عنوان

Famine, politics, aid and the media

TLets534337

Famine, politics, aid and the media

[Thesis]

Franks, Suzanne

University of Westminster

2007

Ph.D.

University of Westminster

2007

The BBC Coverage of the Ethiopian Famine in 1984-5 was an iconic news event. Itis widely believed to have had an unprecedented impact, challenging perceptions ofAfrica and mobilising public opinion and philanthropic action in a dramatic newway. As such it offers a case study of the media impact on public opinion and thepolicy making process. The research, using for the first time privileged access toBBC and Government archives, examines and reveals the internal factors whichdrove the BBC news. It constructs the process which accounts for the immensity ofthe news event, as well as following the response to public opinion pressure into theheart of Government. In addition, it shows that whilst the reporting and the altruisticfestival that it produced were to trigger remarkable and identifiable changes, thisimpact was not where the conventional account claimed it to have been. Moreover itdemonstrates that the contemporary configuration of aid, media pressure, aidagencies and government policy is still directly affected and in some ways distortedby what was - as this narrative shows - also an inaccurate and misleading story. Inpopular memory the reporting of Ethiopia and the humanitarian intervention were agreat success. Yet alternative interpretations give a radically different picture thatthe reporting was misleading and the resulting aid effort did more harm than good.This thesis explains the event within the wider context of foreign reporting,especially by the BBC, and also within the history of the period, and argues that theimpact of the media is always historically determined - an aspect of the analysis ofmedia effects that is often ignored.

Franks, Suzanne

University of Westminster

p

[Thesis]

276903

a

Y