, CNN does not distance itself, professionally or otherwise, from the claim of white owned commercial farms despite its obvious controversies. Mamdani (2002), who argues that most of the contemporary problems in Africa are directly linked to the legacy of colonialism, speaks of the bifurcated colonial state where tribe and race were pivotal in ones inclusion or exclusion in a regime of rights, including land ownership rights. He posits that under colonialism:
Ethnic citizenship [did] not just evoke a cultural difference. It [had] material consequences also. A civic citizen [could] acquire land like any other material good through transaction, and . . . rights of inheritance. But an ethnic citizen [could only] claim land as a customary right, a kin-based claim that is a consequence of membership in an ethnic group. (2002, p. 22)

Race and ethnicity defined the economic relations under colonialism. Mamdani (2002, 1996) further observes that the colonial discourse appropriated race and ethnicity and constructed them to determine economic (not just cultural) relations where social institutions and the media were used to normalise and naturalise inequalities associated with these differences. Being white came with citizenship rights, including private property rights to land which was expropriated from the indigenous black people through violence such as was the case in Zimbabwe. The political identities of black people were constructed within the discourse of tribe thus reducing them to natives (not citizens) who did not enjoy any legal protection to land ownership. The hypocrisy of the colonial discourse is in that unlike native, settler was not a legal identity. Everywhere [it] spoke of natives and not settlers (Mamdani 2002, p. 32). As such, being native had negative political and economic consequences while being a settler was a ticket to rights and privileges which, in the case of Zimbabwe, engendered the postcolonial crisis due to continued racial inequalities. Sachikonye (2004) speaks of the great colonial social engineering project of black proletarisation. The rightful place for blacks was as labourers in white-owned farms and industries and not the other way round. He contends that the consequences of . . . [colonial land expropriation and Black proletarisation] . . . have reverberated well beyond independence in 1980 into a new century (Sachikonye 2004, p. 5). Perhaps the neo-colonial manifestation of this discourse in postcolonial Zimbabwe is through the continued construction of black people only as servants of a post-colonial capitalist order that still largely remains racial in character. CNN falls into the

128

THE JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION

17:2, 2011

THE CNN DEFECT

trap of appropriating this neo-colonial discourse because of framing the Zimbabwean crisis as a racial conflict where evil Mugabe is simply mobilising his black supporters to fight what it projects as the innocent white farmers. The use of the racial lens to a conflict that is clearly of a political economic nature suggests that CNN does not perceive the serious racial imbalances in land ownership as a threat to national stability in Zimbabwe, but instead the dismantling of this status quo which it criticises as leading to economic free fall and not black empowerment. The obsession with dictatorial Mugabe and his violent land reform blinds the CNN to the quintessential question of historical justice and racial equity that are at the centre of the crisis. Sachikonye (2004) argues that the Zimbabwean crisis was a product of a very deeply entrenched colonial legacy and arguments that limit it only to personal idiosyncrasies of political principals are simplistic and suspect. The problem is not necessarily CNNs exaggerated interest and focus on Mugabe and his land policy, but that this interest is not based on the acknowledgement of the colonial legacy and the problems of a settler white capitalist hegemony in post colonial Zimbabwe. As Raftopoulos (2004) observes, the Zimbabwean crisis is a very complex configuration of many class struggles which are not only linked to white farmers, but also workers, women, students, and other marginalised groupings. As I also argue elsewhere, it is a problem that was compounded by globalisations neoliberal policies of the free market economy (Moyo 2007). CNNs emphasis on the race myth as its conceptual mapping of the crisis therefore shows its appropriation of the dominant stereotypes of Africa as a place of ethnic conflicts that has been naturalised as the hegemonic lens of viewing the continent by the colonial and neo-colonial discourses (Mitchell 2007). In that sense, CNNs framing of the Zimbabwean crisis obscures more than it reveals issues that form the basis of conflict. The stereotype of a rampaging and sadistic dictator may be part of culturally modelling the news for its Western audiences, but it also conversely undermined the context and processes that inform human agency. As a result, it becomes very difficult to understand Mugabes seizure of white-owned farms and the actions of land invaders (CNN, 3 March 2008). In most of the news bulletins in March CNN mostly showed the old video images of ransacking and riotous blacks invading white farms in 2000, albeit without a solid historical context to its stories. News framing is not only about selection and salience transfer, but also more importantly about what is left out of the frames (Clausen 2003). To that extent, by refusing to acknowledge history, the coverage of the Zimbabwean crisis by CNN resembled how American media generally represent the Palestinian and Israel conflict where the former are often depicted as violent stone throwing mobs who hate the existence of a Jewish state. They hardly contextualise Palestinian actions as resistance to occupation (Philo & Berry 2004). Similarly, the continued land invasions by Mugabe and his supporters were not constructed by CNN as a response to centuries old colonial dispossession, but rather as motivated by racial hatred since those whites who try to resist land invasions are beaten up, abducted or arrested (see CNN 30 March 2008). CNNs failure to acknowledge the colonial and post-colonial linkages in the conflict so as to give a historically informed account not only amounts to oversimplification, but also disinformation through omission. The dominant images of bloodied white farmers and marauding black invaders in the news framed the conflict in terms of binary oppositions of black aggression and white resistance or black

