This article is to scrutinize Western media on the Ebola outbreak in West Africa by looking more closely at the largest Swedish newspapers. It is to investigate the otherization of Africa and the African, more specifically, whether there are Orientalist features within the media reporting that can construct an Africanness, the Africanization of Africa, as well as the reinforcement of West's own identity, the de-Africanization of the West, portarying it as non-African, and more importantly whether the Ebola disease has undergone this de-Africanization process. Thus, also investigating whether Orientalism is applicable on Africa. Mainly Edward Saïd's Orientalist theory is used as theoretical framework along with other scholars representing ideas that can support the Orientalist claim. What will be concluded is that there are certain news articles that can be interpreted in a way that reinforces the Orientalist discourse, but that these are well hidden and in some cases only implicitly understood due to the selective reporting on certain incidents.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-377973 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Johansson, Niklas |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Statsvetenskapliga institutionen |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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