Introduction at AOF-workshop on "Images of the Other",
Oslo, February 2007

However, basic images of the South persists. I still hear the same old reactions from ordinary people when the issue of global development is raised:

1. Either negative: It’s a waste of money as long as they go on with wars and corruption.
2. Or positive: But how can we be sure that the money really reaches the poor?

The media may not be the only actor to blame, but a lot of criticism can be made of the way the media presents the Global South. General complaints includes that media coverage is negative, sensational, ignorant, paternalistic, presents elite- and western perspectives and so forth.

Her are some recent examples from the Norwegian press:

1) Last October there was a small debate in one of our main Norwegian dailies – Dagbladet - following a commentary written by a journalist and researcher here in Oslo – Anne Hege Simonsen (read article here) – starting like this:

“Dear NRK (Norwegian Broadcasting Company). When will I see Africans discuss politics on TV?”

I think that is a relevant question. Media coverage of the Global South is generally the Global South as seen by our own national or western elite.

2) In early December, Changemaker activist on global issues - Silje B. Ander - wrote in Aftenposten a comment called “Recipe for a news story” (read comment here), stressing these ingredients:

• a boiling fresh news story
• 3 spoonfuls of proximity
• A clear conflict
• 2 spoonfuls of polarisation
• As many celebrities as possible, and
• A boiling fresh news story

Her conclusion was that news is a commodity and that editors follow this recipe to sell their product. – Unfortunately, she writes, these criteria often leaves the real issues in the shadows and selling the product becomes more important than a true and nuanced presentation. We all know that there is a lot of truth in this.

3) In late December, the president of the Norwegian Parliament, Thorbjørn Jagland of the Labour Party, wrote an article in another Norwegian Daily – Dagsavisen – asking: Is the press doing its job? According to Jagland, the world was marked by incredible drama as we were entering into the new year. A drama that should have been far more teasing for the press and politicians than the book of Eli Hagen (wife of well-know Norwegian politician), the friends of Ari Behn (Norwegian writer married into the Norwegian royal family) and the alcohol consumption of Mr Sandberg (Norwegian politician that had a couple of drinks too much in parliament during Christmas celebrations).

This kind of criticism is, unfortunately, very often correct.

4) And last week, a well-known Swedish writer, Henning Mankell, wrote an article in another major Norwegian Daily – Aftenposten – entitled “Treason against Africa” (read comment here), stating that through the mass media “we know everything about how Africans die, nothing about how they live”.

This definitely holds some truth as well.

Media images of the South has been discussed many times and will probably be so for many years to come.

Media images are important. However, the images the media presents are not necessarily the images we see. Thus, I would like to add some reflections on how media images are influenced by images and stereotypes that are part of our general mindset.

The topic of today’s session is “Images of the Global South”. I think it is important to stress “images”, because there is not one image, but many. And most of these images are stereotypes, simplified categories we make to be able to handle and control the world around us, politically, economically, intellectually, mentally or otherwise.

These stereotypes shapes the images of the other as well as ourselves - and more importantly: they guide our actions as well as our acceptance or resistance to dominant development policies, despite the fact that these stereotypes are often based on insufficient or incorrect knowledge and understanding of  more or less complex realities.

I don’t know about you, but I have an image of stereotypes as something negative. However, in preparing this short introduction it struck me that it might not necessarily be so. Isn’t politics in a way also about maintaining or reshaping stereotypes that mobilize support for and acceptance of certain policies? If the answer to that question is Yes, then it may also be useful to talk about and identify constructive and destructive stereotypes.

Now, what about the role of media when it comes to the images we have of the Global South? As I see it, the media is both an actor, as well as a melting pot and a battle field for competing images of different professional, commercial, religious, political and other interests. These interests are relentlessly active in ways (purposely or unconsciously) that either confirm or change our images and stereotypes.

As I already have pointed out: there is not one, but many images. However, I believe that there are a few basic and important images – or rather stereotypes - that to a large extent determines the wider context for the images and stereotypes confirmed or shaped by the media.

These are:

1. The more than 100 years old images of the White Mans Burden in general, and in particular the image of the peoples of the South as “half savage, half child”, that awakens our fears as well as our caring instincts. Characters like Idi Amin, reshaped in the new movie “The last king of Scotland” fits well into the first category, while the needy poor of the “fly-in-the-eye” fund-raising campaigns of northern charities and aid-organisations fits well into the second. Sometimes it can be difficult to differentiate between the two, f.ex. child soldiers that may truly be “half savage, half child”.
   
   
2. The more than 50 years old images created by the concepts of development aid, including images of dichotomies like donors and recipients, superior and inferior, developed and undeveloped, good governance and bad governance, democratic and non-democratic and so forth.

I’d like to repeat: I believe that these are images and stereotypes that to a large extent determines the wider context for the images and stereotypes confirmed or shaped by the media.

My suspicion is that the media generally tends to confirm these basic images and stereotypes,

1. partly because they are already there as part and parcel of our existing mindset,
2. partly because the media’s selection of news favours stuff that fits well into these basic images and
3. partly because most “consumers” of the media don’t have the time, the capacity or the will to read and reflect on the more in-depth articles, background and debates that may also be found in the media.

I would like to end my presentation with a brief reflection on my initial subtitle: a convenient stereotype, by raising a few questions:

• Why is it that it is so difficult for us in the North to escape from the stereotypes of the white mans burden and the concepts of development aid?
• Could it be because these are convenient stereotypes for us in the North, that these stereotypes have enabled international development cooperation to proceed for decade after decade without threatening existing global and national power relations and at the same time confirming our image of ourselves as superior and generous?
• What will happen with these stereotypes now that powers of the non-western world, like China, India and Brazil, emerges as powerful actors on the Global arena?
• And lastly: What would the constructive stereotypes for the future look like?