Downloaded by [119.154.15.149] at 06:55 11 October 2012

THE JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION

17:2, 2011

129

MOYO

perpetrators and white victims. This obviously did not only sanitise the latter while demonising the former, but also presented a simple narrative of what is otherwise a complex story. The Zimbabwean post-colonial experience has a well documented account of the role of Western powers which CNN hardly acknowledged in its news (Raftopoulos 2004). For example, Raftopoulos (2004, p. 3) argues that British influence in Zimbabwes constitution entrenched the unjust land rights of the white settler minorities into the post-colonial order as issues around the radical restructuring of the legacy of economic inequality were effectively put on hold at independence. At independence, the new constitution [crafted in London] constrained the capacity of those who had been dispossessed of their land to claim it (Sachikonye 2004, p. 6). Yet, ironically Zimbabwes armed liberation struggle was essentially about land. Hence, CNNs focus on Mugabe as an old and somewhat irrational dictator who has ruled Zimbabwe with an iron fist for nearly 3 decades (CNN 28 March 2008), while true to some degree, fails to tell the Zimbabwean story in context. As Sachikonye (2004, p. 6) further observes, good governance and human rights observance were unsustainable in post independence Zimbabwe because of the pseudo-reconciliation where, regardless of the history of expropriation all Zimbabweans, especially the black majority were to enjoy abstract equality rights in the eyes of the law (my emphasis). While Mugabe as a candidate concentrated on his land reform programme as the key issue which he has always framed as a continuation of the decolonisation agenda, CNN ignored that and focused more on Zimbabwes hyper inflation, unemployment, food shortages, lack of clean drinking water, and the low life expectancy for Zimbabwean citizens. It stated that, Mugabes land redistribution policies caused food production and agricultural exports to drop drastically. . .Empty supermarket shelves are a common sight. People dig holes in the ground for filthy contaminated water and turn to the black market for fuel (CNN 28 March 2008). Television footage showed images of empty supermarket shelves, sick starving women and children which were blamed on the Mugabe regime (CNN 24 & 26 March 2008). As former South African President, Thabo Mbeki, once opined, the Western media such as CNN only mention land either to highlight the plight of the former white land owners or to attribute food shortages in Zimbabwe to the land redistribution programme (Mbeki 2003, pp. 4 5). While repeatedly showing images of the negative impact of what it called Mugabes land grab policy, CNN never questioned the immorality and unfairness of the new post-colonial black government having to pay for land (through the Willing Buyer Willing Seller scheme of 1980-1990s) that was colonially acquired or even highlighted the case of the poor majority who had remained landless and dispossessed in post-independent Zimbabwe. The CNN interviews focused mainly on the urban poor, the changed lifestyles of middle classes, and not on the rural people and the elite who benefited from Mugabes land reform. Where it did focus on the rural peasants, CNN concentrated on the sick and the hungry, but not those who had put their newly acquired land to good use (see CNN 3 March 2008, 10 & 26 April 2008). The priming, simplification, and sensationalistic representation of the land issue in the election showed how CNN failed to construct the event through thematic framing which analyses the problem broadly and deeply. Again, CNN did not show that Britain, America, the IMF and World Bank had also played part in the protracted crisis because of their discouragement of a comprehensive land reform and the national sanctions

