Draft 2

The film “The Black Panther” was created by Marvel Studios; this superhero film is based on the Marvel comics about the return of T’Challa to his African nation of Wakanda and become the king of the country.  The implications of the narrative are that there are many underlying problems with societies when they view other countries and cultures. The way we teach about different societies and countries can impact a person’s view of that place, Africa is an example of how we can view a country in a certain way to the point that it shocks people on how different it is. This can impact viewpoints and possibly change peoples understanding about the world without so many stereotypes that are embedded into society. The research question is “Is our depiction of Africa distorted due to media sites and our own society?”

The western views of Africa hold negative perceptions of the country and has been looked down upon for many years with characteristics such as disease, poverty, and hunger. “The persistence of Western negative perceptions about Africa has generally been blamed on biased media reports and films about the goings in Africa. More than fifty years after attainment of political independence, Africa is still viewed negatively in the eyes of the Westerners. Some commentators would for example associate recent record economic growth in Africa with implementation of western based neoliberal reforms, an argument which implies that recent economic growth would not have happened if not for the Western based structural adjustment policy prescriptions”. This evidence supports the initial statement because it gives a clear example of a way that Africa is view negatively, which is that Africa is constantly compared to other countries through the media and this creating a negative outlook by only supporting the worst parts of the country and made up stories on what actually goes on within the country. There are many films created about Africa that show a population of disease infested country that has no way of helping their starving people. They also show Africa as very poor instead of showing the parts where there are plenty of people living lives just like westerners. There are also the commercial on tv that always depict the starving children, while that is a fact that there is hunger and poverty within Africa, it is not the only nation with such a drastic appearance of hunger. In every country there are people in need of help but there is such a great focus on Africa because of what is taught in schools and parents. Westerners keep a warped image of the country to the point in which there are only a few things people can think of when they think of Africa. The evidence states that if it was not for the western nations, Africa would not be able to rise and become as “modern” as it is now. The persisting negative views mainly stem from the domination of Africa in the 19th and 20th century and used African traditions and ways of living to be out to seem “barbaric”, thus made an excuse of the continent being inferior to take it over and take on “the white man’s burden” which was the task of the while colonizers to impose their civilization on the black inhabitants of their colonies. This especially causes the country to be seen as below the western nations because its independence was only fifty years ago. This relates to the research question because of the films and commercials that the media has created within the western society that has created distraught images of how we “should” think of Africa, instead of how it actually is. Media is what we use to gain more knowledge about the world around us and it is relied on heavily for things such as the news, which many people watch daily.

The media has a big part in how Africa is misrepresented to the western nations and there are many myths about the country that if taken the time to be researched, would be proven to be untrue. “Western media don’t normally regard Africans as different from one another and their disputes with each other as legitimate reasons for wanting self-rule and independent nations. Myths of lack of history state that since Africa is a static place, it cannot have history because history changes over time. According to this myth, Africa’s history arose from colonization efforts of Westerners. Myths about Africa’s geography suggest that Africa is a jungle or desert without modern cities. However, this notion is simply erroneous because only 5 percent of Africa’s landmass is considered to be a jungle or desert. Myths about Africa’s population promote two contradictory notions that Africa is either over-populated or under-populated. In the first notion, Africa is portrayed as over-populated because of excessive childbearing arising from irresponsible and uncontrolled sexual activity. The second notion suggests that Africa is under-populated because many people are dying of killer diseases such as AIDS.” This evidence supports the claim because it discusses some on the many myths about the continent of Africa, but it also explains why these myths are untrue, proving to be valuable evidence. The myths given by the evidence is just a few of the many myths that surround Africa, if not these are the a few of the most popular. Africa is neither overpopulated due to the enormous size of the continent nor underpopulated due to the many diseases because of the African government being able to successfully combat diseases like many other governments. Africa does indeed have poverty but that does not dismiss the fact that the country has a distribution of wealth. The source goes into further detail of Africans middle class tripling the last thirty years. The media sites often use these myths to create an image of the continent and its lack of resources. The problem with the western society is that these claims are so easily disproven if they were researched. If an average person were to tell someone about Africa one or two of these myths would most likely be said about the continent. Even unintentionally the Africans myth appear, such as when writing a novel about the continent or even using an image that can be seen as befitting to the stereotypes that the continent holds. Medias influence is so great within the eyes of people that they do not even think that these could be great misconceptions because it is not even being taught within schools in these nations. Africa is taught in the same manner and has not been taught about how the country has begun to grow and establish new parts. The negative perceptions keep the same myths circling around the country and this will most likely continue unless something about the way the country is being taught changes.  

