A Comparative Discourse Analysis of African Newspaper Reports on Global Epidemics: A Case Study of Ebola and Coronavirus

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Abstract This qualitative multi-case study analyses how two African newspapers engaged in self-presentation of African countries and other-presentation of Western countries when reporting on the outbreak of diseases. Using van Dijk’s ideological square as a framework, the study undertakes a discourse analysis of news reports on the 2014 Ebola outbreak and the 2020 Coronavirus outbreak reported by the South African daily broadsheet, theSowetan, and the Nigerian daily broadsheet, theDaily Trust. The analysis shows that in their reports on European countries and the United States of America, the discourse’s macro- and microstructures emphasised the positive features of Western nations and de-emphasised the negative ones. Conversely, concerning African countries, there was a tendency to de-emphasise the positive while emphasising the negative ones. As a result, the newspaper reports were found to engage in negative self-presentation of African countries and positive other-presentation of Western countries, perpetuating the “us vs them” ideology that newspapers from Europe and America employ when reporting on the outbreak of diseases in Africa.

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