Downloaded by [119.154.15.149] at 06:55 11 October 2012

130

THE JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION

17:2, 2011

THE CNN DEFECT

by the EU and America (Sachikonye 2004). Apart from the clause, For his part, Mugabe remains defiant, blaming his woes on the West, always repeated at the end of most news bulletins, CNN never told the Zimbabwean story from Mugabes perspective as one of the candidates. While this could be partly because of its ban, the interviews with the government officials or the clips of Mugabes rallies were often cut short while the land grab, human rights violations, and economic collapse were fore grounded through interviews with the opposition, university academics, and other opinion leaders who were critical of the government. By focusing on neoliberal discourse markers such as hyper inflation, price controls and the collapse of public infrastructure instead of the national political economic question and distributive justice, CNN successfully represented Mugabe as anarchic, incomprehensible, and defying the basic, natural and commonsensical values of national governance and leadership.

Downloaded by [119.154.15.149] at 06:55 11 October 2012

Framing the second election: Of violent dictators, black victims and their fundamental political rights
The second round elections were held as a runoff in June after the initial poll allegedly failed to produce a clear winner between the presidential candidates. In this section, I contend that the coverage of the runoff in June by CNN gives a good example of how Western global journalism can sometimes have a positive impact on democracy and human rights especially in authoritarian and restrictive media environments such as Zimbabwe. However, I also argue that its commitment to these values is contradictory and in service of neoliberalism, global capital, and Western governments. One of the major things that characterised the runoff election, at least judging from what local and international election observers said, was violence. Chief among these organizations was the Pan African Observer Mission (PAOM), a group that was made up of African Members of Parliament from various countries. This group reported that the prevailing political environment throughout the country was tense, hostile and volatile (PAOM 2008, p. 54). It stated that there were high levels of intimidation, hate speech, violence, war rhetoric, displacement of people, abductions, and loss of life and many abuses of other rights and freedoms (p. 34). These claims were corroborated by, among other African regional groupings, the SADC Observer Mission. In terms of the charaterisation of violence within the context of post- coloniality, this violence is what Mamdani (2002) refers to as nonrevolutionary or counter-revolutionary violence. It is violence which falls out of the decolonisation agenda and also counteracts the democratic ideals brought about by the liberation struggle in Zimbabwe. CNN played a critical role in exposing the human rights abuses that took place in the runoff. The news discourse at this point had shifted from the private property rights of white farmers to civil and political rights of MDC supporters who consisted mostly of the black poor majority in urban areas and rural areas. When violence broke out in the runoff campaign, CNN reported that an unnamed white farmer had told CNN that 10 of his workers [had been] ambushed by militia men and severely beaten. Another said he saw militia men drag a farm worker . . . and stab him to death with knives and spears (CNN 23 April 2008). Through a well co-ordinated strategy of investigative reporting, citizen journalism, and news

