Africa, the most central of the major regions of the world, is at present languishing on the margins of the global political and economic system. The continent, which constitutes the second largest major region in the world, with a population of over 700 million, is the most neglected in the international press. The little attention that it gets in the press is generally characterized by distortion-- distortion, in all its dimensions, ranging from minor omissions and commissions, to crude sensationalism, to outright and malicious misrepresentation. Africa and Africans are also the least visible and most neglected in the U.S. foreign policy making process. Washington has been less committed in Africa than in any other part of the world.

But what is the relationship between the media gatekeepers' practice of relegating Africa and Africans to near invisibility and America's policy of neglect of the continent? In Hardened Images: The Western Media and the Marginalization of Africa, Asgede Hagos, drawing on his experiences as a journalist and journalism educator, examines the nature of the interplay between these two institutions-- the U.S. press and the American state-- on Africa, with a special focus on its armed struggles waged to complete the decolonization process.

The book is centered on three case studies-- the national liberation movements of South Africa, Eritrea, and Western Sahara, which seemed to represent the last and probably most complex and difficult stage in the decolonization of Africa. The author also takes a close look at the implication of this double-edged sword of neglect and distortion for Africa's visibility and acceptability in the world.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Asgede Hagos, Ph.D. Howard University, is associate professor of mass communications at Delaware State University, where he also served as director of mass communication from 1997 to 1999. Prior to that, he taught journalism at Howard University from 1986 to 1994. Dr. Hagos is president of the Center of Conflict Prevention and Resolution in Africa, which works closely with George Mason University's Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution. He is also the co-author of Speaking and Writing: A Communication Guide for the Professional (1995).

CATEGORY
Communications, Politics, History/AFRICA