Another argument would state that there are attempts to encourage positive portrayals of Africa now and that it is being seen as a developing continent with few to none negative perceptions. “The current ‘Africa Rising’ mantra is one good example. Those who ascribe to this use recent record economic growth in many African countries to argue that Africa is indeed changing. some Africans have started taking lead in promoting positive portrayal of the continent. There are positive stories around African nature and wildlife genres. This is encouraging and needs to be encouraged. More needs to be done to make this development sustainable and impact on the way Africans define themselves before the West and how the continent is portrayed.” The evidence supports the claims because many African nations are concentrating their effort to keep the image of Africa and Africans as a positive peaceful nation that is corrupted. Negative perceptions will decrease and leave if the work being done is kept up. Negatively biased films are based on what Africa was before but not currently so the information that is given is not entirely untrue. As well as learning about Africa in the 19th century in schools lets children and people acknowledge what has transpired so that it never happens again. The evidence also supports the claim because it acknowledges that Africa is being portrayed positively in many different ways. This evidence applies to the original claims because it supports that there are some negative views of Africa. It also relates to the research question because of the focus the media outputs.

Locating evidence that agreed and disagreed with the counterclaim was found. Although Africa is being portrayed positively in different ways, it still does not change the fact of the numerous negative viewpoints and misconceptions that is still attached to the idea of the continent itself nor does it have much of an impact to dispel these perceptions. “Basically, the process of information production is pregnant with powerful cultural and ideological assumptions about what is ‘normal’ and ‘acceptable’ and the main centers of information production and dissemination are located in the affluent and powerful ‘Western’ parts of the world. It is also important to realize that what is not re-presented or is excluded can be just as important or more so than that which is included in the meaning process. Racial characterization and prejudices found their way through to the 17th century and beyond, thus influencing Western public and scholarly perceptions of Africa. From the 17th century, the argument was that Africa was a place of suffering because the slave trade provoked war, disease, famine and poverty. There is the dominance of certain types of imagery/story angles in all mainstream media, which create and reinforce assumptions, and structures of subjugation and domination; ‘them’ and ‘us’. ‘Africa Rising’ hype is an exaggeration of what is happening in Africa by the media and consulting firms in an attempt to create a positive image that would attract reluctant investors into the continent.” This evidence supports the claim because it recognizes the dominance of media in people’s lives and the focus on Africans becoming critical on news sources. It is recognizing that normal and acceptable information can be skewered as the times change and development continues to occur. The evidence tells about the western powers being the powerful parts of the world due to the fact of the parts that are and are not represented. It is easy to exclude what is not important or “entertaining” to views, which is what western media outlets try to attain, views through “entertainment”. The many biases within societies cultures, especially westerners, are due to the lack of knowledge and misrepresentation and the evidence talks about the dominating and subjugating; due to the fact that the west has divided and dominated to African continent to endure subjugation, it is still seen as a continent that will accept subjugation. This evident apply to my original claim because of the focus on the media and the misrepresentation of the african continent. When teaching about Africa, Professors and teachers for instance, will focus on the information at hand and not inform students that the continent has changed. Another example is the question of “if we are asked to describe Africa, how would one describe it?” and it will in turn be full of myths such as “there’s lots of diseases, sick and starving children, and it is a desert and or forest”. Evidence states that “Many children I worked with in the programme knew Africa as a place of hot temperatures, hunger and famine, poverty, wars, diseases, dirty water, a place where people walk bare footed, etc. This is despite the fact that there are attempts to encourage positive portrayal of Africa.”

 

The main point of this research paper was to examine the continent of African and discuss the medias constantly mainstream of continuing the negative viewing of Africa. Little has been done for the western nations to stop this problem even with the help of Africans. The persistence of this view is all dependent on how both sides decided to move forward with the process, Westerners and Africans alike. Becoming more self-aware about stereotypes and myths will help people in societies grown and learning how to educate oneself is the main goal as well as learning the importance of researching different topics.

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