THE JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION

17:2, 2011

131

MOYO

reports and footage from NGOs, CNN exposed the rising tide of violence through the months of May and June until the day of voting where deaths allegedly included even senior officials of the opposition and their relatives. By mid May, it exposed that 25 MDC supporters had been killed and by early June a total of 66 people had been killed while 200 were missing and 25 000 had fled the country (CNN 10 June 2008). These claims were corroborated by pictures of opposition supporters with broken limbs, body injuries and burns, and funerals of victims. Although CNNs role in human rights was not indisputable in the runoff, it however, needs to be subjected to criticism within the context of Zimbabwes post-colonial narrative. According to Zhao & Hacket (2005), the global mass medias human rights concerns in emerging democracies are ineffective because they do not seek to promote sustainable democracy and development, but liberal interests from West. They argue that it will be a na ve belief [to think that] transnational mass media will promote dialogue and build bridges of understanding between peoples, classes, and cultures [and races] (2005, p. 8). Herman and Chomskys (1994) propaganda model of worthy and unworthy victims can be used here to understand why CNN fell short in this regard in Zimbabwe. According to the two authors, Western media always selectively apply the human rights discourse in accordance with their countries interests and geopolitical alliances. These media consistently portray people abused in enemy states as worthy victims, whereas those treated with equal or greater severity by their governments or client states will be unworthy victims (Herman & Chomsky 1994, p. 37). In Zimbabwe, CNNs worthy victims were the white farmers and opposition supporters who both shared the criticism of Mugabes regime that has become increasingly unpopular with most Western governments. However, human rights have previously been abused by the same post-colonial government at a much greater scale when it killed about 20,000 Ndebele people for their allegiance to opposition politics immediately after independence (Zimrights 1999; CCJP & LRF 1999). Yet at that time, the American and British governments enjoyed excellent relations with Mugabe as proven by his award with the prestigious title of the Shining Knight of the Order of Bath by the Queen of England and his honorary degrees from some Western universities such as the Edinburgh University (Scotland), University of Massachusetts (US), and Michigan State University (US). This seems to have been largely a reward to Mugabes post-independence racial reconciliation programme which never changed the colonial status quo but left the British settlers in charge of most of the arable land in the country (Sachikonye 2004). The Matabeleland genocide, largely ignored by the Western media at the time, was always reported in retrospect as a footnote to the election news. In one of its accounts, CNN acknowledged this selective articulation when it stated that, the massacre and beatings of thousands of civilians [in Matabeleland] was little reported at the time and is still barely condemned (CNN 28 March 2008). According to Lee Chuan et al. (2002, p. 91) these contradictions and inconsistencies of Western media are because they operate within the same institutional relationship to power structures and share the broader similar ideological prism. The Western governments and their corporate medias ideological coalescence and the selective appropriation of the human rights can be easily demonstrated in different parts of the world. While they criticise enemy states such as Zimbabwe, Sudan, and China, they

Downloaded by [119.154.15.149] at 06:55 11 October 2012

132

THE JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION

17:2, 2011

THE CNN DEFECT

generally ignore the plight of unworthy victims in Palestine, Iraqi, and Garcia islands mainly because their governments or client states are the perpetrators (Pilger 2002). The Garcia islands, owned by indigenous blacks called Chagossians in Asia, make a good parallel with the Zimbabwe case. As far as the Garcia islands are concerned, the big Western media have acted complicitly with Britain and America by ignoring the human rights violations of the indegenous people who were dispossed of their island when America usurped it to build a military base. The indigenous people were forcibly removed and dumped by the dockside in Port Louis, Mauritius without shelter, food and clothing (Pilger 2004). Interestingly, unlike in Zimbabwe, where British settlers were dispossed of their land by a black government, there has never been a sustained campaign in the Western media about the violation of the private property rights of the Chagossians despite a British court ruling in their favour in 2000. This observation implies that, regardless of the global village myth of equality, race still matters for the global media in addressing national and global injustices. As Zhao & Hacket (2005, pp. 5 10) argue, the lack of impartially in Western media in the global age is because they are merely national-based media systems that operate internationally mainly for profit maxisation and not for global justice. Their news is framed within the dominant myths to create and maintain a captive audience at home. McChesney (1999, p. 75) also observes that the global media are politically conservative because [they] are significant beneficiaries of the current social structure around the world, and any upheaval in property or social relations particularly to the extent that it reduces the power of business, is not in their interest. In Zimbabwe, the protracted crisis was caused partly by the upheaval in property relations involving Anglo-American TNCs and white settlers who both owned vast tracts of land and controlled mining and agriculture while the indigenous people remained marginalised. In the election news narratives from CNN, the Zimbabwe crisis was constructed first and foremost, as the result of this violent upheaval. Perhaps this can also explain why in its news on the initial harmonised elections, CNN always foregrounded factors such as inflation, unemployment, food shortages, and disrespect of private property rights as the cause of the crisis as oppossed to foregrounding the colonial legacy, equitable distribution of land and other resources. As CNN stated, Strict price controls punish businesses that price goods above levels set by government, a new bill forces foreign- owned businesses to give controlling interests in their operations to black Zimbabweans (CNN 28 March 2008). This provides a good example of global corporate journalism which would easily condemn price controls, but never criticise or investigate the price fixing and carteling that was alleged by the Zimbabwean government. Similarly, the allegation of comprehensive sanctions on the government received scant coverage in the news because the framing had already concluded that the Mugabe regime was the cause of the problem, and that voting for the opposition was the only solution (CNN 28 March 2008). Bhabha (2005) argues that neoliberal globalisations narrow elitist interests, as also reflected in CNNs economic fundamentalism, cause conflict and instability in the post colonies such as Zimbabwe. In a way that almost directly addresses the Zimbabwean problem, he contends that the global aspirations of the Third World national thinking belonged to the traditions of socialism, Marxism and humanism, whereas the dominant forces of contemporary globalisation tend to subscribe to free market ideas that enshrine

