Abstract:

The media often represent African conflicts from a distant Western ethnocentric perspective. The Darfur crisis coverage by reputable Spanish press – El País, La Vanguardia, El Mundo and ABC – is analysed for the first time using quantitative methods supported by a qualitative approach. The study focuses on how the Darfur crisis was presented, using the sources and analysing the reported causes, situation and consequences of the conflict. Research shows that the Darfur situation was dealt with mainly from the perspective of European humanitarian aid and that of other international organisations’ workers. Even when journalists do use political and official sources, the framing still remains humanitarian. Darfuris themselves play a passive and secondary role as recipients of humanitarian aid. Thus, the use of humanitarian framing led newspaper coverage to focus on the consequences and not the causes of the conflict, portraying it as a local struggle and irrelevant to Spanish national interests.

SENDÍN GUTIÉRREZ, José Carlos y RUBIRA GARCÍA, Rainer, «Assessing the humanitarian framing of the Spanish press coverage of the Darfur crisis» en Ecquid Novi: African Journalism Studies, vol. 32, nº 1, 2011, ps. 66-81.