Downloaded by [119.154.15.149] at 06:55 11 October 2012

THE JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION

17:2, 2011

133

MOYO

ideologies of neoliberal technocratic elitism (p. 9). Furthermore, he shows how globalisation has for the post colonies like Zimbabwe remained a myth that effectively distorts peoples social relations, creates new forms of expropriation, and replaces real space (land) with virtual space (network society). He asserts that:
While it was the primary purpose of decolonisation to reposses land and territoriality in order to ensure the security of national polity and equity, globalisation propagated a world made up of virtual transnational domains and wired communities that live vividly through webs and connectivities online. (Bhabha 2005, p. 8)

CNNs ambivalence not only to post colonial racial iniquities, but also to the vagaries of neoliberal globalisation presided mostly by Western companies and white settler capital, shows a clear ideological leaning towards the interests of global and local capital that still remains largely in favour of white people in Zimbabwe. The violence of the colonial and post-colonial economic order on the black majority is either ignored or whitewashed, while political violence on the same is overtly criticised. As such, it can be argued that CNNs new worthy victims of civil and political rights in the runoff were used merely for political capital against an enemy state as opposed to fighting for a just and equitable global society. As Falk (2008, p. 17) observes, the human rights discourse in the global age has failed to deal with injustice because it is deeply embedded in contemporary geopolitics [and] is difficult to separate from the ebb and flow of great power. In other words, the global media propagate a highly ideological and sophisticated human rights discourse that obfuscates truly democratic social relations of classes and races. To that end, CNN can be accused of intended or unintended institutional racism defined by Verlot (2002, p. 31) as a new form of racism in which institutions generate or sustain racism, whether through daily handling of people (everyday level) or through the mechanics of society (structural level). While in the Western context CNNs free market ideology would not be seen as racist but elitist, in the post colonies it mutates into racism because of its subtle insistence on the private property rights of white settlers while also openly discouraging incorporating the indigenous people into the mainstream economy. This is because CNN seemed to lament Mugabes push for black ownership of industries in his campaign in a story headlined, Zimbabwe: Blacks to control industry (CNN 10 March 2008). The story which was based on the colonial and neo-colonial myths of white progress and black incompetence, seemed to suggest that it was wrong for the indigenous black people to control the economy since under Mugabes indigenisation policies the once prosperous Zimbabwe had suffered economic crisis. Mugabe, unsurprisingly, was not constructed as a symbol of black empowerment or black revolutionary experience as his national state media had portrayed him in the election, but as a symbol of continued human suffering and degradation. Meanwhile, his opponent Tsvangirai who is more favourable to the West, was represented as a man of the people who would bring jobs, food, and re-establish political and economic ties with the progressive Western world. According to Mamdani (2002, p. 25), such representations exemplify a residual or resurgent colonial discourse which constructs race as a qualification to certain regimes of rights, especially land and industry ownership rights. Colonialism naturalised racial difference by creating a civilisation ladder where black people were economically marginalised on the basis that

Downloaded by [119.154.15.149] at 06:55 11 October 2012

134

THE JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION

17:2, 2011

Incompleted

THE CNN DEFECT

Incompleted reference

Downloaded by [119.154.15.149] at 06:55 11 October 2012

they were yet to be civilised (Mamdani 2002, p. 25). Under globalisation, racial disparities are no longer justified using the civilisation ladder as such, but on the basis of development and the rule of law (Young 2003). Hence, changing the colonial status quo is always associated with great economic risks and underdevelopment. For example, according to Moyo (2005), when the new government tried to continue with its orderly land reform in the 1990s during the advent of the free market reforms in the country, Britain, the World Bank, and the IMF discouraged it arguing that resettlement of the landless masses would result in overall decline in output and in the number of people gainfully employed in agriculture (Sachikonye 2003, p. 230). Whereas CNN may rightly be portraying Mugabe as a sadistic dictator in some respects, it is mischievous to suggest that blacks must only be contented with jobs and not the ownership and control of their economies. Through the use of the constantly repeated myth of Zimbabwe as the former bread basket of Southern Africa, CNN may have generated fear in the electorate by equating Mugabes indigenisation policies to further economic collapse and not black empowerment. The breadbasket myth is denied by Pilger (2008, p. 3) who argues that post-colonial Zimbabwe was a profoundly unequal society up to its ears in debt, with the IMF waging war on its economy, waving off investors and freezing loans. Yet, the myth of the regional bread basket was constantly used by CNN in a way that, while overlooking internal racial disparities within the country, effectively portrayed white dominance and black subservience as a natural and normal face of the country. Consciously or unconsciously, CNN shows how global media appropriate the nineteenth-century philosophy of race hierarchies propounded by thinkers such as Hegel, Gobineau, and Renan who constructed the black people as the lowest and least civilised of all races (Shohat & Stam 2000, p. 45). This philosophy now articulates itself through a Eurocentric characterisation of the global village through Western media and other institutions where it is naturalised as common sense. In the words of Shohat and Stam:
Eurocentricism bifurcates the world into the West and the Rest, and organises everyday language into binaristic hierarchies implicitly flattering to Europe: our nations, their tribes; our religion, their superstition; our demonstrations, their riots, our defence, their terrorism. (2000, p. 2)

CNN also appropriated these top-down Eurocentric dichotomies. For example, whereas it was silent on the violent nature of colonial dispossession, there was always repetition of some negative imagery of Mugabes land reform in 2000 which was often characterised as his land invasions, his violence, his defiance, but never his revolution, his colonial redress, or his resolve. These binary frameworks that appeared to be part of a strong self-righteous wave of Eurocentricism make the Western media a liability to a form of global village that is based on collective and balanced historical memory that must inform the ideals of human rights and democracy. Consequently, CNNs ideological approach gives the impression that it is constructing a bifurcated post-colonial state in Zimbabwe of political democracy for blacks and economic democracy for whites. This culminates in slightly modified colonial status quo where blacks can now enjoy political rights, especially to vote an enemy state out, but not the rights of self-determination to confront the complex global network of Western TNCs and settler capital.

THE JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION

17:2, 2011

135

MOYO

CONCLUSION The CNN case study shows that the role of global media in the developing world and post colonies largely remains a controversial issue. Its very ideological news frames and the selective appropriation of the human rights discourses demonstrates that despite the misleading claim of neutrality and objectivity, international journalism still operates from a very Eurocentric mindset which is still partially informed by historical, political and ideological values that have framed the relationship of the West with other countries in the past hundred years. Schudson (1978) once observed that among these unspoken, but organic values, are beliefs in . . . capitalism, God, the West, Puritanism, the Law . . . property, and perhaps most crucially, in the notion that violence is only defensible when employed by Western states (quoted in Van Ginneken 1998, p. 184). In a global village that presupposes the equality of races, justice, and the plurality of worldviews in news, I argued that Eurocentricism is epistemologically privileged over other worldviews and in framing social narratives that define the world and its social contradictions. Shohat and Stam (2000) argue that Western media must transcend this to become polycentric in their world view if they need to play a meaningful role especially in the post colonies of the Third World where media dependence on stereotypes is prevalent. In their view, polycentricism, as opposed to Eurocentricism, is not about the touchy-feely sensitivity toward other groups, [but] about dispersing power, empowering the disempowered, about transforming subordinating institutions and discourses (p. 49). While CNNs coverage of the Zimbabwe election had a minimal, but strategic intervention in supporting the internal push for civil and political rights it however, unwittingly undermined these ideals by isolating the decolonisation agenda from the democratisation agenda. Consequently, the selective appropriation of economic rights and civil and political rights along racial lines meant that its news narratives lacked depth about the centrality of distributive justice in democratisation in the post colony.

Downloaded by [119.154.15.149] at 06:55 11 October 2012

Year is mentione d inaccurat ely

Dr Moyo is a Senior Lecturer in the Media Studies department at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. Moyo has also taught Media Studies at the University of Wales (Aberystwyth), the UN-mandated University for Peace Graduate programme in East Asia, South Korea, and the National University of Science & Technology (Zimbabwe). Correspondence: last.moyo@wits.ac.za REFERENCES
Aginam, A.M. (2005) Media in globalising Africa: What prospect for democratic communication, in Y. Zhao (ed), Democratising Global Media: One World, Many Struggles, New York: Rowman & Littleeld, pp. 121 145. Allan, S. (2004) News Culture, London: Open University. Bagdikian, D.H. (2004) The New Media Monopoly, New York: Beacon Press. Barthes, R. (1982) The Pleasure of the Text, New York: Wadsworth. Barret, B. (2009) Media Imperialism, in D. Thussu (ed), International Communication: A Reader, London: Routledge.

136

THE JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION

17:2, 2011

THE CNN DEFECT

Bhabha, H. (2005) Framing Fanon, in F. Fanon (ed), The Wretched of the Earth, UK: Grove Press, pp. 1 5. Brock, G. (2005) The Political Philosophy of Cosmopolitanism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CCJP (Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace) & LRF (Legal Resources Foundation) (1999) Breaking the Silence, Building True Peace, Harare: CCJP. Chomsky, N. (2004) Hegemony or Survival: Americas Quest for Global Dominance, New York: Penguin. Dower, N. & Williams, J. (2002) Global Citizenship: A Critical Introduction, London: Taylor and Francis. Fairclough, N. (2003) Analysing Discourse, London: Routledge. Falk, R. (1999) Predatory Globalisation: A Critique, London: Polity. Falk, R. (2008) Sovereignty and human rights: The search for reconciliation, Global Policy Forum September 2008, http://www.globalpolicy.org Fulton, H. (2005), Print news as narrative, in Fulton et al., Narrative and media, UK: Cambridge, pp. 218 245. Habermas, J. & McCarthy, T. (1985) The Theory of Communicative Action Vol. 2: A Critique of Functionalist Reason, Boston: Beacon Press. Hayden, D. (2005) Cosmopolitanism Global Politics: The Politics of a Human World Order, USA: Ashgate. Held, D. & McGrew, A. (2002) Governing Globalisation, London: Polity. Held, D. (2010) Cosmopolitanism: Ideals, Realities and Decits, London: Polity. Herman, E.S. & Chomsky, N. (1994) Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, London: Vintage. Herman, E.S. & McChesney, R. (1997) The Global Media: Missionaries of Corporate Capitalism, London: Cassell. Johnson-Carte, K.S. (2004) News Narratives and News Framing: Constructing Political Reality, US: Rowman & Littleeld. Johnstone, B. (2002) Discourse Analysis, London: Blackwell. Keane, J. (2003) Global Civil Society?, UK: Polity. Land in the Zimbabwean Pressin World Development, Vol. 32 (10): 767 783. Lee Chaun, C., Man Chan, J., Zhongdang, P. & So, C.Y.K. (2002) Global Media Spectacle, New York War over, Hong Kong: New York University Press. Mamdani, M. (1996) Citizen and the Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy Of Colonialism, New York: Princetown. Mamdani, M. (2002) When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda, New York: Princetown. Massey, D. (1994) A Global Sense of Place, Minneapolis, MN: Mbeki, T. (2003) Letter from the President: We will resist the upside-down view of Africa, ANC Today, 12 December 2003, pp. 4 5. McChesney, R. (1999) Rich Media, Poor Democracy, USA: Illinois Press. Mitchell, J. (2007) Remembering Rwandan genocide: Reconstructing the role of the local and global mediaGlobal Media Journal, Vol. 6 (11), Online. Bhttp://lass.calumet.purdue.edu/cca/gmj/fa07/gmjfa07-mitchell.htm! Mohammadi, A. (2005) International Communication and Globalization, London: Sage. Moyo, L. (2007) News Media, Globalisation and Human Rights: Zimbabwe, Diss. University of Wales. Moyo, S. & Yeros, P. (2005) The resurgence of rural movements under neoliberalism, in S. Sam & P. Yeros (eds) Reclaiming the Land: The Resurgence of Rural Movements in Africa, Asia and Latin America, New York: Blackwell, pp. 8 67. Nussbaum, M. (2010) Kant and Cosmopolitanism In Brown, G. And Held, D. (2010) The Cosmopolitanism Reader, London: Polity, pp. 45 61.

Downloaded by [119.154.15.149] at 06:55 11 October 2012

THE JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION

17:2, 2011

137

MOYO

PAOM (2008) Pan-African Parliament Election Observer Mission Report of Presidential run-off in Zimbabwe, http://zimbabwe-the-pan-african-parliament, 5 November 2008. Philo, G. & Berry, M. (2004) Bad News From Israel, London: Pluto. Pilger, J. (2002) The Rulers of the World, London: Verso. Pilger, J. (2004) Stealing a nation, London: Network. Pilger, J. (2008) The silent war on Africa, Newzimbabwe.com, 11 March 2008. Rizvi, F. (2007) Post-colonialism and globalisation in education, Cultural Studies, 7(2), pp. 256 75. Roftopoulos, B. (2004) Unreconciled differences: the limits of reconciliation politics in Zimbabwe, in B. Raftopoulos & T. Savage (eds) Zimbabwe: Injustice and Political Reconciliation, Capetown: African Minds. Rothkop, D. (1997) In praise of cultural imperialism? Effects of globalisation on cultureGlobal Policy Forum, UK: GPF. Sachikonye, L.M. (2004) The Promised Land: From expropriation to reconciliation and jambaja, in B. Raftopolous & T. Savage (eds) Zimbabwe: Injustice and Political Reconciliation, Capetown: African Minds. Sachikonye, L.M. (2003) From growth with equity to fast track reform: Zimbabwes land question, Review of African Political Economy, 96, pp. 227 40. Shohat, E. & Stam, R. (eds), (2000) Unthinking Eurocetricism: Causes, Manifestations, and Solutions, UK: Routledge. Tan, K.C. (2004) Justice Without Borders: Cosmopolitanism, Nationalism & Patriotism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tsie, B. (1996) States and markets in SADC: Beyond the neoliberal paradigm, Journal of Southern African Studies, 22(1), pp. 75 98. Van Dijk, T.A. (2001) Multidisciplinary CDA: A plea for diversity, in R. Wodak & M. Meyer (eds) Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis, London: Sage, pp. 26 54. Van Ginneken, J. (1997) Understanding Global News, UK: Sage. Verlot, M. (2002) Understanding institutional racism, in E. Shohat & R. Stam (eds) Unthinking Eurocetricism: Causes, Manifestations, and Solutions, UK: Routledge. Volkmer, I. (1999) News in the Global Public Sphere: A Study of CNN and its Impact on Global Communications, Luton: University of Luton Press. Wodak, R. (2001) Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis, London: Sage. Young, G. (2003) Globalisation: Theory and Practice, 2nd ed., Young, R.J.C. (2003) Post Colonialism, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Downloaded by [119.154.15.149] at 06:55 11 October 2012

incompleted reference

Zhao, Y. & Hackett, R.A. (2005) Media globalisation, media democratisation: Challenges, issues, and paradoxes, in Y. Zhao (ed) Democratising Global Media: One World, Many Struggles, New York: Rowman & Littleeld, pp. 1 37. Zimrights (1999) Choosing the Path to Peace and Development, Harare: Zimbabwe Human Rights Association.

138

THE JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION

17:2, 2011